I am one of twenty-five tin soldiers. We are all brothers, born of the same old tin spoon. We shoulder our muskets and look straight ahead, splendid in our red and blue uniforms. We all look exactly alike. I am the only one who is different. I was the last to be cast...
I have drawn the prince down into a pit of fire. Ha! He used to turn his face from me. He couldn’t meet my ugliness. Well, now, he must look at me. Look hard! I appear to him in the smoke, on the arm of a beautiful slave. Ha, I see the admiration in his eyes...
I’m a high, high, glass mountain, slippery as ice, standing close to the king’s palace. On my peak sits a princess with three golden apples on her lap. The man who can ride up and take those apples will win her hand in marriage, and half the kingdom too....
When the good fairy Placida turned herself into an old woman to greet the queen on the roadside, the queen scolded the old woman because she didn’t curtsey deeply enough! I was compelled to intervene. I rode in on my chariot, escorted by my fairy companions on...
I stand tall and proud in the midst of the sea. I am built of shells of all shapes and colors. My lowest floor is like a great bathroom where the water sloshes in and out. The second floor holds the apartments of a princess who has been imprisoned here by the fairies....
