THE SNOW MAN – By Hans Christian Andersen (Translated from the German)

‘How astonishingly cold it is! My body is cracking all over!’ said the Snow-man. ‘The wind is really cutting one’s very life out! And how that fiery thing up there glares!’ He meant the sun, which was just setting. ‘It sha’n’t make me blink, though, and I shall keep quite cool and collected.’

Instead of eyes he had two large three-cornered pieces of slate in his head; his mouth consisted of an old rake, so that he had teeth as well. He was born amidst the shouts and laughter of the boys, and greeted by the jingling bells and cracking whips of the sledges.The sun went down, the full moon rose, large, round, clear and beautiful, in the dark blue sky.

‘There it is again on the other side!’ said the Snow-man, by which he meant the sun was appearing again. ‘I have become quite accustomed to its glaring. I hope it will hang there and shine, so that I may be able to see myself. I wish I knew, though, how one ought to see about changing one’s position. I should very much like to move about. If I only could, I would glide up and down the ice there, as I saw the boys doing; but somehow or other, I don’t know how to run.’

‘Bow-wow!’ barked the old yard-dog; he was rather hoarse and couldn’t bark very well. His hoarseness came on when he was a house-dog and used to lie in front of the stove.

‘The sun will soon teach you to run! I saw that last winter with your predecessor, and farther back still with his predecessors! They have all run away!’

‘I don’t understand you, my friend,’ said the Snow-man. ‘That thing up there is to teach me to run?’ He meant the moon.
‘Well, it certainly did run just now, for I saw it quite plainly over there, and now here it is on this side.’
‘You know nothing at all about it,’ said the yard-dog. ‘Why, you have only just been made. The thing you see there is the moon; the other thing you saw going down the other side was the sun. He will come up again tomorrow morning, and will soon teach you how to run away down the gutter. The weather is going to change; I feel it already by the pain in my left hind-leg; the weather is certainly going to change.”I can’t understand him,’ said the Snow-man; ‘but I have an idea that he is speaking of something unpleasant. That thing that glares so, and then disappears, the sun, as he calls it, is not my friend. I know that by instinct.’

‘Bow-wow!’ barked the yard-dog, and walked three times round himself, and then crept into his kennel to sleep.

The weather really did change. Towards morning a dense damp fog lay over the whole neighbourhood; later on came an icy wind, which sent the frost packing. But when the sun rose, it was a glorious sight. The trees and shrubs were covered with rime, and looked like a wood of coral, and every branch was thick with long white blossoms. The most delicate twigs, which are lost among the foliage in summer-time, came now into prominence, and it was like a spider’s web of glistening white. The lady-birches waved in the wind; and when the sun shone, everything glittered and sparkled as if it were sprinkled with diamond dust, and great diamonds were lying on the snowy carpet.
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ exclaimed a girl who was walking with a young man in the garden. They stopped near the Snow-man, and looked at the glistening trees. ‘Summer cannot show a more beautiful sight,’ she said, with her eyes shining.
‘And one can’t get a fellow like this in summer either,’ said the young man, pointing to the Snow-man. ‘He’s a beauty!’
The girl laughed, and nodded to the Snow-man, and then they both danced away over the snow.
‘Who were those two?’ asked the Snow-man of the yard dog.
‘You have been in this yard longer than I have. Do you know who they are?’
‘Do I know them indeed?’ answered the yard-dog. ‘She has often stroked me, and he has given me bones. I don’t bite either of them!’
‘But what are they?’ asked the Snow-man.
‘Lovers!’ replied the yard-dog. ‘They will go into one kennel and gnaw the same bone!’
“Are they the same kind of beings that we are?’ asked the Snow-man.
‘They are our masters,’ answered the yard-dog. ‘Really people who have only been in the world one day know very little.’ That’s the conclusion I have come to. Now I have age and wisdom; I know everyone in the house, and I can remember a time when I was not lying here in a cold
kennel. Bow-wow!’
‘The cold is splendid,’ said the Snow-man. ‘Tell me some more. But don’t rattle your chain so, it makes me crack!’
‘Bow-wow!’ barked the yard-dog. ‘They used to say I was a pretty little fellow; then I lay in a velvet-covered chair in my master’s house. My mistress used to nurse me, and kiss and fondle me, and call me her dear, sweet little Alice! But by-and-by I grew too big, and I was given to the
housekeeper, and I went into the kitchen. You can see into it from where you are standing; you can look at the room in which I was master, for so I was when I was with the housekeeper. Of course it was a smaller place than upstairs, but it was more comfortable, for I wasn’t chased about and teased by the children as I had been before. My food was just as good, or even better. I had my own pillow, and there was a stove there, which at this time of year is the most beautiful thing in the world. I used to creep right under that stove. Ah me! I often dream of that stove still! Bow-wow!’
‘Is a stove so beautiful?’ asked the Snow-man. ‘Is it anything like me?’
‘It is just the opposite of you! It is coal-black, and has a long neck with a brass pipe. It eats firewood, so that fire spouts out of its mouth. One has to keep close beside it quite underneath is the nicest of all. You can see it through the window from where you are standing.’
And the Snow-man looked in that direction, and saw a smooth polished object with a brass pipe. The flicker from the fire reached him across the snow. The Snow-man felt wonderfully happy, and a feeling came over him which he could not express; but all those who are not snow-men
know about it.
‘Why did you leave her?’ asked the Snow-man. He had a feeling that such a being must be a lady. ‘How could you leave such a place?’
‘I had to!’ said the yard-dog. ‘They turned me out of doors, and chained me up here. I had bitten the youngest boy in the leg, because he took away the bone I was gnawing; a bone for a bone, I thought! But they were very angry, and from that time I have been chained here, and I have lost
my voice. Don’t you hear how hoarse I am? Bow-wow! I can’t speak like other dogs. Bow-wow! That was the end of happiness!’
The Snow-man, however, was not listening to him anymore; he was looking into the room where the housekeeper lived, where the stove stood on its four iron legs, and seemed to be just the same size as the Snow-man. ‘How something is cracking inside me!’ he said. ‘Shall I never be able to get in there? It is certainly a very innocent wish, and our innocent wishes ought to be fulfilled. I must
get there, and lean against the stove, if I have to break the window first!’
‘You will never get inside there!’ said the yard-dog; ‘and if you were to reach the stove you would disappear. Bowwow!’
‘I’m as good as gone already!’ answered the Snow-man. ‘I believe I’m breaking up!’
The whole day the Snow-man looked through the window; towards dusk the room grew still more inviting; the stove gave out a mild light, not at all like the moon or even the sun; no, as only a stove can shine, when it has something to feed upon. When the door of the room was open, it flared up-this was one of its peculiarities; it flickered quite red upon the Snow-man’s white face.
‘I can’t stand it any longer!’ he said. ‘How beautiful it looks with its tongue stretched out like that!’
It was a long night, but the Snow-man did not find it so; there he stood, wrapt in his pleasant thoughts, and they froze, so that he cracked.
Next morning the panes of the kitchen window were covered with ice, and the most beautiful ice-flowers that even a snow-man could desire, only they blotted out the stove. The window would not open; he couldn’t see the stove which he thought was such a lovely lady. There was a cracking and cracking inside him and all around; there was just such a frost as a snow-man would delight in. But this Snow-man was different: how could he feel happy?
‘Yours is a bad illness for a Snow-man!’ said the yard-dog. ‘I also suffered from it, but I have got over it. Bow-wow!’ he barked. ‘The weather is going to change!’ he added.

The weather did change. There came a thaw. When this set in the Snow-man set off. He did not say
anything, and he did not complain, and those are bad signs. One morning he broke up altogether. And lo! where he had stood there remained a broomstick standing upright, round which the boys had built him!
‘Ah! now I understand why he loved the stove,’ said the yard-dog. ‘That is the raker they use to clean out the stove! The Snow-man had a stove-raker in his body! That’s what was the matter with him! And now it’s all over with him! Bow-wow!’

And before long it was all over with the winter too! ‘Bowwow!’ barked the hoarse yard-dog.
But the young girl sang: Woods, your bright green garments don! Willows, your woolly gloves put on! Lark and cuckoo, daily sing—February has brought the spring! My heart joins in your song so sweet; Come out, dear sun, the world to greet!

And no one thought of the Snow-man.

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From “The Pink Fairy Book”
ISBN: 978-1-907256-75-2
URL: http://www.abelapublishing.com/the-pink-fairy-book_p23332676.htm

OLD GWILYM – A Welsh Fairy Tale

Old Gwilym Evans started off one fine morning to walk across the Eagle Hills to a distant town, bent upon buying some cheese.

On his way, in a lonely part of the hills, he found a golden guinea, which he quickly put into his p

ocket. When he got to the town, instead of buying his provisions, he went into an alehouse, and sat drinking and singing with some sweet-voiced quarrymen until dark, when he thought it was time to go home. Whilst he was drinking, an old woman with a basket came in, and sat beside him, but she left before him. After the parting glass he got up and reeled through the town, quite forgetting to buy his cheese; and as he got amongst the hills they seemed to dance up and down before him, and he seemed to be
walking on air. When he got near the lonely spot where he had found the money he heard some sweet music, and a number of fairies crossed his path and began dancing all round him, and then as he looked up he saw some brightly-lighted houses before him on the hill; and he scratched his head, for he never remembered having seen houses thereabouts before. And as he was thinking, and watching the fairies, one came and begged him to come into the house and sit down. So he followed her in, and found the house was all gold inside it, and brightly lighted, and the fairies were dancing and singing, and they brought him anything he wanted for supper, and then they put him to bed.Gwilym slept heavily, and when he awoke turned round, for he felt very cold, and his body seemed covered with prickles; so he sat up and rubbed his eyes, and found that he was quite naked and lying in a bunch of gorse. When he found himself in this plight he hurried home, and told his wife, and she was very angry with him for spending all the money and bringing no cheese home, and then he told her his adventures.

“Oh, you bad man!” she said, “the fairies gave you money and you spent it wrongly, so they were sure to take their revenge.”
————–
From “Welsh Fairy Tales and Other Stories”
ISBN: 978-1-907256-03-5
URL: http://www.abelapublishing.com/welsh-fairy-tales-and-other-stories_p23332700.htm

THE MOON THAT SHONE ON THE PORCELAIN PAGODA

THE mid-autumn moon was shining on the high pagoda that stood outside the Red Bird Gate, the southern entrance to Chin-ling,1 China. Wing Ling (Peaceful Forest), a wide-awake boy, had just this

moment remarked that he hoped the moon would shine bright enough to drop down money for heaps of moon-cakes. He and his brother, Li Sun (Pear-tree, Son-of-Li), were sitting on the lowest of the four wide steps leading to the broad, octagonal base of the Porcelain Pagoda. “Liu li t’a” was its real name, that is, Vitreous-substance-of-liquid-gems-pagoda. Early in the fifteenth century, the emperor, Yung-lo (Eternal Joy), had the pagoda erected as a token of gratitude to his mother, the Heart-of-kindness-showing, Ever-gracious Em-press. The people of Chin-ling sometimes called it “The Temple of Gratitude,” but to Wing Ling and Li Sun it was always the Porcelain Pagoda, because of the coloured slabs of glazed porcelain–green, yellow, and red–which covered the brick-work.

Wing Ling and his brother had often seen the pagoda in the daytime when it looked gay and airy, especially when glittering sunshine fell upon the painted balconies, the delicately carved balustrades and porcelain slabs. Only once a year, were the boys allowed to see it at night–the night of the moon-festival. When the mid-autumn moon was biggest and roundest, a festival, all the moon’s own, was celebrated by everyone, and, on this night of nights, Chinese children had the fun of eating delectable moon-cakes if the moon showered down money enough to buy the cakes. Li Sun said now that he noticed the moon was shining brighter than usual and probably the brightness would make a bigger moon-shower! The two boys, seated on the pagoda step, were easily unobserved, for men, women, and children in holiday dress were coming and going in such throngs that no one paid any attention to them. The moon–the splendid, round moon with the rabbit at its lower edge–was the only important thing tonight.

Moonlight and lantern light were vying with each other in illuminating the Porcelain Pagoda. By moonlight, the slender, octagonal building, mounting story by story far toward the sky, looked mysterious, fantastic, unreal. As if moonlight were not enough, a hundred and forty lights were gleaming from top to bottom of the pagoda. The seventy-two windows, eight in each story, were now ablaze with lantern light. As if gayety and mystery and lights were not enough, two hundred little bells, some of brass, some of porcelain, were softly tinkling in the slight breeze. For, from the golden ball and pine-apple that crowned the metal spire, chains of bells hung down to the angles of the highest roof, and more bells hung from all the corners and edges of the nine roofs. Tonight, the melody of the bells was like the melody the Great River–the Yangtze River–makes at its source where it flows, in rippling beauty, over golden sands.

“Li Sun,” abruptly said Wing Ling, “do you know this Porcelain Pagoda never throws any shadow toward the west?
The priests say so, and they must know, because they have charge of the pagoda and they protect all the images of the idols and saints–two thousand of them–here in the pagoda. And the priests know all about . . .”

“I know it’s time for the moon-cakes to be eaten,” interrupted Li Sun.

“I’ll tell the moon-tale first,” said Wing Ling, “or perhaps there’ll not be any moon-cakes.” Yet, as he spoke, the rascal knew that luscious moon-cakes were, this minute, in the large, inner pocket of his sleeveless jacket, and in Li Sun’s pocket, too. Moon-cakes with glistening, round, sticky places on them! Moon-cakes that had on them little, sugar rabbits! Moon-cakes that had a bulging sugar toad! No wonder Li Sun thought it time to eat the moon-cakes! No wonder Wing Ling felt happy at the mere thought of them!
“Tell the tale, then,” said Li Sun, cheerfully laying aside his great hunger, because he knew that his older brother who liked so much to talk wouldn’t eat till the story was told.
“Here it is,” began Wing Ling, as he and Li Sun wriggled themselves back into the corner of the step to be out of the way of people’s feet. “Once the Emperor, Ming Wong, was walking in the moonlight–moonlight just like this; and he was on a terrace . . . “

“The Feng Huang terrace? Where the three phoenix birds sang, one springtime, so wonderfully all the other birds came to listen?” asked Li Sun eagerly.
“I forget. Perhaps it was that terrace–perhaps another. He was walking up and down, and his courtiers were with him . . .”
“How many courtiers?” broke in Li Sun.

“Interrupt me not, O Small-Devil,” said Wing Ling, “or I stop telling the tale. The Emperor, with his flute in his hand, was walking up and down, when he asked one of his courtiers this question, ‘Of what is the moon made, Noble-Servant?’

“The courtier said to the courtier standing nearest him, ‘His Highness, the Emperor, asks of what the moon is made.’

“The second courtier quickly turned to another courtier, saying, ‘His Highness, the Emperor, asks of what the moon is made.’ The third courtier asked a fourth courtier; the fourth asked a fifth; the fifth, a sixth; the sixth, a seventh; and the seventh courtier ran as fast as the men ran who were sent by the Great Ch’in to find the dragon. I tell you, Li Sun, they ran fast! The seventh courtier ran, like the red fire, to catch up with a magician walking toward the city wall, and he did catch up with him, and seized the magician’s garment. Out of breath he was, after that run, but he panted these words, ‘The Emperor, His Royal Highness . . . would know . . . of what . . . the moon is made.’ Without a word, the magician turned at once and ran back all the way to the terrace where the Emperor was still walking, still looking at the moon. Prostrating himself on the ground before the Emperor’s feet, the magician said, ‘Would His Highness, the Emperor, like to visit the moon and see of what it is made?’

‘Let it be so!’ replied the Emperor.

“The magician instantly threw his staff into the air toward the moon, and, lo, a rainbow bridge from earth to moon! As soon as the Emperor and the magician had stepped upon the bridge it rose beyond reach of the astonished courtiers and became like a wisp of cloud.

“The Emperor and his guide walked as easily as anything right along the rainbow bridge toward the moon, and I tell you, Li Sun, the moon shone amazingly bright, the nearer they went. When they stepped from the bridge to the surface of the moon, the Emperor noticed that most of the golden shining came from the thick groves of cassia trees–yes, Li Sun, the moonlight came straight from the cassia trees which were in full flowering. At the foot of a tall cassia, near the end of the bridge, crouched a little, white jade hare.

‘Who is he?’ asked the Emperor.

‘That is He-who-pounds-drugs-for-the-Genii,’ answered the magician. ‘He uses the cinnamon bark for the drugs. On clear nights in mid-autumn you can see him from the earth.’
“The Emperor and the magician then walked along the broad avenues of the pale yellow cassia trees and saw, on either side, radiant palaces, sparkling towers and twinkling streams. Fair ladies, in rainbow-coloured robes, came out to meet them, and, after bowing and smiling and saying welcoming words, passed on their way. Strange flowers, that looked far away though they were near at hand, covered the fields with silver-white or golden bloom. Snowy-white birds, with eyes like stars, flew in and out the golden cassia branches. Ah, it was a great glory, there, on the moon, Li Sun! And it’s the same moon that shines down here tonight on this pagoda. But there’s more to the story.”

“Tell it,” said Li Sun, sleepily.”The magician said to the Emperor,” went on Wing Ling, ‘Do you see that frog?’

‘Yes,’ said the Emperor.

“Then the magician told him this story: Once the Pearl-of-Heaven, the Moon, was about to be swallowed by a dragon, when an Archer Lord shot arrows into the sky, and so saved the moon from destruction. The Archer Lord was rewarded by a gift of a pill which would make him live forever. But, afterwards, his wife stole the magic pill and fled to the moon. That didn’t help her any, for, as soon as she stepped upon the – grass of the moon, she was turned into a frog. Here in the moon she still lives. Are you awake, Li Sun?” suddenly asked Wing Ling.

“By the Moon-Toad, Heng-O, I am! Go on!” answered Li Sun, briskly.

“Hear now the ending,” said Wing Ling. “When the Emperor and the magician left the moon and were coming down the rainbow bridge, the Emperor spoke not a single word, but he played on his flute. As he played, lovely strains fell to earth. Then he took coins, from the pouch on his girdle, and threw them from the bridge, and the money dropped at the feet of children. Wasn’t that fine, Li Sun?–Don’t you wish . . .?”

But just then a man and a woman, dressed in brightest of embroidered silk robes, bent over the two boys, who jumped to their feet as the man’s words carne like a swift stream pelting down a steep mountainside.

“O wicked boy, Wing Ling!” exclaimed the man. “O abominable urchin, Li Sun! Why, oh, why, have you been hiding from your honourable parents all this long time? What have you been doing? Where have you been? We have walked hour after hour searching for you. We have called on metal, wood, water, fire, earth. We have earnestly petitioned them all to direct us to the greatly-desired-place-of-hiding of our disobedient and much-to-be-despised sons. We have begged them, implored them, to lead us to that hiding-place wherever it might be–whether on the bank of the Great River or in some spot in our pride-of-the-heart city of Chin-ling, our wide city that lies between the dragon’s paws. ’Tis well I propitiated the deities by my worthy contribution toward the expense of the wonder-of-darkness lights on this pagoda. For, as the streams of light, from the cassia branches in the moon, fell upon this lantern-lighted pagoda–this Vitreous-substance-of-liquid-gems-pagoda–and as we saw the pagoda lights that illumine the thirty-three heavens, that detect the good and evil among men, that ward off human miseries, we quickened our steps hither, and lo, in this Temple-of-Gratitude pagoda, here we find you! We find you at last–our always-cherished, always-beloved sons!”
The father paused, breathless; and the mother said to the boys quietly, “Sons, have you eaten your moon-cakes yet?”

Late in the evening, the moon still shone down upon the city of Chin-ling. The light from the waving branches of the cassia trees in the moon streamed upon the Porcelain Pagoda, while the bells of the tower tinkled in the breeze from the Heaven-High Mountains. The moonlight shone, also, on the silent avenue, bordered with statues, outside the T’ai’ping Gate. It shone on the wall that meandered for miles around Chin-ling, and on the throngs of people strolling homeward through the Red Bird Gate; and it shone on the home of Wing Ling (Peaceful Forest) and Li Sun (Pear-tree, Son of Li).

As the boys were going to bed, the little jade hare looked down at the glistening earth. Li Sun, looking up at the moon, said to his brother, “Wing Ling, I can see the white-jade hare tonight–I see him pounding the moon-drugs!”
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Footnotes
1 Now Nanking or Nanjing, Jiangsu, China – 298km WNW of ShanghaiURL: http://www.abelapublishing.com/tower-legends_p23332696.htm