Andersen's Fairy Tales
peered up into the old cool avenues. In the fields the corn was waving
like the sea; in the ditches red and yellow flowers were growing; while
wild-drone flowers, and blooming convolvuluses were creeping in the
hedges; and towards evening the moon rose round and large, and the
haycocks in the meadows smelt so sweetly. “This one never forgets!”
“It is lovely here in autumn!” said the little maiden. And suddenly the
atmosphere grew as blue again as before; the forest grew red, and green,
and yellow-colored. The dogs came leaping along, and whole flocks of
wild-fowl flew over the cairn, where blackberry-bushes were hanging
round the old stones. The sea was dark blue, covered with ships full
of white sails; and in the barn old women, maidens, and children were
sitting picking hops into a large cask; the young sang songs, but the
old told fairy tales of mountain-sprites and soothsayers. Nothing could
be more charming.
“It is delightful here in winter!” said the little maiden. And all the
trees were covered with hoar-frost; they looked like white corals; the
snow crackled under foot, as if one had new boots on; and one falling
star after the other was seen in the sky. The Christmas-tree was lighted
in the room; presents were there, and good-humor reigned. In the country
the violin sounded in the room of the peasant; the newly-baked cakes
were attacked; even the poorest child said, “It is really delightful
here in winter!”
Yes, it was delightful; and the little maiden showed the boy everything;
and the Elder Tree still was fragrant, and the red flag, with the white
cross, was still waving: the flag under which the old seaman in the New
Booths had sailed. And the boy grew up to be a lad, and was to go forth
in the wide world-far, far away to warm lands, where the coffee-tree
grows; but at his departure the little maiden took an Elder-blossom from
her bosom, and gave it him to keep; and it was placed between the leaves
of his Prayer-Book; and when in foreign lands he opened the book, it
was always at the place where the keepsake-flower lay; and the more he
looked at it, the fresher it became; he felt as it were, the fragrance
of the Danish groves; and from among the leaves of the flowers he could
distinctly see the little maiden, peeping forth with her bright blue
eyes--and then she whispered, “It is delightful here in Spring, Summer,
Autumn, and Winter”; and a hundred visions glided before his mind.
Thus passed many years, and he was now an old man, and sat with his old
wife under the blooming tree. They held each other by the hand, as the
old grand-father and grand-mother yonder in the New Booths did, and they
talked exactly like them of old times, and of the fiftieth anniversary
of their wedding. The little maiden, with the blue eyes, and with
Elder-blossoms in her hair, sat in the tree, nodded to both of them,
and said, “To-day is the fiftieth anniversary!” And then she took two
flowers out of her hair, and kissed them. First, they shone like silver,
then like gold; and when they laid them on the heads of the old people,
each flower became a golden crown. So there they both sat, like a king
and a queen, under the fragrant tree, that looked exactly like an elder:
the old man told his wife the story of “Old Nanny,” as it had been told
him when a boy. And it seemed to both of them it contained much that
resembled their own history; and those parts that were like it pleased
them best.
“Thus it is,” said the little maiden in the tree, “some call me 'Old
Nanny,' others a 'Dryad,' but, in reality, my name is 'Remembrance';
'tis I who sit in the tree that grows and grows! I can remember; I can
tell things! Let me see if you have my flower still?”
And the old man opened his Prayer-Book. There lay the Elder-blossom,
as fresh as if it had been placed there but a short time before; and
Remembrance nodded, and the old people, decked with crowns of gold, sat
in the flush of the evening sun. They closed their eyes, and--and--!
Yes, that's the end of the story!
The little boy lay in his bed; he did not know if he had dreamed or
not, or if he had been listening while someone told him the story. The
tea-pot was standing on the table, but no Elder Tree was growing out
of it! And the old man, who had been talking, was just on the point of
going out at the door, and he did go.
“How splendid that was!” said the little boy. “Mother, I have been to
warm countries.”
“So I should think,” said his mother. “When one has drunk two good
cupfuls of Elder-flower tea, 'tis likely enough one goes into warm
climates”; and she tucked him up nicely, least he should take cold. “You
have had a good sleep while I have been sitting here, and arguing with
him whether it was a story or a fairy tale.”
“And where is old Nanny?” asked the little boy.
“In the tea-pot,” said his mother; “and there she may remain.”
THE BELL
People said “The Evening Bell is sounding, the sun is setting.” For a
strange wondrous tone was heard in the narrow streets of a large town.
It was like the sound of a church-bell: but it was only heard for a
moment, for the rolling of the carriages and the voices of the multitude
made too great a noise.
Those persons who were walking outside the town, where the houses were
farther apart, with gardens or little fields between them, could see
the evening sky still better, and heard the sound of the bell much
more distinctly. It was as if the tones came from a church in the still
forest; people looked thitherward, and felt their minds attuned most
solemnly.
A long time passed, and people said to each other--“I wonder if there
is a church out in the wood? The bell has a tone that is wondrous sweet;
let us stroll thither, and examine the matter nearer.” And the rich
people drove out, and the poor walked, but the way seemed strangely
long to them; and when they came to a clump of willows which grew on the
skirts of the forest, they sat down, and looked up at the long
branches, and fancied they were now in the depth of the green wood. The
confectioner of the town came out, and set up his booth there; and soon
after came another confectioner, who hung a bell over his stand, as
a sign or ornament, but it had no clapper, and it was tarred over to
preserve it from the rain. When all the people returned home, they said
it had been very romantic, and that it was quite a different sort of
thing to a pic-nic or tea-party. There were three persons who asserted
they had penetrated to the end of the forest, and that they had always
heard the wonderful sounds of the bell, but it had seemed to them as if
it had come from the town. One wrote a whole poem about it, and said the
bell sounded like the voice of a mother to a good dear child, and
that no melody was sweeter than the tones of the bell. The king of the
country was also observant of it, and vowed that he who could discover
whence the sounds proceeded, should have the title of “Universal
Bell-ringer,” even if it were not really a bell.
Many persons now went to the wood, for the sake of getting the place,
but one only returned with a sort of explanation; for nobody went far
enough, that one not further than the others. However, he said that
the sound proceeded from a very large owl, in a hollow tree; a sort of
learned owl, that continually knocked its head against the branches. But
whether the sound came from his head or from the hollow tree, that no
one could say with certainty. So now he got the place of “Universal
Bell-ringer,” and wrote yearly a short treatise “On the Owl”; but
everybody was just as wise as before.
It was the day of confirmation. The clergyman had spoken so touchingly,
the children who were confirmed had been greatly moved; it was
an eventful day for them; from children they become all at once
grown-up-persons; it was as if their infant souls were now to fly all
at once into persons with more understanding. The sun was shining
gloriously; the children that had been confirmed went out of the town;
and from the wood was borne towards them the sounds of the unknown bell
with wonderful distinctness. They all immediately felt a wish to go
thither; all except three. One of them had to go home to try on a
ball-dress; for it was just the dress and the ball which had caused her
to be confirmed this time, for otherwise she would not have come;
the other was a poor boy, who had borrowed his coat and boots to be
confirmed in from the innkeeper's son, and he was to give them back by
a certain hour; the third said that he never went to a strange place
if his parents were not with him--that he had always been a good boy
hitherto, and would still be so now that he was confirmed, and that one
ought not to laugh at him for it: the others, however, did make fun of
him, after all.
There were three, therefore, that did not go; the others hastened on.
The sun shone, the birds sang, and the children sang too, and each held
the other by the hand; for as yet they had none of them any high office,
and were all of equal rank in the eye of God.
But two of the youngest soon grew tired, and both returned to town; two
little girls sat down, and twined garlands, so they did not go either;
and when the others reached the willow-tree, where the confectioner was,
they said, “Now we are there! In reality the bell does not exist; it is
only a fancy that people have taken into their heads!”
At the same moment the bell sounded deep in the wood, so clear and
solemnly that five or six determined to penetrate somewhat further. It
was so thick, and the foliage so dense, that it was quite fatiguing
to proceed. Woodroof and anemonies grew almost too high; blooming
convolvuluses and blackberry-bushes hung in long garlands from tree to
tree, where the nightingale sang and the sunbeams were playing: it was
very beautiful, but it was no place for girls to go; their clothes would
get so torn. Large blocks of stone lay there, overgrown with moss of
every color; the fresh spring bubbled forth, and made a strange gurgling
sound.
“That surely cannot be the bell,” said one of the children, lying down
and listening. “This must be looked to.” So he remained, and let the
others go on without him.
They afterwards came to a little house, made of branches and the bark of
trees; a large wild apple-tree bent over it, as if it would shower down
all its blessings on the roof, where roses were blooming. The long stems
twined round the gable, on which there hung a small bell.
Was it that which people had heard? Yes, everybody was unanimous on the
subject, except one, who said that the bell was too small and too fine
to be heard at so great a distance, and besides it was very different
tones to those that could move a human heart in such a manner. It was a
king's son who spoke; whereon the others said, “Such people always want
to be wiser than everybody else.”
They now let him go on alone; and as he went, his breast was filled more
and more with the forest solitude; but he still heard the little bell
with which the others were so satisfied, and now and then, when the
wind blew, he could also hear the people singing who were sitting at tea
where the confectioner had his tent; but the deep sound of the bell rose
louder; it was almost as if an organ were accompanying it, and the tones
came from the left hand, the side where the heart is placed. A rustling
was heard in the bushes, and a little boy stood before the King's Son, a
boy in wooden shoes, and with so short a jacket that one could see what
long wrists he had. Both knew each other: the boy was that one among
the children who could not come because he had to go home and return his
jacket and boots to the innkeeper's son. This he had done, and was now
going on in wooden shoes and in his humble dress, for the bell sounded