wood rascals,” she continued and pointed behind a number of bars that were covering a hole high up on the wall. “They’re wood rascals, those two. They fly right away if they aren’t properly locked in. And here is my old sweetheart, Bae,” and she pulled the horn of a reindeer. He had a shiny copper ring around his neck and was tied up. “We have to keep him tied up too, or he would run away from us. Every single evening I tickle his throat with my sharp knife. He’s very afraid of it.” And the little girl pulled a long knife from a crack in the wall, and let it glide across the reindeer’s throat. The poor animal kicked his legs, and the robber girl laughed and pulled Gerda into the bed with her.
“You take the knife to bed with you?” asked Gerda and looked a bit anxiously at it.
“I always sleep with my knife,” said the little robber girl. “You never know what might happen. But now, tell me again what you said before about little Kai, and why you went out into the wide world.” And Gerda told the story from the beginning, and the wood pigeons cooed in their cage while the other pigeons slept. The little robber girl laid her arm across Gerda’s neck, held the knife in her other hand, and slept so that you could hear it. But Gerda couldn’t close her eyes at all. She didn’t know whether she would live or die. The robbers sat around the fire singing and drinking, and the robber woman turned somersaults. Oh, it was just awful for the little girl to see!
Then the wood pigeons said, “Coo, coo! We’ve seen little Kai. A white hen was carrying his sled, and he was sitting in the Snow Queen’s coach. It flew low over the forest as we were lying in our nest. She blew at us young ones, and all died except us two—coo, coo!”
“What’s that you’re saying up there?” called Gerda. “Where did the Snow Queen go? Do you know anything about that?”
“She probably went to Lapland because there’s always snow and ice there. Ask the reindeer who’s tied up with the rope.”
“There’s ice and snow there, and it’s a good and blessed place,” said the reindeer. “You can run freely around in the big bright valleys there. It’s where the Snow Queen has her summer tent, but her permanent castle is up by the North Pole on the island called Spitsbergen.”
“Oh Kai! Little Kai!” sighed Gerda.
“Lie quietly now,” said the robber girl, “or you’ll get the knife in your stomach!”
In the morning, Gerda told her everything the wood pigeons had said, and the little robber girl looked very serious, but nodded her head and said, “It doesn’t matter. Never mind.—Do you know where Lapland is?” she asked the reindeer.
“Who would know better than me?” said the animal, and his eyes sparkled. “I was born and bred there, and I have run all over the snowy fields of Lapland.”
“Listen,” said the robber girl to Gerda, “you can see that all the men are gone. But mother is still here. She’ll stay, but sometime during the morning she’ll drink out of that big bottle and take a little nap. Then I’ll do something for you.” She jumped out of bed, threw her arms around her mother’s neck, pulled at her beard, and said, “My own sweet billy goat, good morning!” And her mother pinched her nose so it turned red and blue, but all of it was done out of love.
When her mother had drunk from her bottle and was taking a little nap, the robber girl went to the reindeer and said, “It would give me the greatest pleasure to continue to tickle you many more times with my sharp knife because you’re so much fun then, but it doesn’t matter. I’m going to loosen your rope and help you outside so that you can run to Lapland, but don’t let the grass grow under your feet. Take this little girl to the Snow Queen’s castle where her playmate is. You’ve certainly heard what she told me because she spoke loudly enough, and you eavesdrop.”
The reindeer leaped up in joy. The robber girl lifted Gerda onto the reindeer and took care to tie her fast, and even gave her a little pillow to sit on. “Never mind,” she said, “here are your fleecy boots because it will be cold. But I’m keeping the muff. It’s way too beautiful! But you won’t freeze. Here are mother’s big mittens. They’ll reach all the way up to your elbows. Put them on!—Now your hands look just like my horrid mother’s.”
And Gerda wept for joy.
“I can’t stand that wailing,” said the little robber girl. “Now just be happy. And here are two breads and a ham for you, so you won’t starve.” Both of these were tied onto the reindeer’s back. The little robber girl opened the door and coaxed the big dogs inside. Then she cut the rope with her knife and said to the reindeer, “Now run! But take good care of the little girl.”
And Gerda stretched out her hands, with the big robber mittens on them, towards the robber girl and said good bye. The reindeer flew off over bushes and stubble through the big forest, over swamps and plains as fast as he could. The wolves howled, and the ravens shrieked. Sounds like “Soosh, Soosh” came from the sky as if it were sneezing redness.
“Those are my old northern lights,” said the reindeer. “See how they shine!” He ran even faster, night and day. The breads were eaten—the ham too—and then they were in Lapland.
SIXTH STORY
THE SAMI WOMAN AND THE FINN WOMAN
They stopped at a little house. It was so pitiful. The roof reached 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. There was no one home except an old Sami woman, who was frying fish over an oil lamp. The reindeer told Gerda’s entire story, but first his own because he thought that was much more important, and Gerda was so frozen from cold that she couldn’t talk.
“Oh, you poor things!” said the Sami woman. “You still have a long way to go. You’ll have to go over a hundred miles into Finnmark because that’s where the Snow Queen is now, and she bums northern lights every night. I’ll write a few words on a dried cod—I don’t have any paper—for you to take to the Finn woman up there. She can give you better information than I can.”
And after Gerda had warmed up and had had something to eat and drink, the Sami woman wrote a few words on a dried cod and told Gerda to take good care of it. Then she tied Gerda firmly on the reindeer’s back again, and off it sprang. “Soosh, soosh” came from the air, and all night the most beautiful blue northern lights shone. They came to Finnmark and knocked on the Finn woman’s chimney because she didn’t even have a door.
It was so hot in there that the Finn woman herself had almost no clothes on. She was little and had quite muddy skin. She loosened Gerda’s clothing right away and took her mittens and boots off; otherwise she would have been too hot. She laid a piece of ice on the reindeer’s head and then read what was written on the dried cod. She read it three times so she knew it by heart and then put the fish in the kettle, for it could certainly be eaten, and she never wasted anything.
