Fifty years ago there lived a king who was very anxious to get married;
but, as he was quite determined that his wife should be as beautiful as
the sun, the thing was not so easy as it seemed, for no maiden came up
to his standard. Then he commanded a trusty servant to search through
the length and breadth of the land till he found a girl fair enough to
be queen, and if he had the good luck to discover one he was to bring
her back with him.

The servant set out at once on his journey, and sought high and low-in
castles and cottages; but though pretty maidens were plentiful as
blackberries, he felt sure that none of them would please the king.

One day he had wandered far and wide, and was feeling very tired and
thirsty. By the roadside stood a tiny little house, and here he knocked
and asked for a cup of water. Now in this house dwelt two sisters, and
one was eighty and the other ninety years old. They were very poor, and
earned their living by spinning. This had kept their hands very soft and
white, like the hands of a girl, and when the water was passed through
the lattice, and the servant saw the small, delicate fingers, he said to
himself: 'A maiden must indeed be lovely if she has a hand like that.'
And he made haste back, and told the king.

'Go back at once,' said his majesty, 'and try to get a sight of her.'

The faithful servant departed on his errand without losing any time,
and again he knocked at the door of the little house and begged for some
water. As before, the old woman did not open the door, but passed the
water through the lattice.

'Do you live here alone?' asked the man.

'No,' replied she, 'my sister lives with me. We are poor girls, and have
to work for our bread.'

'How old are you?'

'I am fifteen, and she is twenty.'

Then the servant went back to the king, and told him all he knew. And
his majesty answered: 'I will have the fifteen-year-old one. Go and
bring her here.'

The servant returned a third time to the little house and knocked at the
door. In reply to his knock the lattice window was pushed open, and a
voice inquired what it was he wanted.

'The king has desired me to bring back the youngest of you to become his
queen,' he replied.

'Tell his majesty I am ready to do his bidding, but since my birth no
ray of light has fallen upon my face. If it should ever do so I shall
instantly grow black. Therefore beg, I pray you, his most gracious
majesty to send this evening a shut carriage, and I will return in it to
the castle.

When the king heard this he ordered his great golden carriage to be
prepared, and in it to be placed some magnificent robes; and the old
woman wrapped herself in a thick veil, and was driven to the castle.

The king was eagerly awaiting her, and when she arrived he begged her
politely to raise her veil and let him see her face.

But she answered: 'Here the tapers are too bright and the light too
strong. Would you have me turn black under your very eyes?'

And the king believed her words, and the marriage took place without the
veil being once lifted. Afterwards, when they were alone, he raised the
corner, and knew for the first time that he had wedded a wrinkled old
woman. And, in a furious burst of anger, he dashed open the window and
flung her out. But, luckily for her, her clothes caught on a nail in the
wall, and kept her hanging between heaven and earth.

While she was thus suspended, expecting every moment to be dashed to the
ground, four fairies happened to pass by.

'Look, sisters,' cried one, 'surely that is the old woman that the king
sent for. Shall we wish that her clothes may give way, and that she
should be dashed to the ground?'

'Oh no! no!' exclaimed another. 'Let us wish her something good. I
myself will wish her youth.'

'And I beauty.'

'And I wisdom.'

'And I a tender heart.'

So spake the fairies, and went their way, leaving the most beautiful
maiden in the world behind them.

The next morning when the king looked from his window he saw this lovely
creature hanging on the nail. 'Ah! what have I done? Surely I must have
been blind last night!'

And he ordered long ladders to be brought and the maiden to be rescued.
Then he fell on his knees before her, and prayed her to forgive him, and
a great feast was made in her honour.

Some days after came the ninety-year-old sister to the palace and asked
for the queen.

'Who is that hideous old witch?' said the king.

'Oh, an old neighbour of mine, who is half silly,' she replied.

But the old woman looked at her steadily, and knew her again, and said:
'How have you managed to grow so young and beautiful? I should like to
be young and beautiful too.'

This question she repeated the whole day long, till at length the queen
lost patience and said: 'I had my old head cut off, and this new head
grew in its place.'

Then the old woman went to a barber, and spoke to him, saying, 'I will
give you all you ask if you will only cut off my head, so that I may
become young and lovely.'

'But, my good woman, if I do that you will die!'

But the old woman would listen to nothing; and at last the barber took
out his knife and struck the first blow at her neck.

'Ah!' she shrieked as she felt the pain.

'Il faut souffrir pour etre belle,' said the barber, who had been in
France.

And at the second blow her head rolled off, and the old woman was dead
for good and all.

There was once a fine gentleman whose entire worldly possessions
consisted of a boot-jack and a hair-brush; but he had the most beautiful
shirt-collar in the world, and it is about this that we are going to
hear a story.

The shirt-collar was so old that he began to think about marrying;
and it happened one day that he and a garter came into the wash-tub
together.

'Hulloa!' said the shirt-collar, 'never before have I seen anything so
slim and delicate, so elegant and pretty! May I be permitted to ask your
name?'

'I shan't tell you,' said the garter.

'Where is the place of your abode?' asked the shirt-collar.

But the garter was of a bashful disposition, and did not think it proper
to answer.

'Perhaps you are a girdle?' said the shirt-collar, 'an under girdle? for
I see that you are for use as well as for ornament, my pretty miss!'

'You ought not to speak to me!' said the garter' 'I'm sure I haven't
given you any encouragement!'

'When anyone is as beautiful as you,' said the shirt-collar, 'is not
that encouragement enough?'

'Go away, don't come so close!' said the garter. 'You seem to be a
gentleman!'

'So I am, and a very fine one too!' said the shirt-collar; 'I possess a
boot-jack and a hair-brush!'

That was not true; it was his master who owned these things; but he was
a terrible boaster.

'Don't come so close,' said the garter. 'I'm not accustomed to such
treatment!'

'What affectation!' said the shirt-collar. And then they were taken out
of the wash-tub, starched, and hung on a chair in the sun to dry, and
then laid on the ironing-board. Then came the glowing iron.

'Mistress widow!' said the shirt-collar, 'dear mistress widow! I am
becoming another man, all my creases are coming out; you are burning a
hole in me! Ugh! Stop, I implore you!'

'You rag!' said the iron, travelling proudly over the shirt-collar, for
it thought it was a steam engine and ought to be at the station drawing
trucks.

'Rag!' it said.

The shirt-collar was rather frayed out at the edge, so the scissors came
to cut off the threads.

'Oh!' said the shirt-collar, 'you must be a dancer! How high you can
kick! That is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen! No man can
imitate you!'

'I know that!' said the scissors.

'You ought to be a duchess!' said the shirt-collar. 'My worldly
possessions consist of a fine gentleman, a boot-jack, and a hair-brush.
If only I had a duchy!'

'What! He wants to marry me?' said the scissors, and she was so angry
that she gave the collar a sharp snip, so that it had to be cast aside
as good for nothing.

'Well, I shall have to propose to the hair-brush!' thought the
shirt-collar. 'It is really wonderful what fine hair you have, madam!
Have you never thought of marrying?'

'Yes, that I have!' answered the hair-brush; 'I'm engaged to the
boot-jack!'

'Engaged!' exclaimed the shirt-collar. And now there was no one he could
marry, so he took to despising matrimony.

Time passed, and the shirt-collar came in a rag-bag to the paper-mill.
There was a large assortment of rags, the fine ones in one heap, and the
coarse ones in another, as they should be. They had all much to tell,
but no one more than the shirt-collar, for he was a hopeless braggart.

'I have had a terrible number of love affairs!' he said. 'They give me
no peace. I was such a fine gentleman, so stiff with starch! I had a
boot-jack and a hair-brush, which I never used! You should just have
seen me then! Never shall I forget my first love! She was a girdle, so
delicate and soft and pretty! She threw herself into a wash-tub for my
sake! Then there was a widow, who glowed with love for me. But I
left her alone, till she became black. Then there was the dancer, who
inflicted the wound which has caused me to be here now; she was very
violent! My own hair-brush was in love with me, and lost all her hair
in consequence. Yes, I have experienced much in that line; but I grieve
most of all for the garter,-I mean, the girdle, who threw herself into a
wash-tub. I have much on my conscience; it is high time for me to become
white paper!'

And so he did! he became white paper, the very paper on which this story
is printed. And that was because he had boasted so terribly about things
which were not true. We should take this to heart, so that it may not
happen to us, for we cannot indeed tell if we may not some day come to
the rag-bag, and be made into white paper, on which will be printed our
whole history, even the most secret parts, so that we too go about the
world relating it, like the shirt-collar.

How astonishingly cold it is! My body is cracking all over!' said the
Snow-man. 'The wind is really cutting one's very life out! And how that
fiery thing up there glares!' He meant the sun, which was just setting.
'It sha'n't make me blink, though, and I shall keep quite cool and
collected.'

Instead of eyes he had two large three-cornered pieces of slate in his
head; his mouth consisted of an old rake, so that he had teeth as well.

He was born amidst the shouts and laughter of the boys, and greeted by
the jingling bells and cracking whips of the sledges.

The sun went down, the full moon rose, large, round, clear and
beautiful, in the dark blue sky.

'There it is again on the other side!' said the Snow-man, by which he
meant the sun was appearing again. 'I have become quite accustomed to
its glaring. I hope it will hang there and shine, so that I may be
able to see myself. I wish I knew, though, how one ought to see about
changing one's position. I should very much like to move about. If I
only could, I would glide up and down the ice there, as I saw the boys
doing; but somehow or other, I don't know how to run.'

'Bow-wow!' barked the old yard-dog; he was rather hoarse and couldn't
bark very well. His hoarseness came on when he was a house-dog and used
to lie in front of the stove. 'The sun will soon teach you to run! I saw
that last winter with your predecessor, and farther back still with his
predecessors! They have all run away!'

'I don't understand you, my friend,' said the Snow-man. 'That thing up
there is to teach me to run?' He meant the moon. 'Well, it certainly did
run just now, for I saw it quite plainly over there, and now here it is
on this side.'

'You know nothing at all about it,' said the yard-dog. 'Why, you have
only just been made. The thing you see there is the moon; the other
thing you saw going down the other side was the sun. He will come up
again tomorrow morning, and will soon teach you how to run away down the
gutter. The weather is going to change; I feel it already by the pain in
my left hind-leg; the weather is certainly going to change.'

'I can't understand him,' said the Snow-man; 'but I have an idea that he
is speaking of something unpleasant. That thing that glares so, and then
disappears, the sun, as he calls it, is not my friend. I know that by
instinct.'

'Bow-wow!' barked the yard-dog, and walked three times round himself,
and then crept into his kennel to sleep. The weather really did change.
Towards morning a dense damp fog lay over the whole neighbourhood; later
on came an icy wind, which sent the frost packing. But when the sun
rose, it was a glorious sight. The trees and shrubs were covered with
rime, and looked like a wood of coral, and every branch was thick with
long white blossoms. The most delicate twigs, which are lost among the
foliage in summer-time, came now into prominence, and it was like a
spider's web of glistening white. The lady-birches waved in the wind;
and when the sun shone, everything glittered and sparkled as if it were
sprinkled with diamond dust, and great diamonds were lying on the snowy
carpet.

'Isn't it wonderful?' exclaimed a girl who was walking with a young
man in the garden. They stopped near the Snow-man, and looked at the
glistening trees. 'Summer cannot show a more beautiful sight,' she said,
with her eyes shining.

'And one can't get a fellow like this in summer either,' said the young
man, pointing to the Snow-man. 'He's a beauty!'

The girl laughed, and nodded to the Snow-man, and then they both danced
away over the snow.

'Who were those two?' asked the Snow-man of the yard-dog. 'You have been
in this yard longer than I have. Do you know who they are?'

'Do I know them indeed?' answered the yard-dog. 'She has often stroked
me, and he has given me bones. I don't bite either of them!'

'But what are they?' asked the Snow-man.

'Lovers!' replied the yard-dog. 'They will go into one kennel and gnaw
the same bone!'

'Are they the same kind of beings that we are?' asked the Snow-man.

'They are our masters,' answered the yard-dog. 'Really people who have
only been in the world one day know very little.' That's the conclusion
I have come to. Now I have age and wisdom; I know everyone in the house,
and I can remember a time when I was not lying here in a cold kennel.
Bow-wow!'

'The cold is splendid,' said the Snow-man. 'Tell me some more. But don't
rattle your chain so, it makes me crack!'

'Bow-wow!' barked the yard-dog. 'They used to say I was a pretty little
fellow; then I lay in a velvet-covered chair in my master's house. My
mistress used to nurse me, and kiss and fondle me, and call me her dear,
sweet little Alice! But by-and-by I grew too big, and I was given to the
housekeeper, and I went into the kitchen. You can see into it from where
you are standing; you can look at the room in which I was master, for so
I was when I was with the housekeeper. Of course it was a smaller place
than upstairs, but it was more comfortable, for I wasn't chased about
and teased by the children as I had been before. My food was just as
good, or even better. I had my own pillow, and there was a stove there,
which at this time of year is the most beautiful thing in the world. I
used to creep right under that stove. Ah me! I often dream of that stove
still! Bow-wow!'

'Is a stove so beautiful?' asked the Snow-man. 'Is it anything like me?'

'It is just the opposite of you! It is coal-black, and has a long neck
with a brass pipe. It eats firewood, so that fire spouts out of its
mouth. One has to keep close beside it-quite underneath is the nicest of
all. You can see it through the window from where you are standing.'

And the Snow-man looked in that direction, and saw a smooth polished
object with a brass pipe. The flicker from the fire reached him across
the snow. The Snow-man felt wonderfully happy, and a feeling came over
him which he could not express; but all those who are not snow-men know
about it.

'Why did you leave her?' asked the Snow-man. He had a feeling that such
a being must be a lady. 'How could you leave such a place?'

'I had to!' said the yard-dog. 'They turned me out of doors, and chained
me up here. I had bitten the youngest boy in the leg, because he took
away the bone I was gnawing; a bone for a bone, I thought! But they were
very angry, and from that time I have been chained here, and I have lost
my voice. Don't you hear how hoarse I am? Bow-wow! I can't speak like
other dogs. Bow-wow! That was the end of happiness!'

The Snow-man, however, was not listening to him any more; he was looking
into the room where the housekeeper lived, where the stove stood on its
four iron legs, and seemed to be just the same size as the Snow-man.

'How something is cracking inside me!' he said. 'Shall I never be able
to get in there? It is certainly a very innocent wish, and our innocent
wishes ought to be fulfilled. I must get there, and lean against the
stove, if I have to break the window first!'

'You will never get inside there!' said the yard-dog; 'and if you were
to reach the stove you would disappear. Bow-wow!'

'I'm as good as gone already!' answered the Snow-man. 'I believe I'm
breaking up!'

The whole day the Snow-man looked through the window; towards dusk the
room grew still more inviting; the stove gave out a mild light, not at
all like the moon or even the sun; no, as only a stove can shine, when
it has something to feed upon. When the door of the room was open, it
flared up-this was one of its peculiarities; it flickered quite red upon
the Snow-man's white face.

'I can't stand it any longer!' he said. 'How beautiful it looks with its
tongue stretched out like that!'

It was a long night, but the Snow-man did not find it so; there he
stood, wrapt in his pleasant thoughts, and they froze, so that he
cracked.

Next morning the panes of the kitchen window were covered with ice, and
the most beautiful ice-flowers that even a snow-man could desire, only
they blotted out the stove. The window would not open; he couldn't see
the stove which he thought was such a lovely lady. There was a cracking
and cracking inside him and all around; there was just such a frost as a
snow-man would delight in. But this Snow-man was different: how could he
feel happy?

'Yours is a bad illness for a Snow-man!' said the yard-dog. 'I also
suffered from it, but I have got over it. Bow-wow!' he barked. 'The
weather is going to change!' he added.

The weather did change. There came a thaw.

When this set in the Snow-man set off. He did not say anything, and he
did not complain, and those are bad signs.

One morning he broke up altogether. And lo! where he had stood there
remained a broomstick standing upright, round which the boys had built
him!

'Ah! now I understand why he loved the stove,' said the yard-dog.
'That is the raker they use to clean out the stove! The Snow-man had a
stove-raker in his body! That's what was the matter with him! And now
it's all over with him! Bow-wow!'

And before long it was all over with the winter too! 'Bow-wow!' barked
the hoarse yard-dog.

But the young girl sang:

     Woods, your bright green garments don!
     Willows, your woolly gloves put on!
     Lark and cuckoo, daily sing--     February has brought the spring!
     My heart joins in your song so sweet;
     Come out, dear sun, the world to greet!

And no one thought of the Snow-man.