Ганс Андерсен - Fairy Tales

Johannes immediately wanted to carry the old woman to her home. But the stranger opened his knapsack, took out a jar, and said that he had a salve that would heal her leg right away, so that she could walk home herself as though the leg had never been broken. But he wanted her to give him the three bundles she had in her apron.

“I’m going into the wide world too, ” the stranger said.

“That’s a stiff fee,” said the old woman and nodded her head oddly. She didn’t want to part with her bundles, but it wasn’t pleasant lying there with a broken leg either. So she gave him the bundles, and as soon as he smeared the salve on her leg, the old woman got up and walked better than before. That’s how well the salve worked, but you couldn’t get it at the drugstore either.

“What are you going to do with those bundles?” Johannes asked his traveling companion.

“These are three nice bouquets!” he said, “I like them because I’m an odd fellow.”

Then they walked quite a distance.

“There’s a storm brewing,” Johannes said and pointed straight ahead, “Those are some awfully thick clouds!”

“No,” the traveling companion said. “Those aren’t clouds, they’re mountains. Big beautiful mountains, where we’ll come way up over the clouds into the fresh air! You can imagine how marvelous that is! Tomorrow we’ll be that far up in the world!”

They were not as close as they looked. It took them a whole day of walking before they came to the mountains, where the dark forests grew right up towards the sky, and there were rocks as big as whole towns. It would be a long and hard journey over the mountains, so Johannes and his traveling companion went into an inn to rest and gather their strength for the next day’s march.

A whole group of people were gathered down in the big bar in the inn because there was a man there who was going to put on a puppet show. He had just set up his little theater, and people were sitting around waiting to see the play, but an old fat butcher had taken the best place right in front. His big bulldog—Oh, he looked so ferocious!—sat by his side wide-eyed like everyone else.

Then the play started, and it was a fine piece with a king and a queen. They sat on beautiful thrones and had gold crowns on their heads and long trains on their robes because they could afford it. The most gorgeous wooden puppets with glass eyes and big handlebar moustaches stood by all the doors and opened and closed them to let in fresh air. It was a lovely play, and not at all sad, but just as the queen stood up and walked across the floor, then—God knows what the bulldog was thinking, but since the big butcher didn’t keep a hold of him—he leaped right into the scene, and took the queen by her thin waist so it went “crack, crunch!” It was just terrible!

The poor man who directed the play was very frightened and upset about his queen, since it was the most beautiful puppet he had, and now the nasty bulldog had bitten her head off. But when all the people had left, Johannes’s traveling companion said that he could repair her, and he took out his jar and smeared the puppet with the salve he had used on the old woman with the broken leg. As soon as the salve was applied, the puppet was good as new. In fact, it could move its own arms and legs, and it wasn’t necessary to pull the strings any longer. The puppet was like a living person, except that it couldn’t talk. The man who owned the puppet show was very pleased that he didn’t have to hold that puppet any more; it could dance by itself. None of the others could do that.

Later during the night, when all the people in the inn had gone to bed, there was someone who was sighing so loudly and who kept it up for so long that everybody got up to see who it could be. The man who had produced the play went to his lit tle theater because the sighing was coming from there. All the puppets were lying there piled together, the king and all the henchmen, and they were the ones who were sighing so pitifully and starring with their big glass eyes because they desperately wanted to be smeared with the salve like the queen so that they could move by themselves. The queen got down on her knees and held her gold crown into the air, while she begged, “Just take this, but treat my consort and the courtiers!” The poor man who owned the puppet theater and all the puppets could not help crying because he felt so badly for them. He promised to give the traveling companion all the money from the next night’s performance if he would just smear the salve on four or five of the prettiest puppets, but the traveling companion said that he didn’t want anything except the big sword the man had at his side. After he had received it, he smeared the salve on six of the puppets, who right away began dancing, and so beautifully that all the girls, the living human girls, who were watching, started to dance along. The coachman danced with the cook, the waiter and the parlor maid danced, all the guests danced, and the fire shovel danced with the fire tongs, but those two fell over when they made their first leap—Oh, it was a merry night!

The next morning Johannes and his traveling companion left them all and climbed up the high mountains and through the deep spruce forests. They climbed so high up that at last the church steeples down below looked like small red berries, down among the greenery, and they could see far, far away, many, many miles, to where they had never been! Johannes had never seen so much of the beauty of the world at one time, and the sun shone warm in the fresh blue air, and he heard the hunters blowing on their horns in the hills, so gloriously that his eyes filled with tears of joy, and he could not help exclaiming : “Oh my dear God! I could kiss you because you are so good to us all and have given us all the beauties of the earth!”

The traveling companion also stood with his hands folded, looking out over the forests and towns, lying in the warm sunshine. Just then a delightful sound rang out right above their heads, and they looked up to see a big white swan hovering in the air. It was beautiful and sang like they had never heard a bird sing before. But the song became softer and softer as the swan bowed its head and sank quite slowly down by their feet, where the beautiful bird then lay quite dead.

“Two such beautiful wings as white and big as those the bird has are worth a lot,” said the traveling companion. “I’ll take them with me. See, it’s a good thing I have a sword!” Then with one stroke he cut both wings from the dead swan, for he wanted to keep them.

Then they traveled for many, many miles over the mountains until they finally saw a big city with over a hundred towers shining like silver in the sunshine. In the middle of the city was a magnificent marble castle with a roof of red gold, and that’s where the king lived.

Johannes and the traveling companion didn’t enter the city right away. Instead they stayed at an inn on the outskirts because they wanted to get dressed up before appearing in the streets. The innkeeper told them that the king was a very good man, who never did harm to anyone at all. However, his daughter, God help us, was a very wicked princess. She was marvelously beautiful. Indeed, no one was as beautiful and lovely as she was, but what good did that do when she was an evil, wicked witch, who was responsible for the deaths of so many fine princes? She had allowed all sorts of men to court her. Anyone could come, whether he was a prince or a tramp; it didn’t make any difference. He only had to guess three things she was thinking about. If he could do that, she would marry him, and he would become king of the whole country when her father died. But if he couldn’t guess the three things, then she would have him hanged or beheaded. That’s how wicked and evil the beautiful princess was.