Fairy Tales

same garden where we’re now sitting. We stuck sticks in the ground to make a garden.’

“‘Yes,’ said the old woman. ‘I remember it well. And we watered the sticks, and one of them was an elderberry branch which took root and shot out shoots. Now it’s the big tree we’re sitting under as old people.’

“‘Yes indeed,’ he said, ‘And over there in the corner was a water tub where my little boat sailed. I had carved it myself, and how it sailed! But soon I had sailing of a different kind!’

“‘But first we went to school and learned a few things,’ she said, ‘and then we were confirmed. We both cried, but in the afternoon we walked hand in hand up to the top of the Round Tower and looked out over Copenhagen and the water.³ Then we went to Fredericksberg where the king and queen were sailing on the canals in their splendid boat.’

“‘But my sailing for many years was of a different kind. Far away on big trips!’

“‘And I often cried for you,’ she said. ‘I thought you were dead and gone and lying down there in the deep waters. Many a night I got up to see if the weather vane had shown a wind change. And it did turn, but you didn’t come! I remember so clearly how the rain was pouring down one day when the garbage man came where I was working. I came down with the garbage pail and was standing by the door. What terrible weather! And as I stood there, the mailman was by my side and gave me a letter. It was from you! And how it had been around! I tore right into it and read—laughed and cried. I was so happy! You wrote that you were in the warm countries where the coffee beans grow. What a wonderful land that must be! You described so much, and I saw it all, while the rain was pouring down and I was standing with the garbage pail. Just then someone put his arm around my waist—’

“‘And you gave him such a box on the ears that his head spun around!’

“‘I didn’t know it was you! You came home as fast as your letter, and you were so handsome—as you still are, and you had a long yellow silk handkerchief in your pocket, and you were wearing a shiny hat. You were dressed up so fine. But dear God, what weather there was, and how the street looked!’

“‘Then we got married.’ he said, ‘Do you remember? And we had our first little boy, and then Marie, and Niels, and Peter, and Hans Christian.’

“‘And they all grew up to be decent people that everyone likes.’

“‘And their children have children!’ said the old sailor, ‘And those great grand-children have some spirit in them!—But it seems to me it was this time of year that we got married.’

‘“Yes, today is your Golden Anniversary,’ said Mother Elderberry and stuck her head right down between the two old people. They thought it was their neighbor who had popped in. They looked at each other and held hands. A little later their children and grandchildren came. They knew very well that it was the Golden Anniversary day. They had, in fact, been around with congratulations in the morning, but the old couple had forgotten that, although they remembered very well everything that had happened many years before. The elderberry tree gave off such a lovely fragrance and the sun, that was about to set, shone right into the old ones’ faces. They both looked so red-cheeked, and the smallest of the grandchildren danced around them and yelled happily that tonight there would be a feast—they were going to have roasted potatoes! And Mother Elderberry sat in her tree nodding and cheering ‘hurray’ along with everyone else.”

“But that wasn’t a fairy tale,” said the little boy who had listened to it.

“Well, that’s what you think, but let’s ask Mother Elderberry,” said the story- teller.

“That wasn’t a fairy tale,” said Mother Elderberry, “but here it comes! The most wonderful fairy tales grow right out of reality, otherwise my lovely elderberry tree couldn’t have sprouted from the teapot!” And then she took the little boy out of the bed, held him by her breast, and the elderberry branches, full of flowers, closed around them. They sat as if in a completely enclosed garden pavilion, and it flew away with them through the air. Oh, it was marvelous! Mother Elderberry had at once become a beautiful young girl, but her dress was still the same green, white-flowered one that Mother Elderberry had worn. On her breast was a real elderberry flower, and on her curly yellow hair was a wreath of elderberry blossoms. Her eyes were so big and so blue. Oh, how beautiful she was! She and the boy kissed, and then they were the same age and felt the same.

They walked hand in hand out of the arbor of leaves and into the lovely garden of the boy’s home. His father’s walking cane was tethered to a stick on the lawn. There was life in that cane for the little ones. As soon as they put a leg over it, the shiny button changed to a magnificent neighing head with a long black flowing mane, and four slender, strong legs pushed out. The animal was strong and lively. They rushed around the lawn at a gallop. Giddy- up! “Now we’ll ride for many miles,” said the boy, “we’ll ride to the big manor house where we were last year,” and they rode and rode around on the grass. The little girl, whom we know was no one other than Mother Elderberry, called out, “Now we’re in the country. Do you see the farmer’s house? There’s a big baking oven—it was a big lump like an egg in the wall out towards the road. The elderberry tree is holding its branches out above it, and the rooster is scratching about in front of the hens. See, how he’s swaggering! Now we’re at the church! It stands high on a hill between the big oak trees. One of them is partly dead. Now we’re at the smithy’s, where the fire is burning, and half-naked men are hammering so sparks are flying. Away! Away to the magnificent manor house!” Everything the little girl mentioned went flying by. She was sitting behind him on the cane. The boy saw it all, but still they were just riding on the lawn. Then they played in the side yard and scratched out a little garden in the soil. She took the elderberry flower from her hair and planted it, and it grew just as it had for the old people in Nyboder when they were little, like the story we heard earlier. They walked hand in hand like the old couple had done as children, but they didn’t go up to the top of the Round Tower or out to Fredericksberg. No, the little girl put her arm around the boy’s waist, and they flew around all over Denmark. Spring turned to summer, then autumn, followed by winter. A thousand pictures were mirrored in the little boy’s eyes and heart, and the entire time the little girl sang for him, “you’ll never forget this,” and the whole time the sweet and lovely scent of the elderberry blossoms was with them. He noticed the roses and the fresh beech trees, but the elderberries’ perfume was even more wonderful because the blossoms were fastened by the little girl’s heart, and his head often rested there during the flight.

“How lovely it is here in the spring!” said the young girl, and they stood in the newly green sprouted beech woods where the green sweet woodruff wafted under their feet, and the pale pink anemones looked so lovely in the open air. “Oh, if it could always be spring in the fragrant Danish beech forests!”

“How lovely it is here in the summer!” she said, and they sped past old manor houses from the age of chivalry where the red walls and notched gables were reflected in the canals where the swans were swimming and looking up at the old cool avenues of trees. In the fields the grain was billowing as if it were a sea. There were red and yellow flowers in the ditches, and the fences were covered with wild hops and flowering bindweed. And in the evening the moon rose round and huge, and the scent of cut hay in the meadows filled the air. “This will never be forgotten!”

“How lovely it is here in the fall!” said the little girl, and the sky seemed doubly high and blue. The forest had the most lovely colors of red, yellow, and green. The hunting hounds bounded away, and big flocks of screeching