themselves before the lamp, because they thought it was the
street-lamp who gave away the office; the one of these three was a
herring's head, for it shines in the dark, and it thought that it
could be of great service, and a real saving of oil, if it came to be
placed on the lamp-post. The other was a piece of touchwood, which
also shines, and always more than a stock-fish; besides, it said so
itself, it was the last piece of a tree that had once been the pride
of the forest. The third was a glow-worm; but where it had come from
the lamp could not imagine; but the glow-worm was there, and it also
shone, but the touchwood and the herring's head took their oaths that
it only shone at certain times, and therefore it could never be taken
into consideration.
The old lamp said that none of them shone well enough to be a
street-lamp; but not one of them thought so; and as they heard that it
was not the lamp itself that gave away the office, they said that it
was a very happy thing, for that it was too infirm and broken down to
be able to choose.
At the same moment the wind came from the street corner, it whistled
through the cowl of the old lamp, and said to it, "What is it that I
hear, are you going away to-morrow? Is it the last evening I shall
meet you here? Then you shall have a present!--now I will blow up your
brain-box so that you shall not only remember, clearly and distinctly,
what you have seen and heard, but when anything is told or read in
your presence, you shall be so clear-headed that you will also see
it."
"That is certainly much!" said the old street-lamp; "I thank you much;
if I be only not re-cast."
"It will not happen yet awhile," said the wind; "and now I will blow
up your memory; if you get more presents than that you may have quite
a pleasant old age."
"If I be only not re-cast," said the lamp; "or can you then assure me
my memory?"
"Old lamp, be reasonable!" said the wind, and then it blew. The moon
came forth at the same time. "What do you give?" asked the wind.
"I give nothing!" said the moon; "I am waning, and the lamps have
never shone for me, but I have shone for the lamps."* So the moon went
behind the clouds again, for it would not be plagued. A drop of rain
then fell straight down on the lamp's cowl, it was like a drop of
water from the eaves, but the drop said that it came from the grey
clouds, and was also a present,---and perhaps the best of all. "I
penetrate into you, so that you have the power, if you wish it, in one
night to pass over to rust, so that you may fall in pieces and become
dust." But the lamp thought this was a poor present, and the wind
thought the same. "Is there no better--is there no better?" it
whistled, as loud as it could. A shooting-star then fell, it shone in
a long stripe.
------
* It is the custom in Denmark, and one deserving the severest censure,
that, on those nights in which the moon shines; or, according to
almanac authority, ought to shine, the street lamps are not lighted;
so that, as it too frequently happens, when the moon is overclouded,
or on rainy evenings when she is totally obscured, the streets are for
the most part in perfect darkness. This petty economy is called "the
magistrates' light," they having the direction of the lighting,
paving, and cleansing of towns.
The same management may be met with in some other countries besides
Denmark.
------
"What was that?" exclaimed the herring's head; "did not a star fall
right down? I think it went into the lamp! Well, if persons who stand
so high seek the office, we may as well take ourselves off."
And it did so, and the others did so too; but the old lamp shone all
at once so singularly bright.
"That was a fine present!" it said; "the bright stars which I have
always pleased myself so much about, and which shine so
beautifully,--as I really have never been able to shine, although it
was my whole aim and endeavor,--have noticed me, a poor old-lamp, and
sent one down with a present to me, which consists of that quality,
that everything I myself remember and see quite distinctly, shall also
be seen by those I am fond of; and that is, above all, a true
pleasure, for what one cannot share with others is but a half
delight."
"It is a very estimable thought," said the wind; "but you certainly
don't know that there must be wax-candles; for unless a wax-candle be
lighted in you there are none of the others that will be able to see
anything particular about you. The stars have not thought of that;
they think that everything which shines has, at least, a wax-candle in
it. But now I am tired," said the wind, "I will now lie down;" and so
it lay down to rest.
The next day--yes, the next day we will spring over: the next evening
the lamp lay in the arm chair,--and where? At the old watchman's. He
had, for his long and faithful services, begged of the authorities
that he might be allowed to keep the old lamp; they laughed at him
when he begged for it, and then gave him it; and now the lamp lay in
the arm-chair, close by the warm stove, and it was really just as if
it had become larger on that account,--it almost filled the whole
chair. The old folks now sat at their supper, and cast mild looks at
the old lamp, which they would willingly have given a place at the
table with them. It is true they lived in a cellar, a yard or so below
ground: one had to go through a paved front-room to come into the room
they lived in; but it was warm here, for there was list round the door
to keep it so. It looked clean and neat, with curtains round the bed
and over the small windows, where two strange-looking flowerpots stood
on the sill. Christian, the sailor, had brought them from the East or
West Indies; they were of clay in the form of two elephants, the backs
of which were wanting: but in their place there came flourishing
plants out of the earth that was in them; in the one was the finest
chive,--It was the old folks' kitchen-garden,--and in the other was a
large flowering geranium--this was their flower-garden. On the wall
hung a large colored print of "The Congress of Vienna;" there they had
all the kings and emperors at once. A Bornholm* clock, with heavy
leaden weights went "tic-tac!" and always too fast; but the old folks
said it was better than if it went too slow. They ate their suppers,
and the old lamp, as we have said, lay in the armchair close by the
warm stove. It was, for the old lamp, as if the whole world was turned
upside down. But when the old watchman looked at it, and spoke about
what they had lived to see with each other, in rain and drizzle, in
the clear, short summer nights, and when the snow drove about so that
it was good to get into the pent-house of the cellar,--then all was
again in order for the old lamp, it saw it all just as if it were now
present;--yes! the wind had blown it up right well,--it had
enlightened it.
------
* Bornholm, a Danish island in the Baltic is famous for its
manufactures of clocks, potteries, and cement; it contains also
considerable coal mines, though not worked to any extent. It is
fertile in minerals, chalks, potters' clay of the finest quality, and
other valuable natural productions; but, on account of the jealous
nature of the inhabitants, which deters foreigners from settling
there, these productions are not made so available or profitable as
they otherwise might be.
------
The old folks were so clever and industrious, not an hour was quietly
dozed away; on Sunday afternoons some book was always brought forth,
particularly a book of travels, and the old man read aloud about
Africa, about the great forests and the elephants that were there
quite wild; and the old woman listened so attentively, and now and
then took a side glance at the clay elephants--her flower-pots. "I can
almost imagine it!" said she; and the lamp wished so much that there
was a wax candle to light and be put in it, so that she could plainly
see everything just as the lamp saw it; the tall trees, the thick
branches twining into one another, the black men on horseback, and
whole trains of elephants, which, with their broad feet, crushed the
canes and bushes.
"Of what use are all my abilities when there is no wax candle?" sighed
the lamp; "they have only train oil and tallow candles, and they are
not sufficient."
One day there came a whole bundle of stumps of wax candles into the
cellar, the largest pieces were burnt, and the old woman used the
smaller pieces to wax her thread with when she sewed; there were wax
candle ends, but they never thought of putting a little piece in the
lamp.
"Here I stand with my rare abilities," said the lamp; "I have
everything within me, but I cannot share any part with them. They know
not that I can transform the white walls to the prettiest
paper-hangings, to rich forests, to everything that they may wish for.
They know it not!"
For the rest, the lamp stood in a corner, where it always met the eye,
and it was neat and well scoured; folks certainly said it was an old
piece of rubbish; but the old man and his wife didn't care about that,
they were fond of the lamp.
One day it was the old watchman's birth day; the old woman came up to
the lamp, smiled, and said, "I will illuminate for him," and the
lamp's cowl creaked, for it thought, "They will now be enlightened!"
But she put in train oil, and no wax candle; it burnt the whole
evening; but now it knew that the gift which the stars had given it,
the best gift of all, was a dead treasure for this life. It then
dreamt--and when one has such abilities, one can surely dream,--that
the old folks were dead, and that it had come to an ironfounder's to
be cast anew; it was in as much anxiety as when it had to go to the
town-hall to be examined by the authorities; but although it had the
power to fall to pieces in rust and dust, when it wished it, yet it
did not do it; and so it came into the furnace and was re-cast as a
pretty iron candlestick, in which any one might set a wax candle. It
had the form of an angel, bearing a nosegay, and in the centre of the
nosegay they put a wax taper and it was placed on a green
writing-table; and the room was so snug and comfortable: there hung
beautiful pictures--there stood many books; it was at a poet's, and
everything that he wrote, unveiled itself round about: the room became
a deep, dark forest,--a sun-lit meadow where the stork stalked about;
and a ship's deck high aloft on the swelling sea!
"What power I have!" said the old lamp, as it awoke. "I almost long to
be re-cast;--but no, it must not be as long as the old folks live.
They are fond of me for the sake of my person. I am to them as a
child, and they have scoured me, and they have given me train oil.
After all, I am as well off as 'The Congress,'--which is something so
very grand."
From that time it had more inward peace, which was merited by the old
street-lamp.
------------
THE DREAM OF LITTLE TUK.
Ah! yes, that was little Tuk: in reality his name was not Tuk, but
that was what he called himself before he could speak plain: he meant
it for Charles, and it is all well enough if one do but know it. He
had now to take care of his little sister Augusta, who was much less
than himself, and he was, besides, to learn his lesson at the same
time; but these two things would not do together at all. There sat the
poor little fellow with his sister on his lap, and he sang to her all
the songs he knew; and he glanced the while from time to time into the
geography-book that lay open before him. By the next morning he was to
have learnt all the towns in Zealand by heart, and to know about them
all that is possible to be known.
His mother now came home, for she had been out, and took little
Augusta on her arm. Tuk ran quickly to the window, and read so eagerly
that he pretty nearly read his eyes out; for it got darker and darker,
but his mother had no money to buy a candle.
"There goes the old washerwoman over the way," said his mother, as she
looked out of the window. "The poor woman can hardly drag herself
along, and she must now drag the pail home from the fountain: be a
good boy, Tukey, and run across and help the old woman, won't you?"
So Tuk ran over quickly and helped her; but when he came back again
into the room it was quite dark, and as to a light, there was no
thought of such a thing. He was now to go to bed; that was an old
turn-up bedstead; in it he lay and thought about his geography lesson,
and of Zealand, and of all that his master had told him. He ought, to
be sure, to have read over his lesson again, but that, you know, he
could not do. He therefore put his geography-book under his pillow,
because he had heard that was a very good thing to do when one wants
to learn one's lesson; but one cannot, however, rely upon it entirely.
Well there he lay, and thought and thought, and all at once it was just
as if some one kissed his eyes and mouth: he slept, and yet he did not
sleep; it was as though the old washerwoman gazed on him with her mild
eyes and said, "It were a great sin if you were not to know your
lesson tomorrow morning. You have aided me, I therefore will now help
you; and the loving God will do so at all times." And all of a sudden
the book under Tuk's pillow began scraping and scratching.
"Kickery-ki! kluk! kluk! kluk!"--that was an old hen who came creeping
along, and she was from Kjoge. I am a Kjoger hen,"* said she, and then
she related how many inhabitants there were there, and about the
battle that had taken place, and which, after all, was hardly worth
talking about.
------
* Kjoge a town in the bay of Kjoge "To see the Kjoge hens," is an
expression similar to "showing a child London," which is said to be
done by taking his head in both hands, and so lifting him off the
ground. At the invasion of the English in 1807, an encounter of a no
very glorious nature took place between the British troops and the
undisciplined Danish militia.
------
"Kribledy, krabledy--plump!" down fell somebody: it was a wooden bird,
the popinjay used at the shooting-matches at Prastoe. Now _he_ said
that there were just as many inhabitants as he had nails in his body;
and he was very proud. "Thorwaldsen lived almost next door to me.*
Plump! here I lie capitally."
------
* Prastoe, a still smaller town than Kjoge. Some hundred paces from it
lies the manor-house Ny Soe, where Thorwaldsen generally sojourned
during his stay in Denmark, and where he called many of his immortal
works into existence.
------
But little Tuk was no longer lying down: all at once he was on
horseback. On he went at full gallop, still galloping on and on. A
knight with a gleaming plume, and most magnificently dressed, held him
before him on the horse, and thus they rode through the wood to the
old town of Bordingborg, and that was a large and very lively town.
High towers rose from the castle of the king, and the brightness of
many candles streamed from all the windows; within was dance and song,
and King Waldemar and the young, richly-attired maids of honor danced
together. The morn now came; and as soon as the sun appeared, the
whole town and the king's palace crumbled together, and one tower
after the other; and at last only a single one remained standing where
the castle had been before,* and the town was so small and poor, and
the school boys came along with their books under their arms, and
said, "2000 inhabitants!" but that was not true, for there were not so
many.
------
* Bordingborg, in the reign of King Waldemar a considerable place, now
an unimportant little town. One solitary tower only, and some remains
of a wall, show where the castle once stood.
------
And little Tukey lay in his bed: it seemed to him as if he dreamed,
and yet as if he were not dreaming; however, somebody was close beside
him.
"Little Tukey! little Tukey!" cried some one near. It was a seaman,
quite a little personage, so little as if he were a midshipman; but a
midshipman it was not.
"Many remembrances from Corsor.* That is a town that is just rising
into importance; a lively town that has steam-boats and stagecoaches:
formerly people called it ugly, but that is no longer true. I lie on
the sea," said Corsor; "I have high roads and gardens, and I have
given birth to a poet who was witty and amusing, which all poets are
not. I once intended to equip a ship that was to sail all round the
earth; but I did not do it, although I could have done so: and then,
too, I smell so deliciously, for close before the gate bloom the most
beautiful roses."
------
* Corsor, on the Great Belt, called, formerly, before the introduction
of steam-vessels, when travellers were often obliged to wait a long
time for a favorable wind, "the most tiresome of towns." The poet
Baggesen was born here.
------
Little Tuk looked, and all was red and green before his eyes; but as
soon as the confusion of colors was somewhat over, all of a sudden
there appeared a wooded slope close to the bay, and high up above
stood a magnificent old church, with two high pointed towers. From out
the hill-side spouted fountains in thick streams of water, so that
there was a continual splashing; and close beside them sat an old king
with a golden crown upon his white head: that was King Hroar, near the
fountains, close to the town of Roeskilde, as it is now called. And up
the slope into the old church went all the kings and queens of
Denmark, hand in hand, all with their golden crowns; and the organ
played and the fountains rustled. Little Tuk saw all, heard all. "Do
not forget the diet," said King Hroar.[1] Again all suddenly
disappeared. Yes, and whither? It seemed to him just as if one turned
over a leaf in a book. And now stood there an old peasant-woman, who
came from Soroe,[2] where grass grows in the marketplace.
------
[1] Roeskilde, once the capital of Denmark. The town takes its name
from King Hroar, and the many fountains in the neighborhood. In the
beautiful cathedral the greater number of the kings and queens of
Denmark are interred. In Roeskilde, too, the members of the Danish
Diet assemble.
[2] Soroe, a very quiet little town, beautifully situated, surrounded
by woods and lakes. Holberg, Denmark's Moliere, founded here an
academy for the sons of the nobles. The poets Hauch and Ingemann were
appointed professors here. The latter lives there still.
------
She had an old grey linen apron hanging over her head and back: it was
so wet, it certainly must have been raining "Yes, that it has," said
she; and she now related many pretty things out of Holberg's comedies,
and about Waldemar and Absalon; but all at once she cowered together,
and her head began shaking backwards and forwards, and she looked as
she were going to make a spring. "Croak! croak!" said she: "it is wet,
it is wet; there is such a pleasant death-like stillness in Soroe!"
She was now suddenly a frog, "Croak;" and now she was an old woman.
"One must dress according to the weather," said she. "It is wet, it is
wet. My town is just like a bottle; and one gets in by the neck, and
by the neck one must get out again! In former times I had the finest
fish, and now I have fresh rosy-cheeked boys at the bottom of the
bottle, who learn wisdom, Hebrew, Greek,--Croak!" When she spoke it
sounded just like the noise of frogs, or as if one walked with great
boots over a moor; always the same tone, so uniform and so tiring that
little Tuk fell into a good sound sleep, which, by the bye, could not
do him any harm.
But even in this sleep there came a dream, or whatever else it was:
his little sister Augusta, she with the blue eyes and the fair curling
hair, was suddenly a tall, beautiful girl, and without having wings
was yet able to fly; and she now flew over Zealand--over the green
woods and the blue lakes.
"Do you hear the cock crow, Tukey? cock-a-doodle-doo! The cocks are
flying up from Kjoge! You will have a farm-yard, so large, oh! so very
large! You will suffer neither hunger nor thirst! You will get on in
the world! You will be a rich and happy man! Your house will exalt
itself like King Waldemar's tower, and will be richly decorated with
marble statues, like that at Prastoe. You understand what I mean. Your
name shall circulate with renown all round the earth, like unto the
ship that was to have sailed from Corsor; and in Roeskilde"----
"Do not forget the diet!" said King Hroar.
"Then you will speak well and wisely, little Tukey; and when at last
you sink into your grave, you shall sleep as quietly"----
"As if I lay in Soroe," said Tuk, awaking. It was bright day, and he
was now quite unable to call to mind his dream; that, however, was not
at all necessary, for one may not know what the future will bring.
And out of bed he jumped, and read in his book, and now all at once he
knew his whole lesson. And the old washerwoman popped her head in at
the door, nodded to him friendly, and said, "Thanks, many thanks, my
good child, for your help! May the good ever-loving God fulfil your
loveliest dream!"
Little Tukey did not at all know what he had dreamed, but the loving
God knew it.
------------
THE NAUGHTY BOY.
A long time ago there lived an old poet, a thoroughly kind old poet.
As he was sitting one evening in his room, a dreadful storm arose
without, and the rain streamed down from heaven; but the old poet sat
warm and comfortable in his chimney-corner, where the fire blazed and
the roasting apple hissed.
"Those who have not a roof over their heads will be wetted to the
skin," said the good old poet.
"Oh let me in! let me in! I am cold, and I'm so wet!" exclaimed
suddenly a child that stood crying at the door and knocking for
admittance, while the rain poured down, and the wind made all the
windows rattle.
"Poor thing!" said the old poet, as he went to open the door. There
stood a little boy, quite naked, and the water ran down from his long
golden hair; he trembled with cold, and had he not come into a warm
room he would most certainly have perished in the frightful tempest.
"Poor child!" said the old poet, as he took the boy by the hand. "Come
in, come in, and I will soon restore thee! Thou shalt have wine and
roasted apples, for thou art verily a charming child!" And the boy was
so really. His eyes were like two bright stars; and although the water
trickled down his hair, it waved in beautiful curls. He looked exactly
like a little angel, but he was so pale, and his whole body trembled
with cold. He had a nice little bow in his hand, but it was quite
spoiled by the rain, and the tints of his many-colored arrows ran one
into the other.
The old poet seated himself beside his hearth, and took the little
fellow on his lap; he squeezed the water out of his dripping hair,
warmed his hands between his own, and boiled for him some sweet wine.
Then the boy recovered, his cheeks again grew rosy, he jumped down
from the lap where he was sitting, and danced round the kind old poet.
"You are a merry fellow," said the old man; "what's your name?"
"My name is Cupid," answered the boy. "Don't you know me? There lies
my bow; it shoots well, I can assure you! Look, the weather is now
clearing up, and the moon is shining clear again through the window."
"Why, your bow is quite spoiled," said the old poet.
"That were sad indeed," said the boy, and he took the bow in his hand
and examined it on every side. "Oh, it is dry again, and is not hurt
at all; the string is quite tight. I will try it directly." And he
bent his bow, took aim, and shot an arrow at the old poet, right into
his heart. "You see now that my bow was not spoiled," said he,
laughing; and away he ran.
The naughty boy! to shoot the old poet in that way; he who had taken
him into his warm room, who had treated him so kindly, and who had
given him warm wine and the very best apples!
The poor poet lay on the earth and wept, for the arrow had really
flown into his heart.
"Fie!" said he, "how naughty a boy Cupid is! I will tell all children
about him, that they may take care and not play with him, for he will
only cause them sorrow and many a heart-ache."