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_The Tinder Box_ was written by Hans Christian Andersen
(1805-1875), and was translated from the Danish by
M. R. James (1862-1936) as part of his
_Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories_ (1930).

Title: Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories -- The Tinder Box
Date of first publication: 1930
Place and date of edition used as base for this ebook:
  London: Faber and Faber, 1953
Author: Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)
Translator: M. R. James (1862-1936)
Date first posted: 22 September 2007
Date last updated: 22 September 2007
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #24

This ebook was produced by: Dr Mark Bear Akrigg




The Tinder Box

by

Hans Christian Andersen

(from _Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories_ [1930]),
translated by M. R. James)




A soldier came marching away along the highroad. One! two! One!
two! He had his knapsack on his back and a sword at his side, for
he had been in the wars, and now he was off home. Well, he met an
old witch on the highroad. She _was_ ugly! Her lower lip hung
right down on her chest. Said she, "Good evening, Soldier! What a
fine sword, and what a big knapsack you've got! You _are_ a
proper soldier. Now you shall get as much money as you care to
have."

"Much obliged to you, old Witch," said the soldier.

"Do you see that tree?" said the witch, pointing to the tree that
stood just by them. "It's quite hollow inside. You climb up to
the top of it, and you'll see a hole that you can let yourself
slide down and get right to the bottom of the tree. I'll tie a
rope round your waist so as I can hoist you up again when you
call to me."

"Well, what am I to do at the bottom of the tree?" asked the
soldier.

"Get money," said the witch. "You must know that when you get
down to the bottom of the tree you'll be in a long passage. It's
quite light, there are more than a hundred lamps burning. There
you'll see three doors: you can open them, the keys are in them.
If you go into the first room, there you'll see in the middle of
the floor a big chest, and on it there sits a dog. He's got a
pair of eyes as big as a couple of teacups, but you needn't mind
that. I'll give you my blue check apron. You can spread it out on
the floor, and then go straight up and pick up the dog and put
him on the apron. Open the chest and take as many pence as you
like. They're all copper; but if you'd rather have silver, you
must go into the next room. There sits a dog who's got a pair of
eyes as big as millwheels, but you needn't mind about that: put
him on my apron and take the money. But, if on the other hand,
you'd like gold, you can get that too, and as much of it as you
can carry, if you go into the third room. Only the dog that sits
on the chest there has two eyes, each of 'em as big as the Round
Tower. He's a dog and a half, I can tell you. But you needn't
mind that. Just put him on my apron, he'll do nothing to you, and
take as much gold out of the chest as you like."

"That's not so bad," said the soldier, "but what am I to give
you, old Witch? For of course you'll be wanting something too, I
suppose?"

"No," said the witch, "I don't want a single penny. You need only
bring me an old tinder box which my granny left behind by mistake
the last time she was down there."

"Right! let's have the rope round me," said the soldier.

"Here you are!" said the witch, "and here's my blue check apron."

So the soldier climbed up the tree and let himself plump down
into the hole, and there he was, as the witch had said, down in
the big passage where all the hundreds of lamps were burning.

Then he opened the first door. Lor! there sat the dog with eyes
as big as teacups, and stared at him.

"You're a nice sort of chap!" said the soldier, and put him on
the apron and took as many copper pence as he could carry in his
pocket, shut the chest, put the dog on the top again and went
into the second room. Gracious! there sat the dog with eyes as
big as millwheels.

"You shouldn't look at me so hard!" said the soldier. "You might
injure your eyesight!" Then he put the dog on the witch's apron;
but when he saw the heaps of silver money in the chest, he threw
away all the copper money he had got and filled his pocket and
his knapsack with nothing but silver. Then he went into the third
room. No, now, that was awful! The dog there really had two eyes
as big as the Round Tower, and they went round and round in his
head like wheels.

"Good evening!" said the soldier, and saluted, for such a dog he
never had seen before. But after looking at him for a bit he
thought perhaps that would do, and lifted him down on to the
floor and opened the chest. Mercy on me, what a lot of gold there
was! Enough to pay for all Copenhagen and the cakewomen's sugar
pigs, and all the tin soldiers and whips and rocking-horses there
were in the whole world. There was money there right enough! So
the soldier threw away all the silver shillings he had filled his
pockets and his knapsack with, and took gold instead; till all
his pockets and his knapsack and his cap and his boots got filled
up so that he could hardly walk. Now he had got some money! He
put the dog back on the chest, slammed the door and then shouted
up through the tree:

"Pull me up now, old Witch!"

"Have you got the tinder box?" asked the witch.

"That's true!" said the soldier. "I'd clean forgotten it." So he
went and got it. The witch pulled him up and there he was back
again on the highroad with his pockets and boots and knapsack and
cap full of money.

"What do you want with the tinder box?" asked the soldier.

"That's got nothing to do with you!" said the witch. "You've got
your money all right. Just give me the tinder box."

"Fiddlesticks!" said the soldier. "You tell me straight off what
you mean to do with it, or I'll out with my sword and cut your
head off."

"No!" said the witch.

So the soldier cut her head off. There she lay! But he tied up
all his money in her apron and put it on his shoulder in a
bundle, shoved the tinder box into his pocket and went straight
to the town.

It was a splendid town, and into the finest hotel he went, and
ordered the very best rooms and the dishes he liked best, for he
was rich, now that he had all that money.

The servant who had to clean his boots certainly thought they
were very funny old boots for such a rich gentleman to have; but
he hadn't bought any new ones yet. Next day he got boots to walk
in and clothes of the smartest. The soldier was now become a fine
gentleman, and they told him about all the splendid things that
were in their town, and about their King, and what a pretty
princess his daughter was.

"Where can one get a sight of her?" the soldier asked.

"Oh, she can't be seen at all," they all said. "She lives in a
big copper castle with lots of walls and towers round it. Nobody
but the King dares go in and out to her, for it's been foretold
that she'll be married to a quite common soldier, and the King
can't have that!"

"Well, I'd like enough to see her," thought the soldier; but he
couldn't anyhow get leave to do so.

Well, he lived a very merry life, went to the play, drove in the
royal gardens, and gave a lot of money to the poor, and that was
a nice thing to do; he knew well enough from old times how horrid
it was not to have a penny-piece. He was well off now, and had
smart clothes and made a number of friends, who all said he was a
good sort and a real gentleman, which pleased the soldier very
much. But as every day he laid out money and got none at all
back, the end of it was that he had no more than twopence left,
and so he had to shift out of the nice rooms where he had lodged,
up into a tiny little garret right under the roof, and clean his
boots for himself and mend them with a darning needle; and none
of his friends came to see him, because there were so many stairs
to climb.

One evening it was quite dark, and he couldn't even buy himself a
candle. But just then he remembered that there was a little stump
of one in the tinder box he had got from the hollow tree where
the witch had helped him down. He got out the tinder box and the
stump of candle, and just as he struck it and the spark flew out
of the flint, the door sprang open, and the dog that had eyes as
big as teacups, whom he had seen down under the tree, stood
before him and said: "What are my lord's orders?" "What's this?"
said the soldier, "why, this is a jolly tinder box. Can I get
whatever I want like this? Get me some money," said he to the
dog, and pop! he was back again with a big bag full of coppers in
his mouth. Now the soldier saw what a lovely tinder box this was.
If he struck once, the dog came that sat on the chest with the
copper money, if he struck twice the one that had the silver
came, and if he struck three times the one that had the gold. The
soldier moved back now into the nice rooms, got into the smart
clothes, and at once all his friends recognized him, and were
very fond of him indeed.

Well, once upon a time he thought to himself: "It's a rum thing,
so it is, that one can't get a sight of the Princess. They all
say she's very pretty, but what's the use of that if she's got to
stay all the time inside that big copper castle with all the
towers? Can't I anyhow get a sight of her? Where's that tinder
box?" So he struck a light, and pop! here comes the dog with the
eyes as big as teacups. "I know it's the middle of the night,"
said the soldier, "all the same, I should dearly like to see the
Princess, if it was only for a minute." The dog was off through
the door at once, and before the soldier had time to think, here
he was again with the Princess: she was sitting on the dog's
back, asleep, and she was so pretty, anybody could see she was a
real Princess. The soldier couldn't help it, he had to kiss her,
for he was a genuine soldier. Then the dog ran back again with
the Princess. But when it was morning, and the King and Queen
were pouring out their tea, the Princess said she had had such a
funny dream that night about a dog and a soldier! She had ridden
on the dog, and the soldier had kissed her.

"Upon my word, that's a nice story!" said the Queen.

One of the old Court ladies had to watch at the Princess's
bedside the next night, to see if it really was a dream, or what
else it might be.

The soldier longed dreadfully to see the beautiful Princess
again: so the dog came in the night and took her and raced off as
hard as he could. But the old lady-in-waiting put on water boots
and ran after him just as fast, and when she saw them disappear
into a big house she thought: "Now I know where it is," and she
drew a large cross on the door with a bit of chalk. Then she went
home and got into bed, and the dog came back too, with the
Princess. But when he saw there was a cross drawn on the door
where the soldier lived, he too took a bit of chalk and put
crosses on all the doors in the whole town; and that was clever
of him, for now the lady-in-waiting couldn't find the right door,
since there was a cross on everyone of them.

Early in the morning the King and Queen and the old
lady-in-waiting and all the officials came out to see where it
was that the Princess had been. "Here it is!" said the King, when
he saw the first door with a cross on it. "No, it's here, my
darling husband," said the Queen who spied the next door with a
cross on it.

"But here's one, and there's one!" said everybody. Wherever they
looked there were crosses on the doors, so they could see it was
no use searching.

The Queen, however, was a very clever woman who knew more than
how to drive in a coach. She took her large gold scissors and
clipped a big piece of silk into bits, and then made a pretty
little bag; this she filled with fine buckwheat flour, tied it to
the Princess's back, and when that was done, she cut a little
hole in the bag so that the flour could run out all along the way
where the Princess went.

At night the dog came again and took the Princess on his back and
ran off with her to the soldier, who was very fond of her and
would dearly have liked to be a prince, so as to have her for his
wife.

The dog never noticed the flour running out all the way from the
castle to the soldier's window, where he used to run up the wall
with the Princess. So in the morning the King and Queen could see
plain enough where their daughter had disappeared to, and they
took the soldier and put him in the lock-up.

There he sat. Ugh! how dark and dismal it was; and then they said
to him: "To-morrow you're to be hung." It wasn't amusing to be
told that; and he'd left his tinder box behind at the hotel. Next
morning he could see, through the iron bars of the little window,
the people hurrying out of the town to see him hung. He heard the
drums and saw the soldiers march off. Everybody was on the move;
among them a shoemaker's boy with a leather apron and slippers,
going at such a galloping pace that one of his slippers flew off
right against the wall where the soldier sat peering out between
the iron bars.

"Hi! you shoemaker's boy, you needn't be in such a hurry," said
the soldier to him; "nothing'll happen before I come there, but
if you don't mind running to the place I lived at and fetching me
my tinder box, you shall have fourpence; only you must put your
best foot foremost." The shoemaker's boy wanted the fourpence, so
he darted off to get the tinder box, and gave it to the soldier,
and--now we shall hear what happened!

Outside the town a great gallows had been built, and around it
stood the soldiers and many hundred thousands of people. The King
and Queen sat on a splendid throne straight opposite the Judge
and the whole Privy Council.

The soldier was already on the ladder, but just as they were
going to put the rope round his neck, he said that as a criminal
was always allowed, before he underwent his punishment, to have
one innocent wish granted him, he would dearly like to smoke one
pipe of tobacco: it would be the last pipe he smoked in this
world. The King wouldn't say no to this, so the soldier took out
his tinder box and struck a light. One! two! three! and there
were all the dogs; the one with eyes as big as teacups, the one
with eyes like millwheels, and the one with eyes as big as the
Round Tower.

"Help me now, so as I shan't be hung," said the soldier; and the
dogs dashed at the judges, and all the council; took one by the
legs and another by the nose and threw them yards and yards up in
the air, so that they tumbled down and were broken all to bits.

"I won't!" said the King; but the biggest dog took him and the
Queen too, and threw them after all the rest. Then the soldiers
took fright, and all the people called out: "Dear good soldier,
you shall be our King and have the lovely Princess." So they put
the soldier into the King's coach, and all three dogs danced in
front and shouted "hurrah!" and the boys whistled on their
fingers, and the soldiers presented arms. The Princess was
brought out of the copper castle and made Queen, and very much
pleased she was. The wedding lasted eight days, and the dogs sat
at table and made great eyes.


[End of _The Tinder Box_ by Hans Christian Andersen, from
_Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories_, translated by M. R. James]