Page:Fairy tales and stories (Andersen, Tegner).djvu/202

170 remain; it consists in her being such a sweet and innocent child. If she cannot obtain access herself to the Snow Queen, and remove the bits of glass from little Kay, we cannot help her. Two miles from here the Snow Queen's garden begins; carry the little girl there and put her down by the great bush which stands full of rich berries in the snt) . Don't stop there long gossiping, but make haste back here." And the Fin- woman lifted little Gerda up on the reindeer, wht) set out as fast as he could.

" Oh, I have n't got my boots ! I hiue n"t got my gloves! " cried little Gerda as soon as she felt the biting cold ; hut the reindeer dared not stop ; he ran till he came to the great bush with the red berries. There he put Gerda down and kissed her mouth, while big bright tears ran down the animal's cheeks, and then he trotted back as quicklv as he could. There stood poor Gerda without shoes and without ghnes in the midst of the terrible ice-cold Finmark.

She ran as fast as her legs could carry her, when she encountered a whole regiment ot snowHakes; but they did n't hill down from the sky, which was quite bright and full of shining Northern lights. The snow- Hakes ran along the ground and grew larger the nearer they came; Gerda well remembered how big and weird they had appeared to her when she looked at them through the magnifying glass, but now they were certainly much bigger and more terrible ; they were alive and were the outposts of the Snow Queen. They had the most wonderful shapes: some of them looked like great, ugly porcupines, others like coils of snakes putting forth their heads, and others again like small fat bears with bristling hairs; all were dazzlingly white, all were living snowHakes.

Little Gerda then said the Lord's Prayer ; the cold was so great that she could see her own breath, it seemed like a jet of steam issuing from her mouth; her breath grew thicker and thicker and formed itself into little bright angels, who grew larger and larger as soon as they touched the ground. They all had helmets on their heads, and spears and shields in their hands; their numbers increased every moment, and when Gerda had finished her prayer there was a whole legion around her. They struck at the terrible snowHakes with their spears and shattered them into a hundred pieces, and little Gerda could then proceed safely and cheerfully on her way. The angels patted her feet and hands so that' she did not feel the cold so much, and she walked on rapidlv toward the Snow Queen's castle. But we will now first see how Kay is faring. He certainly was not thinking of little Gerda, and least of all that she might be standing outside the castle.