Fairy Tales

It was still daylight that evening when they had eaten their milk porridge, and Garden-Ole said, “Read that story about the woodcutter for us again.”

“There are so many delightful stories in this book,” said Hans. “So many that you haven’t heard.”

“Well, I don’t care about them,” said Garden-Ole. “I want to hear the one I know.”

And he and his wife listened to it again, and more than one evening they came back to the same story.

“But I don’t really understand the whole thing,” said Garden-Ole. “People are like milk that curdles. Some become fine cottage cheese and others thin, watered whey. Some people are lucky in everything, always given the place of honor, and never knowing sorrow or want.”

Cripple Hans was listening to this. His legs were weak, but his mind was sharp. He read a story for them from the book of fairy tales. He read about The Man without Sorrow or Want.3 Well, where could he be found? Because he had to be found.

The King lay ill and could not be cured except by wearing a shirt that had been worn and worn out by a person who could truthfully say that he had never known sorrow or want.

Messengers went out to all the countries of the world, to all palaces and estates, to all wealthy and happy people, but when it came right down to it, they had all known sorrow and want.

“I haven’t!” said the swineherd, sitting by the ditch, laughing and singing. “I am the happiest person.”

“Then give us your shirt,” said the messengers. “You’ll be paid half a kingdom for it.”

He didn’t have a shirt, and yet he called himself the happiest person.

“That was a fine fellow!” exclaimed Garden-Ole, and he and his wife laughed like they hadn’t laughed for years.

Just then the schoolteacher came by.

“How merry you all are,” he said. “That’s rare in this house. Did you pick a lucky number in the lottery?”

“No, nothing like that,” said Garden-Ole. “It’s Hans. He read a story for us from his fairy tale book. He read about The Man without Sorrow or Want, and the fellow had no shirt. You laugh till you cry hearing something like that, and from a printed book, too. Everyone has his burdens to bear. We’re not alone in it, and there’s a comfort in that.”

“Where did you get that book?” asked the schoolteacher.

“Hans got it at Christmas over a year ago from the master and mistress. You know he loves to read, and he’s a cripple, of course. At that time we would rather he’d gotten a couple of everyday shirts, but the book is remarkable. It answers your questions somehow.”

The schoolteacher took the book and opened it.

“Let’s hear the same story again,” said Garden-Ole. “I don’t quite have a grasp of it yet. And then he will have to read the other one about the woodcutter.”

Those two stories were enough for Ole. They were like two sunbeams that shone into the simple cottage and into the downtrodden thoughts that had made them grumpy and cross.

Hans had read the whole book, read it many times. The fairy tales carried him out into the world, there where he couldn’t go since his legs couldn’t carry him.

The schoolteacher sat by his bed. They talked together, and it was pleasant for both of them.

From that day on the schoolteacher came more often to see Hans when his parents were working. It was like a celebration for the boy every time he came. How he listened to what the old man told him! About the earth’s size and about many other countries, and that the sun was almost a half million times the size of the earth and so far away that a cannonball would take twenty five years to travel from the sun to earth, while light rays could reach the earth in eight minutes.

Every capable schoolboy knows all this now, but for Hans it was new and even more marvelous than everything written in the book of fairy tales.

A couple of times a year the schoolteacher was invited to dinner at the manor house, and on one such occasion he told them how important the fairy tale book had been in the poor cottage, where just two stories had resulted in revival and blessings. The weak, clever little boy had brought reflection and joy to the house through his reading.

When the schoolteacher went home from the manor, the mistress pressed a couple of shiny silver dollars in his hand for little Hans.

“Father and mother must have those!” said the boy when the schoolteacher brought him the money.

And Garden-Ole and Garden-Kirsten said, “Cripple Hans is, after all, a benefit and a blessing.”

A few days later when the parents were at work on the estate, its family coach stopped outside. It was the tender-hearted mistress who came, happy that her Christmas present had been such comfort and brought such pleasure to the boy and his parents.

She brought along some fine bread, fruit, and a bottle of sweet syrup, but what was even better, she brought him a little black bird in a gilded cage. It could whistle so beautifully. The cage with the bird was placed on the old chest of drawers, not far from the boy’s bed. He could see the bird and hear it, and even people way out on the road could hear the bird singing.

Garden-Ole and Garden-Kirsten didn’t come home until the mistress had left. They saw how happy Hans was, but thought that such a gift could only bring inconvenience.

“Rich people don’t consider things!” they said. “Now we’ll have that to take care of too. Cripple Hans can’t do it, and the cat will end up taking it.”

A week went by, and then another. During that time the cat had been in the room many times without scaring the bird, let alone harming it. Then something great occurred. It was in the afternoon. His parents and the other