In the house where I live, I serve an old grey-bearded man. I am not allowed to speak. Only the old man can speak, and his grandmother, whose snoring can be heard throughout the countryside. But the rest of us must remain silent. Not even the oxen are allowed to...
A grey-bearded stranger comes and goes from here. He stamps the ground three times with his left foot and I open a secret door. Then he comes down from above and enters my thick darkness. Here, the earth and water, trees and plants, birds and beasts are only pale...
I was much loved by my mother and father, and I grew up tall and strong and handsome. I learned to run and shoot, and I could swim and dive better than any lad my age in the isles of the west. I knew how to sail, I sang with the harp, and I liked nothing better than...
He has taken my linen shift! My sisters have flown from the lake, and I am stranded here. Where did he go? I will find him. I will plead for the linen. I will tell him the truth. I’ve been seized by a witch and shut up in a glass mountain! I pray that he will...
I am a landmark in this country. People can see me from miles away. A high and mighty princess inhabits my high apartments, and she can see the whole kingdom through my twelve windows. Through the first window she can see more clearly than any human being, in every...
I was in the carriage with the family when the robbers attacked. They sprang out of the thicket, and killed everyone but me. I ran and ran and now I’m alone in the woods, without any food or shelter. What will I do? I can’t find my way back to the road,...
My mother has turned me into a raven, and though I have told a young man how to set me free, he can’t resist the temptation to eat and drink. For three days, he has failed to stay awake. He has lost his chances now, and so I have left him with several gifts. I...
The Snow Queen calls me the Mirror of Understanding, but I am cracked in a thousand pieces. She has recruited an intelligent little boy named Kay to fit my pieces together, but he has gone quite black and blue with cold. His heart has become a lump of ice, and yet he...
After her mother died, my daughter urged me to marry the countess. I refused. I neither liked nor trusted her. She was a schemer. But I had promised my daughter that I would always grant her wishes. So, I married the countess. As soon as she became queen, her...
My mother and father wanted a child so much that they made me out of snow, and I came to life. They called me Snowflake. Spring has arrived. The fields are full of flowers. Nightingales sing in the trees, and my friends are playing outside and shouting with glee. The...
