NY PUBLIC LIBRARY THE BRANCH L BRARIES



3 3333 08093 4421




STORIES FOR THE HOUSEHOLD












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STORIES FOR THE HOUSEHOLD



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HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN



TRANSLATED BV

H. \Y. DULCKEN, Pi-i.D.




Tiro HUNDRED AND NINETY ILLUSTRATIONS BY A. w. SATES

ENGRAVED BY DALZIEL BROTHERS



LONDON :

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS

BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL

GLASGOW AND NEW YORK
1889



UNIFORM WITH THIS IV J



GRIMM'S HOUSEHOLD STORIES.

With 240 Illustrations by E. H. WEHNERT.

THE ARABIAN EIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS.

With 150 Illustrations by THOMAS ]!. DALZIEI,.



OP

cirr o? r*w YORK



H39 1 065



PRE FA.C E.



THE literary activity of HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN lias
now extended over a period < >f more than forty years. During
this time his varied genius has produced many and excellent
works, novels, poems, dramas, &c. His " Improvisatore " first
made his name known beyond the narrow confines of his
own country ; but it is upon his Stories and Tales that his
fame rests, and will continue to rest. ANDERSEN himself was
unconscious of his own power when he wrote the first of these
wonderful histories; and has told us how, when he published
the first collection, he was careful to entitle the little volume,
" Stories told to the Children." But a short time sufficed to
show tl&t very many ' ' children of a larger growth " could
find amusement and instruction in ANDERSEN'S stories. In
fact, our Author had solved about the most difficult problem
that can present itself to the writer of fiction that of attracting
all ages alike. Accordingly, in subsequent editions, the words
"told to the children' 3 were omitted; for it was found that,
when HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN had a story to tell, all were
willing to be " children," and to listen.

And here the Publishers offer to the Public the most
complete collection that has yet been made of these stories.
The success of the two volumes, " Stories and Tales y and



IV PEEFACE.

- r *. *
" What the Moon saw," has appeared to them a sutebient

proof that such a work would be welcomed ; and they have
bestowed every pains upon the book, with respect alike to
pictorial illustration and typographical details.

The Life of ANDERSEN, written by himself, has been included
in this book, because it is in itself, as the writer says, "A
true story upon the motto, ' Try and trust/ } The tale, as
told by ANDERSEN, has been slightly abridged, as references
are made here and there to persons and places possessing little
interest for the general English reader. ANDERSEN tells the
story of his life to the Public as simply and frankly as he
might tell it to a chosen circle round a winter fire. He
relates his various experiences just as they occurred, and in
one part says, " I tell these happy events because they are
facts in my life. I tell them as I have told of the poverty,
the difficulties, the trials that beset me. And if I have told
this just as the remembrance arises in my heart, let it not
be ascribed to vanity or ostentation, for that is certainly not
its right name."

With these few words, the Publishers commend this volume
to the kind consideration of the English admirers of HANS
CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.

H. W. D.



CONTENTS,



Page
The Silver Shilling 1

The Old Church Bell 5

The Snail and the Eose Tree 9

Little Ida's Flowers 12

Die Tinder-Box 18

Great Glaus and Little Glaus 24

Phe Princess on the Pea 33

Thumbeliua 80

The Naughty Boy 43

The Travelling Companion 45

The Emperor's New Clothes 60

The Goloshes of Fortune 64

The Hardy Tin Soldier 85

The Story of a Mother 86

The Daisy 93

A Great Grief 96

The Jumper 98

The Shirt Collar 100

Old Luk-Oie 103

Jack the Dullard. An Old Story told

anew Ill

The Beetle 115

What the Old Man does is always

Eight 122

Ole the Tower-Keeper 126

Good Humour 135

"It's Quite True" 138

Children's Prattle 140

' The Flying Trunk 142

The Last Pearl 147

The Storks 149

Grandmother 153

The Ugly Duckling 155



Page

The Loveliest Eose in the World ... 163

Elolger Danske 165

The Puppet Showman 169

The Pigs 173

A Picture from the Fortress Wall ... 175

In the Duck-yard 176

The Eed Shoes 181

Soup on a Saiisage-Peg 18G

The Wicked Prince 198

The Shepherdess and the Chimney-
Sweeper 200

Two Brothers 204

The Old Street Lamp 206

By the Almshouse Window 212

The Lovers 21*

The Bell 216

Little Tuk 221

The Flax 2*24

The Girl who Trod on the Loaf 228

The Money-Pig , 235

The Darning-Needle , 237

The Fir Tree 240

The Swineherd 247

Something 251

A Leaf from the Sky 256

The Drop of Water 259

The Dumb Book 261

The Jewish Girl 263

The Elder-Tree Mother 267

Two Maidens 274

The Farm-yard Cock and the Weather-
cock 275

The Old Gravestone . . 278



VI.



CONTENTS.



Page
The Old Bachelor's Nightcap 281

A Rose from the Grave of Homer ... 291
The Wind tells about Waldemar Daa

and his Daughters 293

Five out of One Shell 303

The Metal Pig 306

The Snow Queen 315

The Nightingale 341

The Neighbouring Families 349

The Little Match Girl 357

The Elf-Hill 359

The Buckwheat 365

The Old House 367

The Happy Family 373

The Rose-Elf 376

The Shadow 380

The Angel 389

Twelve by the Mail 391

What the Moon Saw 396

The Story of the Year 429

The Racers 436

She was Good for Nothing 439

In a Thousand Years l\~>

" There is a Difference " 447

Everything in its Right Place 450

The Goblin and the Huckster 457

The Bond of Friendship 460

The Bottle-neck 468

Ib and Christine 476

The Snow Man 485

The Thorny Road of Honour 489

The Child in the Grave 493

In the Uttermost Parts of the Sea -... 497

Under the Willow Tree 499

Charming 512

Bishop of Bb'rglum and his Warriors 517

fhe Butterfly 523

Anne Lisbeth , 525

The Last Dream of the Old Oak Tree. 535



Page
The Bell-Deep 540

The Little Sea Maid 543

The Wild Swans 560

The Marsh King's Daughter 573

The Pen and Inkstand 008

A Story from the Sand-Dunes G10

The Phoenix Bird 037

The Garden of Paradise (',;',<.)

The Ice Maiden 650

The Swan's Nest 691

The Stone of the Wise Men SH2

The Psyche 705

The Story of My Life 716

"The Will-o'-the-Wisp is in the

Town," says the Moor- Woman. .. 788

The Windmill 799

In the Nursery 802

The Golden Treasure 805

The Storm shakes the Shield 814

The Bird of Popular Song 818

The Legend of Niirnberg Castle 821

A Night in the Apennines 823

The Carnival in Rome 826

Mahomet's Birthday. A Scene in

Constantinople 830

Days in the Mediterranean 836

The Graveyard at Scutari 840

The Bosphorus 841

Athens

The Toad

The Porter's Son 851)

Put off is not Done with 875

The Snowdrop 879

Our Aunt 883

The Dryad 888

The Thistle's Experiences 900

Poultry Meg's Family 909

What one can Invent 920

In Sweden 923







THE OLD WOMAN HANO3 TIIE SHILLING HOUND THE CHILD'S NECK.



THE SILVER SHILLING.

TIIEKE was once a Shilling. He came out quite bright from the Mint,
and sprang up, and rang out, " Hurrah ! now I 'm off into the wide
world." And into the wide world he certainly went.

The child held him with soft warm hands ; the miser clutched him in
a cold avaricious palm ; the old man turned him goodness knows how
many times before parting with him ; while careless youth rolled him
lightly away. The Shilling was of silver, and had very little copper



2 Stories for the Household.

about him : he had been now a whole year in the world that is to say,
in the country in which he had been struck. But one day he started
on his foreign travels ; he was the last native coin in. the purse borne by
his travelling master. The gentleman was himself not aware that he
still had this coin until he came across it by chance.

" Why, here 's a shilling from home left to me," he said. " Well, he
can make the journey with me."

And the Shilling rattled and jumped for joy as it was thrust back
into the purse. So here it lay among strange companions, who came
jind went, each making room for a successor ; but the Shilling from home
always remained in the bag ; which was a distinction for it.

Several weeks had gone by, and the Shilling had ti'avelled far out into
the world without exactly knowing where he was, though he learned
from the other coins that they were French or Italian. One said they
were in such and such a town, another that they had reached such and
such a spot ; but the Shilling could form no idea of all this. lie who
has his head in a bag sees nothing ; and this was the case with the
Shilling. But one day, as he lay there, he noticed that the purse was
not shut, and so he crept forward to the opening, to take a look around.
He ought not to have done so ; but he was inquisitive, and people often
have to pay for that. He slipped out into the fob : and when the purse
was taken out at night the Shilling remained behind, and was sent out
into the passage with the clothes. There he fell upon the floor : no one
heard it, no one saw it.

Next morning the clothes were carried back into the room ; the
gentleman put them on, and continued his journey, while the Shilling
remained behind. The coin was found, and was required to go into ser-
vice again, so he was sent out with three other coins.

" It is a pleasant thing to look about one in the world," thought the
Shilling, " and to get to know strange people and foreign customs."
And now began the history of the Shilling, as told by himself.
" ' Away with him, he 's bad no use.' These words went through
ind through me," said the Shilling. " I knew I sounded well and had
been properly coined. The people were certainly mistaken. They could
not mean me ! but, yes, they did mean me. I was the one of whom
they said, ' He 's bad he 's no good.' ' I must get rid of that fellow
in the dark,' said the man who had received me; and I was passed at
night, and abused in the day-time. ' Bad no good ' was the cry : ' we
must make haste and get rid of him.'

" And I trembled in the fingers of the holder each time I was to be
secretly passed on as a coin of the country.

" "Wnat a miserable shilling I am ! Of what use is my silver to me,
my value, my coinage, if all these things are looked on as worthless ?
In the eyes of the world one has only the value the world chooses to
put upon one. It must be terrible indeed to have a bad conscience,
and to creep along on evil ways, if I, who am quite innocent, can feel so
badly because I am only thought guilty.

" Each time I waa brought out I shuddered at the thought of the eyes



The Silver Shilling. o

that would look at me, for I knew that I should be rejected and flung
back upon the table, like an impostor and a cheat. Once I cam into
the hands of a poor old woman, to whom I was paid for a hard day's
work, and she could not get rid of me at all. No one would accept me,
and I w T as a perfect worry to the old dame.

" ' I shall certainly be forced to deceive some one with this shilling,'
she said ; ' for, with the best will in the world, I can't hoard up a false
.shilling. The rich baker shall have him ; he will be able to bear the loss
but it 's wrong in me to do it, after all.'

" ' And I must lie heavy on that woman's conscience too/ sighed I.
' Am I really so much changed in my old age ? '

" And the woman went her way to the rich baker ; but he knew too
well what kind of shillings would pass to take me, and he threw me
back at the woman, who got no bread for me. And I felt miserably low




THE MOTHER TRIES THE SHILLING.



to think that I should be the cause of distress to others I who had
been in my young days so proudly conscious of my value and of the
correctness of my mintage. I became as miserable as a poor shilling
can be whom no one will accept ; but the woman took me home again,
and looked at me with a friendly, hearty face, and said,

"No, I will not deceive any one with thee. I will bore a hole through
thee, that every one may see thou art a false thing. And yet it just
occurs to me perhaps this is a lucky shilling ; and the thought comes
so strongly upon me that I am sure it must 'be true ! I will make a hole
through the shilling, and pass a string through the hole, and hang the
coin round the neck of my neighbour's little boy for a lucky shilling.'

' So she bored a hole through me. It is certainly not agreeable to have
a hole bored through one ; but many things can be borne when the in-
tention is good. A thread was passed through the hole, and I became



4 Stories for the Household.

a kind of medal, and was hung round the neck of the little child ; and
the child smiled at me, and kissed me, and I slept all night on its warm,
innocent neck.

" When the morning came, the child's mother took me up in her fingers
and looked at me, and she bad her own thoughts ahout me, I could feel
that very well. She brought out a pair of scissors, and cut the string
through.

" ' A lucky shilling ! ' she said. ' Well, we shall soon see that.'

" And she laid me in vinegar, so that I turned quite green. Then she
plugged up the hole, and carried me, in the evening twilight, to the
lottery collector, to buy a lottery ticket that should bring her luck.

" How miserably wretched I felt ! There was a stinging feeling in me,
as if I should crumble to bits. I knew that I should be called false and
thrown down and before a crowd of shillings and other coins, too,
who lay there with an image and superscription of which they might be
proud. But I escaped that disgrace, for there were many people in the
collector's room he had a great deal to do, and I went rattling down
into the box among the other coins. Whether my ticket won anything
or not I don't know ; but this I do know, that the very next morning 1
was recognized as a bad shilling, and was sent out to deceive and de-
ceive again. That is a very trying thing to bear when one knows one
has a good character, and of that I am conscious.

" For a year and a day I thus wandered from house to house and from
hand to hand, always abused, always unwelcome ; no one trusted me ;
and I lost confidence in the world and in myself. It was a heavy time.
At last, one day a traveller, a strange gentleman, arrived, and I was
passed to him, and he was polite enough to accept me for current coin ;
but he wanted to pass me ou, and again I heard the horrible cry, ' No
use false ! '

" ' I received it as a good coin,' said the man, and he looked closely at
me : suddenly he smiled all over his face ; and I had never seen that ex-
pression before on any face that looked at me. ' Why, whatever is that ?'
he said. ' That 's one of our own country coins, a good honest shilling
from my home, and they 've bored a hole through him, and they call
him false. Now, this is a curious circumstance. I must keep him and
take him home with me.'

"A glow of joy thrilled through me when I heard myself called a good
honest shilling ; and now I was to be taken home, where each and every
one would know me, and be sure that I was real silver and properly
coined. I could have thrown out sparks for very gladness ; but, after
all, it 's not in my nature to throw out sparks, for that 's the property
of steel, not of silver.

"I was wrapped up in clean white paper, so that I should not be con-
founded with the other coins, and spent ; and on festive occasions, when
feJlow-countrymen met together, I was shown about, and they spoke
very well of me : they said I was interesting and it is wonderful how
interesting one can be without saying a single word.

"And at last I got home again. All my troubles were ended, joy came



The Old Church Bell. 5

back to me, for I was of good silver, and had the right stamp, and I had
no more disagreeables to endure, though a hole had been bored through
me, as through a false coin ; but that does not matter if one is not really
false. One must wait for the end, and one will be righted at last
that 's my belief," said the Shilling.




IHE OLD BELL OF MAKBACH.



THE OLD CHURCH BELL.

IN the German land of AVurtemberg, where the acacias bloom by the
high road, and the apple trees and pear trees bend in autumn under
their burden of ripe fruit, lies the little town of Marbach. Although
this place can only be ranked among the smaller towns, it is charmingly
situated on the ]N"eckar stream, that flows on and on, hurrying past
villages and old castles and green vineyards, to pour its waters into the
proud Rhine.

It was late in autumn. The leaves still clung to the grape-vine, but
they were already tinged with red. Eainy gusts swept over the country,
and the cold autumn winds increased in violence and roughness. It was
no pleasant time for poor folk.

The days became shorter and gloomier ; and if it was dark out in the



6 Stories for the Household.

open air, in the little old- fashioned houses it was darker still. One of
these houses was built with its gable end towards the street, and stood
there, with its small narrow windows, humble and poor enough in appear-
ance; the family was poor, too, that inhabited the little house, but good
and industrious, and rich in a treasure of piety concealed in the depth of
the heart. And they expected that God would soon give them another
child : the hour had come, aud the mother lay in pain and sorrow. Then
from the church tower opposite the deep rich sound of the bell came to
her. It was a solemn hour, and the song of the bell filled the heart of
the praying woman with trustfulness and faith ; the thoughts of her
inmost heart soared upward towards the Almighty, and in the same hour
she gave birth to a son. Then she was filled with a great joy, and the
bell in the tower opposite seemed to be ringing to spread the news of
her happiness over town and country. The clear child-eyes looked at
her, and the infant's hair gleamed like gold. Thus was the little one
ushered into the world with the ringing of the church bell on the dark
November day. The mother and father kissed it, and wrote in their
Bible : "On the 10th of November, 1759, God gave us a son ;" and soon
afterwards the fact was added that the child had been baptized under the
name of " Johann Christoph Friedrich."

And what became of the little fellow, the poor boy in the pretty town
of Marbach ? Ah, at that time no one knew what would become of him,
not even the old church bell that had sung at his birth, hanging so high
in the tower, over him who was one day himself to sing the beautiful
;( Lay of the Bell."

Well, the boy grew older, and the world grew older with him. His
parents certainly removed to another town, but they had left dear friends
in little Marbach ; and thus it v. as that mother and son one day arose
and drove over to Marbach on a visit. The lad was only six years old,
but he already knew many things out of the Bible, and many a pious
psalm ; and many an evening he had sat on his little stool, listening while
his father read aloud from " Gellert's Fables," or from the lofty " Mes-
siah " of Klopstock ; and he and his sister, who was his senior by two
years, had wept hot tears of pity for Him who died on the cross that
we might live eternally.

At the time of this first visit to Marbach the little town had not
greatly changed ; and indeed they had not long left it. The houses stood,
as on the day of the family's departure, with their pointed gables, pro-
jecting walls, the higher storeys leaning over the lower, and their tiny
windows ; but there were new graves in the churchyard ; and there, in
the grass, hard by the wall, lay the old bell. It had fallen from its
position, and had sustained sucli damage that it could sound no more,
and accordingly a new bell had been put in its place.

Mother and son went into the churchyard. They stopped where the
old bell lay, and the mother told the boy how for centuries this had been
a very useful bell, and had rung at christenings, at weddings, and at
burials ; how it had spoken at one time to tell of feasts and of rejoicings,
at another to spread the alarm of fire ; and how it had, in fact, sung the



The Old Church Bell. 7

whole life of inau. Arid the boy never forgot what his mother told him
that day. It resounded and echoed at intervals in his heart, until, when
he was grown a man, he was compelled to sing it. The mother told him
also how the bell had sung of faith and comfort to her in the time of
her peril, that it had sung at the time when he, her little son, was born
And the boy gazed, almost with a feeling of devotion, at the great old
bell ; and he bent over it and kissed it, as it lay all rusty and broken
among the long grass and nettles.

The old bell was held in kindly remembrance by the boy, who grew up
in poverty, tall and thin, with reddish hair and freckled face; yes,
that 's how he looked ; but he had a pair of eyes, clear and deep as the
deepest water. And what fortune had he ? Why, good fortune, envi-
able fortune. We find him graciously received into the military school,
and even in the department where sons of people in society were taught,
and was that not honour and fortune enough ? And they educated him
to the words of command, " Halt ! march ! front !" and on such a system
much might be expected.

Meanwhile the old church bell had been almost completely forgotten.
But it was to be presumed that the bell would find its way into the
furnace, and what would become of it then ? It was impossible to say,
and equally impossible to tell what sounds would come forth from the
bell that kept echoing through the young heart of the boy from Mar-
bach ; but that bell was of bronze, and kept sounding so loud that it
must at last be heard out in the wide world ; and the more cramped the
space within the school walls, and the more deafening the dreary shout
of " March ! halt ! front ! " the louder did the sound ring through the
youth's breast ; and he sang what he felt in the circle of his companions.
and the sound was heard beyond the boundaries of the principality.
But it was not for this they had given him a presentation to the military
school, and board, and clothing. Had he not been already numbered
and destined to be a certain wheel in the great watchwork to which we
all belong as pieces of practical machinery ? How imperfectly do we
understand ourselves ! and how, then, shall others, even the best men,
understand us ? But it is the pressure that forms the precious stone.
There was pressure enough here ; but would the world be able, some day,
to recognize the jewel ?

In the capital of the prince of the country, a great festival was being
celebrated. ~ Thousands of candles and lamps gleamed brightly, and
rockets flew towards the heavens in streams of fire. The splendour of
that day yet lives in the remembrance of men, but it lives through him,
the young scholar of the military school, who was trying in sorrow and
tears to escape unperceived from the land : he was compelled to leave
all mother, native country, those he loved unless he could resign
himself to sink into the stream of oblivion among his fellows.

The old bell was better off than he, for the bell would remain peace-
ably by the churchyard wall in Marbach, safe, and almost forgotten.
The wind whistled over it, and might have told a fine tale of him at
whose birth the bell had sounded, and over whom the wind had but now



8



Stories for the Household.



blown cold in tlie forest of a neighbouring land, where he had sunk
down, exhausted by fatigue, with his whole wealth, his only hope for the
future, the written pages of his tragedy " Fiesco :" the wind might have
told of the youth's only patrons, men who were artists, and who yet
slunk away to amuse themselves at skittles while his play was being
read : the wind could have told of the pale fugitive, who sat for weary
weeks and months in the wretched tavern, where the host brawled and
drank, and coarse boozing was going on while he sang of the ideal.
Heavy days, dark days ! The heart must suffer and endure for itself
the trials it is to sing.

Dark days and cold nights also passed over the old bell. The iron
frame did not feel them, but the bell within the heart of man is affected
by gloomy times. How fared it with the young man ? How fared it




REMOVING THE BELL.



with the old bell ? The bell was carried far away, farther than its sound
could have been heard from the lofty tower in which it had once hung.
And the youth ? The bell in his heart sounded farther than his eye
should ever see or his foot should ever wander ; it is sounding and
sounding on, over the ocean, round the whole earth. But let us first
speak of the belfry bell. It was carried away from Marbach, was sold