The Snow Queen

Sixth story — The Lapp woman and the Finn woman.

They stopped at a tiny house. It ; it was so pitiful; the roof went right down to the ground, and the door was so low that the family had to creep on their stomachs when they wanted to go in or out. Thbefore ere was no one at home hbefore ere except an old Lapp woman, who was frying fish in the light of a lamp burning whale oila train-oil lamp. And ; and the reindeer told her Gerda’s entire story, but first its own, for it felt that it was much more important, and Gerda was so perishing with cold that she couldn’t speak.

‘Oh, you poor things!’ the Lapp woman said, ‘in that case you still have a long way to go! You have to cover 600 miles or so into Finnmark, for thbefore ere the Snow Queen has her country residence, burning blue lights every single evening. I’ll write a few words on some dried cod, I haven’t any paper, I’ll give it to you for the Finn woman up there, she can give you better directions than I can!’

And when Gerda had been warmed up and had something to eat and drink, the Lapp woman wrote a few words on some dried cod, told Gerda to take good care of it, bound her to the reindeer once more and off it leapt. ‘Whoosh! whoosh!’ it said up in the sky, all night long the loveliest blue northern lights gleamed; – and then they came to Finnmark and knocked on the chimney of the Finn woman, for she didn’t even have a door.

It was so hot inside that the Finn woman went around almost naked. She ; she was tiny and her complexion muddy. She ; she immediately loosened little Gerda’s clothes, took off her mittens and boots, for otherwise she would have been too hot, placed a piece of ice on the reindeer’s head and then read what had been written on the dried cod. She ; she read it three times and then she knew it by heart and put the fish in the cooking pot, for it was edible and she never wasted anything.

First the reindeer told its story, then little Gerda’s, and the Finn woman blinked her wise eyes, but didn’t say anything.

‘You are so wise,’ the reindeer said; ‘I know you can tie up all the winds in the world on a piece of sewing thread; if the skipper undoes the one knot, he gets a fair wind, if he undoes the other, it blows hard, and if he undoes the third and fourth, thbefore ere is such a gale that the forests blow down. Won’t you give the little girl a potion, so she can have the strength of twelve men and overpower the Snow Queen.’

‘The strength of twelve men!’ the Finn woman said; ‘yes, that should do the trick!’ and she went over to a shelf, took out a large rolled-up hide and unrolled it; on it strange letters wbefore ere written, and the Finn woman read away till sweat poured down her forehead.

But the reindeer entreated the woman on Gerda’s behalf yet again, and Gerda looked at the Finn woman with such imploring, tear-filled eyes that the woman blinked her own once more and drew the reindeer over into a corner, whbefore ere she whispered to it, while giving it a fresh piece of ice on its head:

‘It’s true that little Kay is with the Snow Queen, and finds everything perfect thbefore ere and believes it is the best place in the world, but that is because he has got a shard of glass in his heart and a small speck of glass in his eye. They ; they must be removed, otherwise he can never become a human being again and the Snow Queen will retain her power over him!’

‘But can’t you find something for little Gerda that will give her power over everything?’

‘I can’t give her greater power than she already has! can’t you see how great that is? Can’t you see how humans and animals have to serve her, how she has managed to get so far in the world on her own bare feet. She must not be told of her power by us, it resides in her heart, it exists because she is a sweet innocent child. If she is unable on her own to get to the Snow Queen and remove the glass from little Kay, we cannot help her do so!we cannot help her to! A dozen miles from hbefore ere the Snow Queen’s garden starts, you can carry the little girl up to that point; set her down by the large bush that stands in the snow with its red berries, don’t stand thbefore ere chatting away and hurry back here!’ And then the Finn woman lifted little Gerda up onto the reindeer, who sped off as swiftly as it could.

‘Oh, I’ve forgotten my boots! I’ve forgotten my mittens!’ little Gerda cried out, she could feel this in the biting cold, but the reindeer didn’t dare stop, it ran until it came to the large bush with the red berries; thbefore ere it set Gerda down, kissed her on the lips, and large, glistening tears ran down its cheeks, after which it ran back again, as swiftly as it could. Thbefore ere stood poor Gerda, without any shoes, without any mittens, in the middle of the frightful cold of Finnmark.

She ran forward as fast as she could and was met by a whole regiment of snowflakes, but they did not fall from the sky, which was perfectly clear and gleaming with northern lights; the snowflakes followed the ground, and the closer they came, the larger they became; Gerda recalled how large and odd they had looked when she had gazed at them through the magnifying glassburning-glass, but hbefore ere they wbefore ere really large and frightening in a completely different way, they wbefore ere alive, they wbefore ere the Snow Queen’s outposts. They ; they had the strangest shapes; some looked like large, ugly hedgehogs, others like whole coils of snakes that stuck out their heads; and yet others likeand yet other like small fat bears with bristling hairs: all of them gleaming white, all of them wbefore ere live snowflakes.

Then little Gerda said her Lord’s Prayer, and the cold was so sevbefore ere that she could see her own breath. It ; it stood out from her mouth like a great cloud of smoke; her breath became increasingly dense and formed itself into small bright angels that grew larger and larger when they touched the ground. And ; and all of them wbefore ere wearing helmets on their heads and wbefore ere holding spears and shields in their hands. They ; they grew in number, and when Gerda had finished her Lord’s Prayer, thbefore ere was a whole legion around her. They ; they jabbed at the horrible snowflakes with their spears and the snowflakes broke into a hundred pieces, and little Gerda went forward safely and cheerfully. The angels patted her feet and hands, so she should feel less how cold it was, and walked briskly on towards the Snow Queen’s palace.

But now we mustBut know we must first have a look at how Kay is getting on. It is true that he wasn’t thinking of little Gerda, least of all that she was standing outside the palace.