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Once upon
a time...
A soldier came marching along the high road--left, right! A
left, right! He had his knapsack on his back and a sword by his
side, for he had been to the wars and was now returning home.
An old Witch met him on the road. She was very ugly to look at: her
under-lip hung down to her breast.
'Good evening, Soldier!' she said. 'What a fine sword and knapsack
you have! You are something like a soldier! You ought to have as
much money as you would like to carry!'
'Thank you, old Witch,' said the Soldier.
'Do you see that great tree there?' said the Witch, pointing to a
tree beside them. 'It is hollow within. You must climb up to the
top, and then you will see a hole through which you can let yourself
down into the tree. I will tie a rope round your waist, so that I
may be able to pull you up again when you call.'
'What shall I do down there?' asked the Soldier.
'Get money!' answered the Witch. 'Listen! When you reach the bottom
of the tree you will find yourself in a large hall; it is light
there, for there are more than three hundred lamps burning. Then you
will see three doors, which you can open--the keys are in the locks.
If you go into the first room, you will see a great chest in the
middle of the floor with a dog sitting upon it; he has eyes as large
as saucers, but you needn't trouble about him. I will give you my
blue-check apron, which you must spread out on the floor, and then
go back quickly and fetch the dog and set him upon it; open the
chest and take as much money as you like. It is copper there. If you
would rather have silver, you must go into the next room, where
there is a dog with eyes as large as mill-wheels. But don't take any
notice of him; just set him upon my apron, and help yourself to the
money. If you prefer gold, you can get that too, if you go into the
third room, and as much as you like to carry. But the dog that
guards the chest there has eyes as large as the Round Tower at
Copenhagen! He is a savage dog, I can tell you; but you needn't be
afraid of him either. Only, put him on my apron and he won't touch
you, and you can take out of the chest as much gold as you like!'
'Come, this is not bad!' said the Soldier. 'But what am I to give
you, old Witch; for surely you are not going to do this for
nothing?'
'Yes, I am!' replied the Witch. 'Not a single farthing will I take!
For me you shall bring nothing but an old tinder-box which my
grandmother forgot last time she was down there.'
'Well, tie the rope round my waist! 'said the Soldier.
'Here it is,' said the Witch, 'and here is my blue-check apron.'
Then the Soldier climbed up the tree, let himself down through the
hole, and found himself standing, as the Witch had said, underground
in the large hall, where the three hundred lamps were burning.
Well, he opened the first door. Ugh! there sat the dog with eyes as
big as saucers glaring at him.
'You are a fine fellow!' said the Soldier, and put him on the
Witch's apron, took as much copper as his pockets could hold; then
he shut the chest, put the dog on it again, and went into the second
room. Sure enough there sat the dog with eyes as large as
mill-wheels.
'You had better not look at me so hard!' said the Soldier. 'Your
eyes will come out of their sockets!'
And then he set the dog on the apron. When he saw all the silver in
the chest, he threw away the copper he had taken, and filled his
pockets and knapsack with nothing but silver.
Then he went into the third room. Horrors! the dog there had two
eyes, each as large as the Round Tower at Copenhagen, spinning round
in his head like wheels.
'Good evening!' said the Soldier and saluted, for he had never seen
a dog like this before. But when he had examined him more closely,
he thought to himself: 'Now then, I've had enough of this!' and put
him down on the floor, and opened the chest. Heavens! what a heap of
gold there was! With all that he could buy up the whole town, and
all the sugar pigs, all the tin soldiers, whips and rocking-horses
in the whole world. Now he threw away all the silver with which he
had filled his pockets and knapsack, and filled them with gold
instead--yes, all his pockets, his knapsack, cap and boots even, so
that he could hardly walk. Now he was rich indeed. He put the dog
back upon the chest, shut the door, and then called up through the
tree:
'Now pull me up again, old Witch!'
'Have you got the tinder-box also?' asked the Witch.
'Botheration!' said the Soldier, 'I had clean forgotten it!' And
then he went back and fetched it.
The Witch pulled him up, and there he stood again on the high road,
with pockets, knapsack, cap and boots filled with gold.
'What do you want to do with the tinder-box?' asked the Soldier.
'That doesn't matter to you,' replied the Witch. 'You have got your
money, give me my tinder-box.'
'We'll see!' said the Soldier. 'Tell me at once what you want to do
with it, or I will draw my sword, and cut off your head!'
'No!' screamed the Witch.
The Soldier immediately cut off her head. That was the end of her!
But he tied up all his gold in her apron, slung it like a bundle
over his shoulder, put the tinder-box in his pocket, and set out
towards the town.
It was a splendid town! He turned into the finest inn, ordered the
best chamber and his favourite dinner; for now that he had so much
money he was really rich.
It certainly occurred to the servant who had to clean his boots that
they were astonishingly old boots for such a rich lord. But that was
because he had not yet bought new ones; next day he appeared in
respectable boots and fine clothes. Now, instead of a common soldier
he had become a noble lord, and the people told him about all the
grand doings of the town and the King, and what a beautiful Princess
his daughter was.
'How can one get to see her?' asked the Soldier.
'She is never to be seen at all!' they told him; 'she lives in a
great copper castle, surrounded by many walls and towers! No one
except the King may go in or out, for it is prophesied that she will
marry a common soldier, and the King cannot submit to that.'
'I should very much like to see her,' thought the Soldier; but he
could not get permission.
Now he lived very gaily, went to the theatre, drove in the King's
garden, and gave the poor a great deal of money, which was very nice
of him; he had experienced in former times how hard it is not to
have a farthing in the world. Now he was rich, wore fine clothes,
and made many friends, who all said that he was an excellent man, a
real nobleman. And the Soldier liked that. But as he was always
spending money, and never made any more, at last the day came when
he had nothing left but two shillings, and he had to leave the
beautiful rooms in which he had been living, and go into a little
attic under the roof, and clean his own boots, and mend them with a
darning-needle. None of his friends came to visit him there, for
there were too many stairs to climb.
It was a dark evening, and he could not even buy a light. But all at
once it flashed across him that there was a little end of tinder in
the tinder-box, which he had taken from the hollow tree into which
the Witch had helped him down. He found the box with the tinder in
it; but just as he was kindling a light, and had struck a spark out
of the tinder-box, the door burst open, and the dog with eyes as
large as saucers, which he had seen down in the tree, stood before
him and said:
'What does my lord command?'
'What's the meaning of this?' exclaimed the Soldier. 'This is a
pretty kind of tinder-box, if I can get whatever I want like this.
Get me money!' he cried to the dog, and hey, presto! he was off and
back again, holding a great purse full of money in his mouth.
Now the Soldier knew what a capital tinder-box this was. If he
rubbed once, the dog that sat on the chest of copper appeared; if he
rubbed twice, there came the dog that watched over the silver chest;
and if he rubbed three times, the one that guarded the gold
appeared. Now, the Soldier went down again to his beautiful rooms,
and appeared once more in splendid clothes. All his friends
immediately recognised him again, and paid him great court.
One day he thought to himself: 'It is very strange that no one can
get to see the Princess. They all say she is very pretty, but what's
the use of that if she has to sit for ever in the great copper
castle with all the towers? Can I not manage to see her somehow?
Where is my tinder-box?' and so he struck a spark, and, presto!
there came the dog with eyes as large as saucers.
'It is the middle of the night, I know,' said the Soldier; 'but I
should very much like to see the Princess for a moment.'
The dog was already outside the door, and before the Soldier could
look round, in he came with the Princess. She was lying asleep on
the dog's back, and was so beautiful that anyone could see she was a
real Princess. The Soldier really could not refrain from kissing
her--he was such a thorough Soldier. Then the dog ran back with the
Princess. But when it was morning, and the King and Queen were
drinking tea, the Princess said that the night before she had had
such a strange dream about a dog and a Soldier: she had ridden on
the dog's back, and the Soldier had kissed her.
'That is certainly a fine story,' said the Queen. But the next night
one of the ladies-in-waiting was to watch at the Princess's bed, to
see if it was only a dream, or if it had actually happened.
The Soldier had an overpowering longing to see the Princess again,
and so the dog came in the middle of the night and fetched her,
running as fast as he could. But the lady-in-waiting slipped on
indiarubber shoes and followed them. When she saw them disappear
into a large house, she thought to herself: 'Now I know where it is;
'and made a great cross on the door with a piece of chalk. Then she
went home and lay down, and the dog came back also, with the
Princess. But when he saw that a cross had been made on the door of
the house where the Soldier lived, he took a piece of chalk also,
and made crosses on all the doors in the town; and that was very
clever, for now the lady-in-waiting could not find the right house,
as there were crosses on all the doors.
Early next morning the King, Queen, ladies-in-waiting, and officers
came out to see where the Princess had been.
'There it is!' said the King, when he saw the first door with a
cross on it.
'No, there it is, my dear!' said the Queen, when she likewise saw a
door with a cross.
'But here is one, and there is another!' they all exclaimed;
wherever they looked there was a cross on the door. Then they
realised that the sign would not help them at all.
But the Queen was an extremely clever woman, who could do a great
deal more than just drive in a coach. She took her great golden
scissors, cut up a piece of silk, and made a pretty little bag of
it. This she filled with the finest buckwheat grains, and tied it
round the Princess' neck; this done, she cut a little hole in the
bag, so that the grains would strew the whole road wherever the
Princess went.
In the night the dog came again, took the Princess on his back and
ran away with her to the Soldier, who was very much in love with
her, and would have liked to have been a Prince, so that he might
have had her for his wife.
The dog did not notice how the grains were strewn right from the
castle to the Soldier's window, where he ran up the wall with the
Princess.
In the morning the King and the Queen saw plainly where their
daughter had been, and they took the Soldier and put him into
prison.
There he sat. Oh, how dark and dull it was there! And they told him:
'To-morrow you are to be hanged.' Hearing that did not exactly cheer
him, and he had left his tinder-box in the inn.
Next morning he could see through the iron grating in front of his
little window how the people were hurrying out of the town to see
him hanged. He heard the drums and saw the soldiers marching; all
the people were running to and fro. Just below his window was a
shoemaker's apprentice, with leather apron and shoes; he was
skipping along so merrily that one of his shoes flew off and fell
against the wall, just where the Soldier was sitting peeping through
the iron grating.
'Oh, shoemaker's boy, you needn't be in such a hurry!' said the
Soldier to him. 'There's nothing going on till I arrive. But if you
will run back to the house where I lived, and fetch me my
tinder-box, I will give you four shillings. But you must put your
best foot foremost.'
The shoemaker's boy was very willing to earn four shillings, and
fetched the tinder-box, gave it to the Soldier, and--yes--now you
shall hear.
Outside the town a great scaffold had been erected, and all round
were standing the soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of people. The
King and Queen were sitting on a magnificent throne opposite the
judges and the whole council.
The Soldier was already standing on the top of the ladder; but when
they wanted to put the rope round his neck, he said that the
fulfilment of one innocent request was always granted to a poor
criminal before he underwent his punishment. He would so much like
to smoke a small pipe of tobacco; it would be his last pipe in this
world.
The King could not refuse him this, and so he took out his
tinder-box, and rubbed it once, twice, three times. And lo, and
behold I there stood all three dogs--the one with eyes as large as
saucers, the second with eyes as large as mill-wheels, and the third
with eyes each as large as the Round Tower of Copenhagen.
'Help me now, so that I may not be hanged!' cried the Soldier. And
thereupon the dogs fell upon the judges and the whole council,
seized some by the legs, others by the nose, and threw them so high
into the air that they fell and were smashed into pieces.
'I won't stand this!' said the King; but the largest dog seized him
too, and the Queen as well, and threw them up after the others. This
frightened the soldiers, and all the people cried: 'Good Soldier,
you shall be our King, and marry the beautiful Princess!'
Then they put the Soldier into the King's coach, and the three dogs
danced in front, crying 'Hurrah!' And the boys whistled and the
soldiers presented arms.
The Princess came out of the copper castle, and became Queen; and
that pleased her very much.
The wedding festivities lasted for eight days, and the dogs sat at
table and made eyes at everyone.
The Tinder-Box
from the Yellow Fairy Book
Story Edited
by Andrew Lang |
