“What are you saying up there?” asked Gerda. “Where was the Snow Queen going? Do you know anything about it?”
“She was most likely going to Lapland, because there is always snow and ice there! Ask the reindeer who is tied up there.”
“There is ice and snow, and it’s a splendid place,” said the reindeer. “You can run and jump about where you like on those big glittering plains. The Snow Queen has her summer tent there, but her permanent castle is up at the North Pole, on the island which is called Spitzbergen!”
“Oh Kay, little Kay!” sighed Gerda.
“Lie still, or I shall stick the knife into you!” said the robber girl.
In the morning Gerda told her all that the wood pigeons had said, and the little robber girl looked quite solemn, but she nodded her head and said, “No matter, no matter! Do you know where Lapland is?” she asked the reindeer.
“Who should know better than I,” said the animal, its eyes dancing. “I was born and brought up there, and I used to leap about on the snow-fields.”
“Listen,” said the robber girl. “You see that all our men folks are away, but mother is still here, and she will stay; but later on in the morning she will take a drink out of the big bottle there, and after that she will have a nap—then I will do something for you.” Then she jumped out of bed, ran along to her mother and pulled her beard, and said, “Good morning, my own dear nanny-goat!” And her mother filliped her nose till it was red and blue; but it was all affection.
As soon as her mother had had her draught from the bottle and had dropped asleep, the little robber girl went along to the reindeer, and said, “I should have the greatest pleasure in the world in keeping you here, to tickle you with my knife, because you are such fun then; however, it does not matter. I will untie your halter and help you outside so that you may run away to Lapland, but you must put your best foot foremost, and take this little girl for me to the Snow Queen’s palace, where her playfellow is. I have no doubt you heard what she was telling me, for she spoke loud enough, and you are generally eavesdropping!”
The reindeer jumped into the air for joy. The robber girl lifted little Gerda up, and had the forethought to tie her on, nay, even to give her a little cushion to sit upon. “Here, after all, I will give you your fur boots back, for it will be very cold, but I will keep your muff, it is too pretty to part with. Still you shan’t be cold. Here are my mother’s big mittens for you, they will reach up to your elbows; here, stick your hands in! Now your hands look just like my nasty mother’s!”
Gerda shed tears of joy.
“I don’t like you to whimper!” said the little robber girl. “You ought to be looking delighted; and here are two loaves and a ham for you, so that you shan’t starve.”
These things were tied on to the back of the reindeer; the little robber girl opened the door, called in all the big dogs, and then she cut the halter with her knife, and said to the reindeer, “Now run, but take care of my little girl!”
Gerda stretched out her hands in the big mittens to the robber girl and said good-bye; and then the reindeer darted off over briars and bushes, through the big wood, over swamps and plains, as fast as it could go. The wolves howled and the ravens screamed, while the red lights quivered up in the sky.
“There are my old northern lights,” said the reindeer; “see how they flash!” and on it rushed faster than ever, day and night. The loaves were eaten. and the ham too, and then they were in Lapland.
SIXTH STORY
The Lapp Woman and the Finn Woman
They stopped by a little hut, a very poverty-stricken one; the roof sloped right down to the ground, and the door was so low that the people had to creep on hands and knees when they wanted to go in or out. There was nobody at home here but an old Lapp woman, who was frying fish over a train-oil lamp. The reindeer told her all Gerda’s story, but it told its own first; for it thought it was much the most important. Gerda was so overcome by the cold that she could not speak at all.
“Oh, you poor creatures!” said the Lapp woman; “you’ve got a long way to go yet; you will have to go hundreds of miles into Finmark, for the Snow Queen is paying a country visit there, and she burns blue lights every night. I will write a few words on a dried stock-fish, for I have no paper. I will give it to you to take to the Finn woman up there. She will be better able to direct you than I can.”
So when Gerda was warmed, and had eaten and drunk something, the Lapp woman wrote a few words on a dried stock-fish and gave it to her, bidding her take good care of it. Then she tied her on to the reindeer again, and off they flew. Flicker, flicker, went the beautiful blue northern lights up in the sky all night long;—at last they came to Finmark, and knocked on the Finn woman’s chimney, for she had no door at all.
There was such a heat inside that the Finn woman went about almost naked; she was little and very grubby. She at once loosened Gerda’s things, and took off the mittens and the boots, or she would have been too hot. Then she put a piece of ice on the reindeer’s head, and after that she read what was written on the stock-fish. She read it three times, and then she knew it by heart, and put the fish into the pot for dinner; there was no reason why it should not be eaten, and she never wasted anything.
Again the reindeer told his own story first, and then little Gerda’s. The Finn woman blinked with her wise eyes, but she said nothing.
“You are so clever,” said the reindeer, “I know you can bind all the winds of the world with a bit of sewing cotton. When a skipper unties one knot he gets a good wind, when he unties two it blows hard, and if he undoes the third and the fourth he brings a storm about his head wild enough to blow down the forest trees. Won’t you give the little girl a drink, so that she may have the strength of twelve men to overcome the Snow Queen?”
“The strength of twelve men,” said the Finn woman.
“Yes, that will be about enough.”
She went along to a shelf and took down a big folded skin, which she unrolled. There were curious characters written on it, and the Finn woman read till the perspiration poured down her forehead.
But the reindeer again implored her to give Gerda something, and Gerda looked at her with such beseeching eyes, full of tears, that the Finn woman began blinking again, and drew the reindeer along into a corner, where she whispered to it, at the same time putting fresh ice on its head.
“Little Kay is certainly with the Snow Queen, and he is delighted with everything there. He thinks it is the best place in the world, but that is because he has got a splinter of glass in his heart and a grain of glass in his eye. They will have to come out first, or he will never be human again, and the Snow Queen will keep him in her power!”
“But can’t you give little Gerda something to take which will give her power to conquer it all?”
“I can’t give her greater power than she already has. Don’t you see how great it is? Don’t you see how both man and beast have to serve her? How she has got on as well as she has on her bare feet? We must not tell her what power she has; it is in her heart, because she is such a sweet innocent child. If she can’t reach the Snow Queen herself, then we can’t help her. The Snow Queen’s gardens begin just two miles from here; you can carry the little girl as far as that. Put her down by the big bush standing there in the snow covered with red berries. Don’t stand gossiping, but hurry back to me!” Then the Finn woman lifted Gerda on to the reindeer’s back, and it rushed off as hard as it could.
“Oh, I have not got my boots, and I have not got my mittens!” cried little Gerda.
She soon felt the want of them in that cutting wind, but the reindeer did not dare to stop. It ran on till it came to the bush with the red berries. There it put Gerda down, and kissed her on the mouth, while big shining tears trickled down its face. Then it ran back again as fast as ever it could. There stood poor little Gerda, without shoes or gloves, in the middle of freezing icebound Finmark.
She ran forward as quickly as she could. A whole regime
nt of snowflakes came towards her; they did not fall from the sky, for it was quite clear, with the northern lights shining brightly. No; these snow-flakes ran along the ground, and the nearer they came the bigger they grew. Gerda remembered well how big and ingenious they looked under the magnifying glass. But the size of these was monstrous, they were alive, they were the Snow Queen’s advanced guard, and they took the most curious shapes. Some looked like big, horrid porcupines, some like bundles of knotted snakes with their heads sticking out. Others, again, were like fat little bears with bristling hair, but all were dazzling white and living snow-flakes.
Then little Gerda said the Lord’s Prayer, and the cold was so great that her breath froze as it came out of her mouth, and she could see it like a cloud of smoke in front of her. It grew thicker and thicker, till it formed itself into bright little angels who grew bigger and bigger when they touched the ground. They all wore helmets and carried shields and spears in their hands. More and more of them appeared, and when Gerda had finished her prayer she was surrounded by a whole legion. They pierced the snowflakes with their spears and shivered them into a hundred pieces, and little Gerda walked fearlessly and undauntedly through them. The angels touched her hands and her feet, and then she hardly felt how cold it was, but walked quickly on towards the Palace of the Snow Queen.
Now we must see what Kay was about. He was not thinking about Gerda at all, least of all that she was just outside the Palace.
SEVENTH STORY
What Happened in the Snow Queen’s Palace and Afterwards
The Palace walls were made of drifted snow, and the windows and doors of the biting winds. There were over a hundred rooms in it, shaped just as the snow had drifted. The biggest one stretched for many miles. They were all lighted by the strongest northern lights. All the rooms were immensely big and empty, and glittering in their iciness. There was never any gaiety in them; not even so much as a ball for the little bears, when the storms might have turned up as the orchestra, and the polar bears might have walked about on their hind legs and shown off their grand manners. There was never even a little game-playing party, for such games as “touch last” or “the biter bit”—no, not even a little gossip over the coffee cups for the white fox misses. Immense, vast, and cold were the Snow Queen’s halls. The northern lights came and went with such regularity that you could count the seconds between their coming and going. In the midst of these never-ending snow-halls was a frozen lake. It was broken up on the surface into a thousand bits, but each piece was so exactly like the others that the whole formed a perfect work of art. The Snow Queen sat in the very middle of it when she sat at home. She then said that she was sitting on “The Mirror of Reason,” and that it was the best and only one in the world.
Little Kay was blue with cold, nay, almost black; but he did not know it, for the Snow Queen had kissed away the icy shiverings, and his heart was little better than a lump of ice. He went about dragging some sharp, flat pieces of ice, which he placed in all sorts of patterns, trying to make something out of them; just as when we at home have little tablets of wood, with which we make patterns, and call them a “Chinese puzzle.”
Kay’s patterns were most ingenious, because they were the “Ice puzzles of Reason.” In his eyes they were first-rate and of the greatest importance: this was because of the grain of glass still in his eye. He made many patterns forming words, but he never could find out the right way to place them for one particular word, a word he was most anxious to make. It was “Eternity.” The Snow Queen had said to him that if he could find out this word he should be his own master, and she would give him the whole world and a new pair of skates. But he could not discover it.
“Now I am going to fly away to the warm countries,” said the Snow Queen. “I want to go and peep into the black cauldrons!” She meant the volcanoes Etna and Vesuvius by this. “I must whiten them a little; it does them good, and the lemons and the grapes too!” And away she flew.
Kay sat quite alone in all those many miles of empty ice halls. He looked at his bits of ice, and thought and thought, till something gave way within him. He sat so stiff and immovable that one might have thought he was frozen to death.
Then it was that little Gerda walked into the Palace, through the great gates in a biting wind. She said her evening prayer, and the wind dropped as if lulled to sleep, and she walked on into the big empty hall. She saw Kay, and knew him at once; she flung her arms round his neck, held him fast, and cried, “Kay, little Kay, have I found you at last?”
But he sat still, rigid and cold.
Then little Gerda shed hot tears; they fell upon his breast and penetrated to his heart. Here they thawed the lump of ice, and melted the little bit of the mirror which was in it. He looked at her, and she sang:
“Where roses deck the flowery vale,
There, Infant Jesus, we thee hail!”
Then Kay burst into tears; he cried so much that the grain of glass was washed out of his eye. He knew her, and shouted with joy, “Gerda, dear little Gerda! where have you been for such a long time? And where have I been?” He looked round and said, “How cold it is here; how empty and vast!” He kept tight hold of Gerda, who laughed and cried for joy. Their happiness was so heavenly that even the bits of ice danced for joy around them; and when they settled down, there they lay! just in the very position the Snow Queen had told Kay he must find out, if he was to become his own master and have the whole world and a new pair of skates.
Gerda kissed his cheeks and they grew rosy, she kissed his eyes and they shone like hers, she kissed his hands and his feet, and he became well and strong. The Snow Queen might come home whenever she liked, his order of release was written there in shining letters of ice.
They took hold of each other’s hands and wandered out of the big Palace. They talked about grandmother, and about the roses upon the roof. Wherever they went the winds lay still and the sun broke through the clouds. When they reached the bush with the red berries they found the reindeer waiting for them, and he had brought another young reindeer with him, whose udders were full. The children drank her warm milk and kissed her on the mouth. Then they carried Kay and Gerda, first to the Finn woman, in whose heated hut they warmed themselves and received directions about the homeward journey. Then they went on to the Lapp woman; she had made new clothes for them and prepared her sledge. Both the reindeer ran by their side, to the boundaries of the country; here the first green buds appeared, and they said “Good-bye” to the reindeer and the Lapp woman. They heard the first little birds twittering and saw the buds in the forest. Out of it came riding a young girl on a beautiful horse, which Gerda knew, for it had drawn the golden chariot. She had a scarlet cap on her head and pistols in her belt; it was the little robber girl, who was tired of being at home. She was riding northwards to see how she liked it before she tried some other part of the world. She knew them again, and Gerda recognised her with delight.
“You are a nice fellow to go tramping off!” she said to little Kay. “I should like to know if you deserve to have somebody running to the end of the world for your sake!”
But Gerda patted her cheek, and asked about the Prince and Princess.
“They are travelling in foreign countries,” said the robber girl.
“But the crow?” asked Gerda.
“Oh, the crow is dead!” she answered. “The tame sweetheart is a widow, and goes about with a bit of black wool tied round her leg. She pities herself bitterly, but it’s all nonsense! But tell me how you got on yourself, and where you found him.”
Gerda and Kay both told her all about it.
“Snip, snap, snurre, it’s all right at last then!” she said, and she took hold of their hands and promised that if she ever passed through their town she would pay them a visit. Then she rode off into the wide world. But Kay and Gerda walked on, hand in hand, and wherever they went, they found the most delightful spring and blooming flowers. Soon they recognised the big town where they lived, with its tall towers,
in which the bells still rang their merry peals. They went straight on to grandmother’s door, up the stairs and into her room. Everything was just as they had left it, and the old clock ticked in the corner, and the hands pointed to the time. As they went through the door into the room they perceived that they were grown up. The roses clustered round the open window, and there stood their two little chairs. Kay and Gerda sat down upon them still holding each other by the hand. All the cold empty grandeur of the Snow Queen’s palace had passed from their memory like a bad dream. Grandmother sat in God’s warm sunshine reading from her Bible.
“Without ye become as little children ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Kay and Gerda looked into each other’s eyes and then all at once the meaning of the old hymn came to them.
“Where roses deck the flowery vale,
There, Infant Jesus, we thee hail!”
And there they both sat, grown up and yet children, children at heart; and it was summer—warm, beautiful summer.
THE MAGIC MIRROR
by George MacDonald
* * *
In 1947, Lewis edited George MacDonald: An Anthology, a collection of extracts from MacDonald’s many volumes designed to spread his religious teachings. In the Preface, Lewis wrote: “I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed, I fancy that I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him.” MacDonald was probably the single most important influence on Lewis’s life and thought.
Tales Before Narnia Page 5