Fairy Tales

wild birds flew over the burial mound where blackberry vines hung on the old stones. The sea was dark blue with white sails, and old women, girls, and children sat on the threshing floor picking hops into a big vat. The young sang songs, but the old told fairy tales about gnomes and trolls. It couldn’t get better than this!

“How lovely it is here in the winter!” said the little girl. And all the trees were heavy with frost. They looked like white coral. The snow crunched under your feet as if you were always wearing new boots, and from the sky fell one falling star after another. The Christmas tree was lit in the living room, and there were presents and good cheer. In the country the fiddle was played in the farmer’s living room. Little apple cakes were everywhere, and even the poorest child said, “it really is lovely in winter!”

It was lovely! And the little girl showed the boy everything, and the smell of elderberry flowers was always with them. The red flag with the white cross, under which the old sailor in Nyboder had sailed, waved everywhere. And the boy became a young man and was going out into the wide world, away to the warm countries where coffee beans grow. At parting the little girl took an elderberry flower from her bosom and gave it to him to keep. It was placed in his hymnal, and in foreign lands, whenever he opened the book, it always opened to the place where the keepsake flower was lying. The more he looked at it, the fresher it became, and it was as if he smelled the fragrance of the Danish forests, and he saw clearly the little girl with her clear blue eyes peer out from between the petals. And she whispered, “how lovely it is here in spring, in summer, in fall and in winter!” and hundreds of pictures passed through his mind.

Many years passed, and then he was an old man and sat with his old wife under a flowering tree. They were holding hands, like great-grandfather and great-grandmother in Nyboder did, and they talked like they had about the old days and about their Golden Anniversary. The little girl with the blue eyes and the elderberry flowers in her hair sat up in the tree, nodded at them both and said, “today is your Golden Anniversary,” and then she took two flowers from her wreath and kissed them. First they shone like silver, then like gold, and when she placed them on the old folks’ heads, each flower became a golden crown. There they sat like a king and a queen under the fragrant tree that looked absolutely just like an elderberry tree. And he told his old wife the story about Mother Elderberry as it had been told to him when he was a little boy. They both thought there was much in it that reminded them of their own story, and those were the parts they liked best.

“That’s the way it is!” said the little girl in the tree. “Some call me Mother Elderberry, others call me a dryad, but my real name is Memory. I’m the one who sits in the tree that grows and grows. I can remember, and I can tell stories! Let me see if you still have your flower.”

And the old man opened his hymnal. The elderberry flower was lying there as fresh as if it were just placed there, and Memory nodded, and the two old people with the gold crowns sat in the rosy evening sunshine. They closed their eyes—and—and then the fairy tale was over!

The little boy lay in his bed. He didn’t know if he had been dreaming, or if he had heard a story. The teapot stood on the table, but there was no elderberry tree growing from it, and the old man who had told the story was just going out the door, and that’s what he did.

“How beautiful it was,” said the little boy. “Mother, I’ve been in the warm countries!”

“That I can well believe,” said his mother. “When you drink two brimming cups of elderberry tea you surely do come to warm countries!” And she tucked him in so he wouldn’t get cold. “You must have been sleeping while we sat and argued about whether it was a story or a real fairy tale.”

“And where is Mother Elderberry?” asked the boy.

“She’s in the teapot,” his mother said, “and there she can stay!”

NOTES

1 In Greek and Roman mythology, dryads are wood nymphs that live in trees.

2 Section of Copenhagen founded by Christian IV as a neighborhood for seamen; it is characterized by small gardens with elderberry trees.

3 It was a custom for confirmands to climb to the top of the Round Tower the day after their confirmation.

THE HILL OF THE ELVES

SOME FIDGETY LIZARDS WERE running around in the cracks of an old tree. They could understand each other very well because they spoke lizard language.

“My, how it’s rumbling and humming in the old elf hill!” said one lizard. “I haven’t been able to close my eyes for two nights because of the noise. I could just as well be lying there with a toothache because then I don’t sleep either!”

“There’s something going on in there,” said the second lizard. “They had the hill standing on four red pillars up until cockcrow. They’re really airing it out, and the elf maidens have learned some new dances that have stamping in them. Something is going on.”

“I’ve talked to an earthworm of my acquaintance,” said the third lizard. “He was right up at the top of the hill, where he digs around night and day. He heard quite a bit. Of course he can’t see, the miserable creature, but he can feel around and understands how to listen. They are expecting guests in the elf hill, distinguished guests, but who they are he wouldn’t say, or he probably didn’t know. All the will-o’-the-wisps have been reserved to make a torchlight procession, as it’s called, and the silver and gold—and there’s enough of that in the hill—is being polished and set out in the moonlight.”

“But who in the world can the guests be?” all the lizards asked. “I wonder what is going on? Listen to how it’s humming! Listen to the rumbling!”

Just then the hill of the elves opened up, and an old elf lady came toddling out. She had a hollow back, but was otherwise very decently dressed. She was the old elf king’s housekeeper and a distant relative. She had an amber heart on her forehead. Her legs moved very quickly: trip, trip. Oh, how she could get around, and she went straight down in the bog to the nightjar!

“You’re invited to the elf hill tonight,” she said, “but first will you do us a tremendous favor and see to the invitations? You must make yourself useful since you don’t have a house yourself. We’re having some highly distinguished guests—very important trolls—and the old elf king himself will be there.”

“Who’s to be invited?” asked the nightjar.

“Well, everyone can come to the big ball, even people, so long as they can talk in their sleep or do one or