I just want to be surrounded by so much love in my life. And not just relationships. Love for my job, my home, the stars, the sunsets, the place I live where ever in the world that is. I want to experience love in all forms – Anna
Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.
I just want to be surrounded by so much love in my life. And not just relationships. Love for my job, my home, the stars, the sunsets, the place I live where ever in the world that is. I want to experience love in all forms – Anna
This is the Fairy Tale story of The Snow Queen. It has been adapted from Hans Christian Andersen’s version and is brought to you by Stories to Grow by.
The Wizard’s Mirror
ONCE THERE WAS AN EVIL WIZARD who made a mirror with his dark magic. If anything good or beautiful was put in front of the mirror, the reflection that showed back was only rotten and gray.
The wizard laughed. He wanted to show his evil mirror to the whole world! He took it and flew up high into the sky. He flew so fast that the mirror started to shake. He could no longer hold on to it and the mirror dropped! It smashed into many tiny sharp bits of glass on the ground.
The wind blew the glass all over the place. From then on, if one bit of that evil glass blew into anyone’s eye, that person would see only the bad and dark in people, no more the good. So it was in that land.
Years later, a boy named Kai and a girl named Gerda were friends. They lived next door to each other. Both of them had their bedrooms in the attic. When they opened their attic windows, they were so close they could reach out and touch fingers. An old gutter ran between the two roofs. In the gutter where water ran through, the families had planted a garden with vegetables and roses. It was like Kai and Gerda’s very own garden. Kai and Gerda’s families were poor. There were no toys to play with. But they did not mind. They played in their garden on the roof, and were happy.
When they opened their windows, they were so close they could reach out and touch fingers.
One day, Gerda and Kai were on the roof weeding the garden. All of a sudden, a gust of wind blew by. It blew a sharp bit of that evil glass right into Kai’s eye. He stood up, stepping on the roses. “I do not want to weed this stupid garden anymore!” he said.
“Okay,” said Gerda. “Do you know you’re stepping on the roses? How about a clapping game?”
But Kai cried out, “I don’t care if I step on all the roses! And I never want to play with you, Gerda. Ever again!”
The Snow Queen
The next day, Kai took his sled into town. Ah, that sled was so slow! A big white sleigh was coming down the road very fast. The sleigh came close to Kai and as it did, it slowed down just a bit. Kai had an idea. He quickly tied the rope of his sled onto the back of the sleigh. Now he could ride behind on his sled! But what Kai did not know is that driving the sleigh was the evil Snow Queen.
The Snow Queen, in her white fur coat, had known very well that Kai was on the road. She had slowed down her sleigh when she got closer, to give him a chance to tie on the rope. She did not turn around to look. She knew that Kai was speeding along behind her. Soon he would be near frozen with cold. Then, she knew, it would be easy to make him hers.
But what Kai did not know is that driving the sleigh was the Snow Queen.
The Snow Queen drove on. When she knew Kai must be bitter cold, she stopped the sleigh. She went up to the boy. “You want to ride behind my big sleigh?” said the Snow Queen. “I can make it so you do not feel the cold.” Kai shivered. “I will give you one kiss on your cheek. Then you will no longer feel cold.”
Kai nodded. She kissed him on the cheek. He no longer felt cold.
“Now, one more kiss,” said the Snow Queen. “With this one, you will forget all about Gerda and your family.” Before Kai could say anything, the Snow Queen had kissed the other cheek. She laughed and said, “If I kissed you a third time on your forehead, you would die. But I have things for you to do for me back at my palace.” Then she got into her sleigh and drove on.
Where was Kai?
Kai did not return home that day. Or the day after that. You can imagine how upset everyone was! They said poor Kai must have drowned in the river. Gerda ran down to the river. She called out to the waters rushing by – Is it true? The river would not say. Gerda took off her red shoes and held them up. She said she would throw her red shoes into the river, if only the river would give back Kai. But the river would not let her throw in the shoes. And that is how Gerda knew that he must not be under the water.
But where was he?
Gerda went many places looking for Kai. She went to see a witch. The witch tried to trick Gerda into staying with her forever. Gerda ran out very fast, just in time. Then she met a crow. The crow told Gerda that to find Kai, she must go to the palace of a Princess.
But where was he?
So off went Gerda to the palace of the Princess. She did not know anything about Kai. But sey gave Gerda warm clothes and a beautiful coach she could ride on her way.
The Robber Girl
Gerda was riding her coach when a band of robbers jumped up from behind. The robbers were led by a Robber Girl. The Robber Girl made Gerda go into the back of the coach. Then she took the reins. And Gerda was her prisoner!
Poor Gerda! She had lost her coach. She was a prisoner. And she had no more clue than ever where to find Kai.
The Robber Girl took Gerda back to the house where she lived. Gerda must sleep in the barn, in a corner next to a reindeer.
When the Robber Girl had left, Gerda cried out, “Oh Kai, where are you?” Two white dove birds up high in the loft of the barn, heard her cry.
“Oh Kai, where are you?”
Said one dove to her, “We remember seeing that boy Kai you speak of.”
“You do?” said Gerda.
“What a sad day that was!” said the other dove. “That was when the Snow Queen drove by on her sleigh. The boy Kai was riding behind on his sled, very fast.”
“We were sitting in our nest,” said the first dove. “When that evil Snow Queen passed by, she turned and breathed on us.” The dove could not finish, and the other one said, “Only my brother and I lived after that!”
“How terrible! I am so sorry for you,” said Gerda. “But you saw my dear Kai? Where was the sleigh headed?”
“Most likely the Snow Queen was going to her palace in Lapland,” said the first dove. “That’s where there is snow and ice all year long.”
“How will I ever find this place, Lapland?” said Gerda.
“Only you and I survived!”
Then the reindeer, who was roped to a post, spoke up. “I know all about Lapland,” said the reindeer. “It is where I was born.”
“Please, could you take me there?” said Gerda.
“Yes I could, if only you and I were free of this place. But who knows how long we must stay here?”
The Robber Girl was just outside the barn door all this time. She was not really so mean after all. She went into the barn and cut the ropes that bound the reindeer. She helped Gerda mount the reindeer and gave her a cushion to sit on. She even gave Gerda a pair of fur boots, two loaves of bread and a piece of bacon, too. “Be off now,” said the Robber Girl. “Find your friend.”
Off like the wind flew Gerda and the reindeer. They rode and rode until it got dark. Then they needed to find a place to stay for the night.
Two Visits
They knocked on the door of a hut. An old woman opened the door and welcomed them in. Gerda and the reindeer told her about their search to find Kai. The old woman said, “You still have a long way to go to get to Lapland. The Snow Queen’s palace is 100 miles away.”
“How will we find it?” said Gerda.
“The windows of her palace burn with a blue light that can be seen for miles around,” said she. “You can’t miss it. But when you get there, do not go right up to the palace. First, look for a cabin nearby with a red door. Inside that cabin lives a Lapland woman I know.” The old woman picked up a piece of dried fish and wrote some words on it. “Give her this fish,” said the old woman,”and she will help you.”
The next day, the reindeer and Gerda rode as fast as they could. They flew like the wind for three days. On the third day, they saw blue lights from afar. When they got closer, they saw it was a large, dark palace, Nearby, just as the old woman had said, was a cabin with a red door. Very cold they were by then, and hungry too. And glad when a Lapland woman opened the door and let them warm themselves by her fire.
The next day, the reindeer and Gerda flew like the wind.
Gerda told her that they had coming looking her dear friend Kai. And that Kai was last seen with the Snow Queen. She handed the fish to the Lapland woman.
She read the words on the fish three times. Then she put it in the pot on the fire for soup, as she never wanted to waste anything.
“Did it tell you anything at all?” cried out Gerda.
The reindeer said, “Something to give Gerda the power of ten men?”
“The power of ten men!” said the Lapland woman, in a huff. “That would be of very little use. There is nothing anyone can do for this girl that she can not do for herself!” She turned to Gerda. “Your friend Kai got some bad glass in his eye. That is why the Snow Queen took him. By now, she has probably kissed him twice. That gives her full power over him.”
“Surely something can be done!” cried Gerda.
“Maybe,” said the Lapland woman. She turned to the reindeer. “Take Gerda to the Snow Queen’s palace. You will see a bush with red berries half covered in snow. Put her down at the bush and wait for her there while she goes to find Kai. And Gerda,” said she, turning to the girl, “there is something you must know. When you find Kai, he will not want to leave. He is in her power. He thinks that her palace is the very best place in the world. He has forgotten all about you.”
“What will I do?” Gerda cried out.
“Look at what you have already done!” said the Lapland woman. “Look at how far you have already come.”
“The power of ten men!” said the wise woman. “That would be of very little use to her.”
And so Gerda mounted the reindeer, and off they went.
The Palace of the Snow Queen
“Oh, no!” said Gerda after the cabin was no longer in sight. “I left my fur boots behind!” But there was no time to go back. So on they went.
At the bush with red berries, Gerda climbed off the reindeer. There she was, with no boots and her feet bare in the cold snow. But the Snow Queen’s palace was right ahead of her, its blue lights burning in the windows. So Gerda walked on.
As she went, she called and called for Kai. At last, there he was! He was sitting on top of a frozen lake, down on his knees. A throne sat on the lake, and it was empty. The Snow Queen had given Kai a job of setting pieces of ice into words. Other pieces of ice he must make into numbers. For this frozen lake was the Lake of Reason. And the throne was the very throne of the Snow Queen.
At last, there he was!
“Kai!” called Gerda. But he did not look up.
Kai’s skin was dark blue, as if he was frozen. He had so little feeling left he did not even notice the cold anymore. The Snow Queen was away and Kai was busy with his task, working on the frozen lake. He moved one piece of ice here and another there, making the words and numbers.
“Kai!” called Gerda again. Still, Kai did not look up. Gerda ran right up to his face. “Kai! Kai!”
At last, Kai looked up. But he looked right past her with his deep dark eyes, and did not see her at all. Gerda burst into tears. Cold and cutting was the wind on that lake. As Gerda cried “Kai, where are you?” one of her tears blew right onto Kai’s face.
The tear burned his face until his whole face felt hot. Then Kai, too, was crying.
“Gerda!” said Kai, “is that you?” Kai shivered. He cried with joy, for the evil bit of glass was washed from his eye. Kai took Gerda’s hands. Though they were both frozen cold, each of them felt warm inside.
Trip Back Home
Gerda and Kai walked hand in hand back to the bush with the red berries, where the reindeer waited. As they walked, the sun came out and warmed and dried them. The wind stopped and birds started to chirp. Before they knew it, there was the reindeer, in front of them.
The reindeer took them back the the first old woman, who gave Gerda a new pair of fur boots. Each of them got a fur hat, too. As the reindeer carried them on the long road back home, who came along the road but the Robber Girl! She was riding the coach she had taken from Gerda, but Gerda was glad to see her, just the same.
The Robber Girl said to Gerda, “So this is the friend you traveled all the way across the world to save. I hope he was worth it!” They all smiled.
The Robber Girl said they should hop on her sleigh and she would give them a lift home. By the time they finally got home, it was summertime. Much to their surprise, they were all grown up.
It was summertime, and they were all grown up.
In the years that came to be, Gerda and Kai stayed the best of friends. There were no more adventures with the Snow Queen or the cold frozen north, and each lived a quiet life. But they knew deep down that no matter what, they would always look out for each other.
This nightmarish story follows a little girl named Karen, who is given a pair of gorgeous red shoes by her adoptive mother. She likes them so much, she wears them to church, but is told she must only wear black shoes to church. Next Sunday, however, Karen cannot resist, and puts them on again. At church, a mysterious soldier commands the shoes never to come off when they dance. One day, when her adoptive mother is ill, Karen goes to a ball to dance in the shoes – and they won’t come off. They dance day and night, and an angel condemns Karen to dance forever, even after she dies. Karen asks an executioner to cut off her feet, but the shoes continue to dance even then. Karen is given wooden feet and crutches and decides to go back to church, but the red shoes appear and scare her away. Karen prays for help and the angel reappears, providing the mercy Karen asked for. Karen’s heart bursts with joy and her soul goes to Heaven, where the red shoes are never mentioned.
In this rather sad but sweet tale, a boy receives 25 tin soldiers for his birthday, and arranges them on a table. One soldier stands on a single leg, for there was not enough metal left to make him whole. A paper ballerina, who stands nearby, also stands on one leg, and the soldier falls in love with her. However, a jack-in-the-box warns the soldier to stay away from the ballerina. The following day, the soldier falls from a windowsill. He is washed into a canal and swallowed by a fish. But once the fish is caught and cut open, the soldier finds himself back on the table with the ballerina. The boy impulsively throws the tin soldier into the fire, and a sudden wind blows the ballerina into the fire with him – and she is quickly consumed by it. When a maid cleans the fireplace in the morning, she discovers the tin soldier has melted into a heart.
This touching tale stars the Emperor of China, who discovers that one of the most beautiful things in his empire is the song of the nightingale. A kitchen maid leads the court into a nearby forest, where a nightingale agrees to join them. He remains the king’s favourite at court – until the king is brought a glittering mechanical bird, and loses interest in the real nightingale, which returns to the forest. The mechanical bird eventually breaks, and a few years later, the king becomes mortally ill. The real nightingale learns of the Emperor’s illness and returns to the palace. Death is so moved by the nightingale’s song, he allows the Emperor to live.
This highly poignant and thought-provoking story follows a little girl, who is trying to sell matches on the street on a freezing cold New Year’s Eve. She begins to light the matches for warmth instead, and sees wonderful visions in the glow of their flames, including a vision of her beloved late grandmother. She then looks up to see a beautiful shooting star. Once she runs out of matches, she passes away from the cold, but she gets to spend a joyful New Year with her grandmother in Heaven.
Even I am adult I always cry,This is so sad for me
In this funny and memorable tale, a prince is having terrible difficulty finding a wife. He is highly sceptical about the women he meets who claim to be princesses, for they are often too fat, too skinny or not sufficiently beautiful, or they have bad table manners. One night, a woman drenched through from the rain asks to take shelter in the prince’s castle. She claims to be a princess, so the prince’s mother decides to test this claim by placing a pea beneath the woman’s 20 mattresses and feather-beds. In the morning, the woman complains that she suffered a sleepless night, kept awake by something hard in the bed. The prince and his mother rejoice, for only a princess would be sensitive enough to feel the pea through the vast amount of bedding. The prince and the princess subsequently marry.
In this magical tale, a peasant’s wife plants a barleycorn given to her by a beggar woman, and a tiny girl named Thumbelina emerges from its flower. One fateful night, Thumbelina is asleep in her walnut-shell cradle when she is carried off by a toad, who plans to marry her to her son. Thumbelina escapes, but she is then captured by a beetle, who releases her when his friends reject her company. When winter arrives, Thumbelina is given shelter by a field mouse, who suggests she marry her neighbour, a mole. However, Thumbelina finds such a prospect unacceptable, for such a creature has never seen the sun or sky. She escapes by fleeing to a faraway land on a swallow. She meets a tiny flower-fairy prince in a field of flowers, and they marry – the perfect fairy tale ending.
When a mother duck’s eggs hatch, one of the baby birds looks rather different from the rest, and is rejected and bullied by the other animals on the farm. He wanders unhappily for a while from place to place, and gazes wistfully one day at a flock of swans, whom he cannot join because he is too young and cannot fly. After a freezing winter, the flock of swans descends again on the thawing lake as spring arrives. The duckling heads towards them, deciding it is better to be killed by these beautiful birds than live a sad, lonely life. However, he is astonished when they welcome him to their flock. By looking at his reflection, he realises that he has become one of them! He spreads his stunning wings and takes flight with the rest of his new family.
This sweet, short tale follows Ida, who is sad that her flowers are drooping. A student tells her that the flowers are tired because they have been dancing all night at a ball. Ida will come to see the truth of this that same night, when she wakes up to find flowers dancing in the playroom! In the morning, Ida buries the drooping flowers in the garden, ready for them to flourish once more the following summer.
In Hans Christian’s Andersen’s fairy tale, the little mermaid rescues a handsome Prince from a shipwreck during a storm. Captivated by the human world, she journeys to the sea witch and trades her tongue for a pair of human legs. She must make the handsome Prince fall in love with her and marry her in order to obtain an immortal human soul – but the Prince marries a beautiful Princess instead. The mermaid is told she can kill the Prince to get her fish tail back, but she cannot bring herself to do it. Heartbroken, she dives into the sea and disintegrates into foam, but then rises into an ethereal realm, destined for Heaven.
cipela za dvoje 