The Snow Queen - Danish

My name is Gerda, and not so long ago, my world was a small attic window and a rooftop garden filled with the most beautiful roses. Next to my window was the window of my dearest friend, Kai. We were like brother and sister, spending every sunlit hour together, tending our flowers and telling stories. We even built a little bench that stretched between our windows so we could cross over and sit together among the blooms. But even on the warmest days, my grandmother would tell us tales of a powerful, icy figure who ruled the winter, a woman whose breath was a blizzard and whose touch could freeze a heart solid. We always shivered, half in fear and half in delight, never thinking her stories were real until the day a shadow fell over our perfect world. This is the story of that shadow, a story many know as The Snow Queen.

The trouble began with a magical mirror, crafted by a mischievous troll, which had the wicked power to make everything beautiful and good look ugly and twisted. One day, the troll and his followers tried to carry it up to heaven to mock the angels, but it slipped from their grasp and shattered into a million billion tiny pieces, scattering like dust across the world. These slivers of glass were carried on the wind, and if one got into a person's eye, they saw only the worst in everything. If a piece pierced their heart, it would turn as cold and hard as a lump of ice. One day, while Kai and I were looking at a picture book, he suddenly cried out. A tiny shard of that wicked glass had flown into his eye, and another had pierced his heart. Instantly, he changed. The kindness in his eyes was replaced with a cold, cruel glint. He mocked our beautiful roses, saying, "Look how worm-eaten they are. They are ugly and imperfect." He became fascinated only with the cold, precise geometry of snowflakes, seeing more beauty in their perfect, unfeeling patterns than in anything warm or alive. My friend was lost to me, his heart turning to ice, even before the winter truly began.

One snowy afternoon, Kai went to the town square with his little sled, eager to show off how fast he could go. A magnificent sleigh, all white and shimmering like a giant snowflake, pulled up beside him. Driving it was a woman of dazzling, cold beauty, wrapped in white furs, her skin as pale as snow and her eyes like two glittering stars. It was the Snow Queen herself. She spoke to Kai, her voice like the winter wind, praising his cleverness and his newfound love for the perfection of ice and snow. She offered him a world without messy feelings like love or sadness, a world of pure, cold reason. Enchanted by her promises and his own frozen heart, Kai tied his little sled to hers. With a crack of her whip, she whisked him away into a swirling blizzard, disappearing toward the frozen north. I watched from a distance, my heart breaking into a thousand pieces, but a fire of determination was lit inside me. I would find my friend, no matter where she had taken him.

My journey to find Kai was long and filled with strange and perilous encounters. I left my home with nothing but the clothes on my back and a heart full of hope. First, I met an old woman with a magical garden where it was always summer and the flowers sang to me. She was kind, but her magic was meant to make me forget Kai, and I almost stayed there forever in a happy daze. It was only when I saw a rose painted on her hat that my memory flooded back, and I fled the garden, weeping for the time I had lost. Later, a clever crow, believing Kai might have married a princess, led me to a grand palace. It was not Kai, but the prince and princess were so moved by my story of loyalty that they gave me warm clothes, boots, and a golden carriage to help me on my way. But my journey was not over. The splendid carriage was attacked by robbers in a dark forest, and I was taken captive by a fierce little Robber Girl. Though she was wild and threatened me with her knife, she had a hidden kindness. She saw the unwavering love in my heart and, moved by my story, she set me free. She even gave me her most prized possession, a loyal reindeer named Bae, to carry me the rest of the way to Lapland, the frozen home of the Snow Queen.

The reindeer carried me across the vast, snowy plains to the Snow Queen's palace. It was a breathtaking but terrifying structure made of shimmering, razor-sharp ice, with over a hundred halls carved by the winter winds. The cold was so intense it could freeze your breath in an instant. Inside, in the center of a vast, empty hall, I found Kai. He was pale and blue with cold, sitting on a frozen lake, diligently trying to arrange shards of ice into patterns. The Snow Queen had given him a puzzle. If he could spell the word 'Eternity' with the ice, she had promised him the whole world and a new pair of skates. But the task was impossible, and he was frozen in his concentration, his heart completely numb. He didn't even recognize me when I called his name. I ran to him and threw my arms around him, and my warm tears fell onto his chest. They melted the shard of glass in his heart and washed the one from his eye. Kai began to weep, and his own tears washed the remaining ice away. He was himself again.

Together, Kai and I began the long journey home, hand in hand. As we traveled south, the world around us seemed to thaw with us. The snow melted, green shoots pushed through the earth, and birds began to sing. Spring was blooming everywhere, a mirror to the warmth that had returned to our own hearts. Along the way, we met our old friends who had helped me. We joyfully thanked the reindeer, who returned to the north. We visited the Robber Girl, who was happy to see us safe. The prince and princess welcomed us warmly. When we finally reached our city and climbed the stairs to our old homes, we realized we were no longer children. The long and difficult journey had changed us; we had grown into adults. Yet, when we sat on the little bench in our rooftop garden, among the blooming roses basking in the warm sunshine, we felt the same simple, pure love we had always shared. Our hearts were still young. Our journey shows that love and loyalty are powerful forces that can melt even the coldest heart. It reminds us that while the world may sometimes seem cold and logical like the Snow Queen's palace, it is the warmth of human connection that truly gives life meaning. This tale, first told by the great Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen on December 21st, 1844, has inspired so many other stories, songs, and even famous movies, proving that a story of a brave heart's journey never grows old.