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 india-rubber 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.