On Christmas Eve a beautiful, decorated Christmas tree stood in the old great hall. Fires were burning in the fireplaces, and the old portraits were decorated with spruce branches. The master and mistress and their guests gathered here, and there was singing and dancing.

There had already been Christmas joy in the servants’ hall earlier in the evening. Here too was a big spruce tree with lighted red and white candles, small Danish flags, cut-out paper swans, and paper hearts woven of colorful paper filled with goodies. The poor children of the district were invited, and each had its mother along. They didn’t look at the tree much, but at the tables with gifts. There was wool and linen cloth for sewing dresses and trousers. That’s what the mothers and older children looked at. Only the very little ones stretched out their hands towards the candles, gold tinsel, and flags.

The gathering took place early in the afternoon. Everyone ate Christmas pudding and roast goose with red cabbage. And when the tree had been looked at, and the gifts distributed, everyone got a little cup of punch and apple fritters filled with apples.

Then they went home to their poor rooms and talked about “the good way of life,” that is to say, the good food, and the gifts were once again carefully inspected.

Garden-Kirsten and Garden-Ole were a married couple who kept their home and made their living by weeding and tending the garden on the estate. At each Christmas celebration they always got their share of presents. They had five children, and all five were clothed by the master and mistress.

“They are generous people, our master and mistress,” they said. “But they can afford it, and they take pleasure in it.”

“There’s good clothing for four of the children,” said Garden-Ole. “But why isn’t there anything here for the cripple? They usually remember him too, even though he can’t go to the party.”

It was their oldest child they called “the cripple.” His name was actually Hans.

When he was little he was the quickest and most lively of children, but he had suddenly became “limp legged” as they called it. He could not stand or walk, and he had been bedridden for five years.

“Well, I did get something for him too,” said his mother. “But it’s nothing much, just a book for him to read.”

“He won’t get much out of that,” said his father.

But Hans was happy to get it. He was a really bright boy who liked to read, but he also spent his time working. He did as much as someone who’s always in bed could to make himself useful. He had busy hands and used them to knit wool stockings, even whole bedspreads. The mistress on the estate had praised them and bought them.

The book that Hans had received was a book of fairy tales. There was much to read and much to think about in it.

“That’s of no use in this house!” said his parents. “But let him read. It will pass the time, and he can’t always be knitting stockings.”

Spring came, and flowers and greenery began to sprout. Weeds too, as you can certainly call the nettles, even if they are so nicely talked about in the hymn:

There was a lot to do in the manor garden, not just for the gardener and his apprentices, but also for Garden-Kirsten and Garden-Ole.

“It’s total drudgery,” they said, “and when we have raked the paths and gotten them really nice, they immediately are walked on again and messed up. There’s a constant stream of strangers here on the estate. What a lot it must cost! But the master and mistress are rich.”

“Things are oddly distributed,” said Ole. “The pastor says we’re all the Lord’s children. Why is there such a difference between us then?”

“It’s because of the fall from grace,” said Kirsten.

They talked about it again in the evening, where cripple Hans was lying with his fairy tale book.

Straitened circumstances, drudgery, and toil had hardened the parents’ hands and also hardened their judgment and opinions. They couldn’t manage, couldn’t deal with things, and the more they talked, the more disgruntled and angry they became.

“Some people have wealth and good fortune, others only poverty! Why should we have to suffer for our first parents’ disobedience and curiosity. We wouldn’t have behaved the way those two did!”

“Yes, we would have!” cripple Hans said at once. “It’s all here in this book.”

“What’s in the book?” asked his parents.

And Hans read them the old fairy tale about The Woodcutter and His Wife.² They also complained about Adam and Eve’s curiosity, the cause of their misfortune. Then the king of the country came by. “Come home with me,” he said, “And you’ll live as well as I do. Seven course meals and a dish for show. That one’s in a closed tureen and you mustn’t touch it, or your life of luxury will be over.” “What can be in the tureen?” asked the wife. “It isn’t our business,” said the husband. “Well, I’m not curious,” said his wife. “I would just like to know why we can’t lift the lid. It must be some delicacy. ”Just so there’s no booby trap about it,” said the man, “like a pistol shot that would go off and wake the whole house.” “Uff!” said the wife and didn’t touch the tureen. But during the night she dreamed that the lid lifted by itself, and there was the fragrance of the most lovely punch like you get at weddings and funerals. There was a big silver shilling lying there with the inscription : ”If you drink of this punch you’ll become the richest in the world and everyone else will become beggars.” And she woke up right away and told her husband her dream. ”You’re thinking too much about that thing!” he said. ”We could just lift it slightly and gently,” said the wife. “Very gently,” her husband answered. And the wife lifted the lid very slowly. Two nimble little mice jumped out and ran away into a mouse hole. “Good bye!” said the king. ”Now you can go home to your own bed. Don’t berate Adam and Eve any longer. You yourselves have been just as curious and ungrateful!”

“Where did that story come from and how did it get into the book?” asked Garden-Ole. “It’s just as if it pertains to us. It gives you a lot to think about.”

They went to work again the next day. They were scorched by the sun and soaked to the skin by rain. They were filled with grumpy thoughts and chewed them over in their minds.

It was still daylight that evening when they had eaten their milk porridge, and Garden-Ole said, “Read that story about the woodcutter for us again.”

“There are so many delightful stories in this book,” said Hans. “So many that you haven’t heard.”

“Well, I don’t care about them,” said Garden-Ole. “I want to hear the one I know.”

And he and his wife listened to it again, and more than one evening they came back to the same story.

“But I don’t really understand the whole thing,” said Garden-Ole. “People are like milk that curdles. Some become fine cottage cheese and others thin, watered whey. Some people are lucky in everything, always given the place of honor, and never knowing sorrow or want.”

Cripple Hans was listening to this. His legs were weak, but his mind was sharp. He read a story for them from the book of fairy tales. He read about The Man without Sorrow or Want.³ Well, where could he be found? Because he had to be found.

The King lay ill and could not be cured except by wearing a shirt that had been worn and worn out by a person who could truthfully say that he had never known sorrow or want.

Messengers went out to all the countries of the world, to all palaces and estates, to all wealthy and happy people, but when it came right down to it, they had all known sorrow and want.

“I haven’t!” said the swineherd, sitting by the ditch, laughing and singing. “I am the happiest person.”

“Then give us your shirt,” said the messengers. “You’ll be paid half a kingdom for it.”

He didn’t have a shirt, and yet he called himself the happiest person.

“That was a fine fellow!” exclaimed Garden-Ole, and he and his wife laughed like they hadn’t laughed for years.

Just then the schoolteacher came by.

“How merry you all are,” he said. “That’s rare in this house. Did you pick a lucky number in the lottery?”

“No, nothing like that,” said Garden-Ole. “It’s Hans. He read a story for us from his fairy tale book. He read about The Man without Sorrow or Want, and the fellow had no shirt. You laugh till you cry hearing something like that, and from a printed book, too. Everyone has his burdens to bear. We’re not alone in it, and there’s a comfort in that.”

“Where did you get that book?” asked the schoolteacher.

“Hans got it at Christmas over a year ago from the master and mistress. You know he loves to read, and he’s a cripple, of course. At that time we would rather he’d gotten a couple of everyday shirts, but the book is remarkable. It answers your questions somehow.”

The schoolteacher took the book and opened it.

“Let’s hear the same story again,” said Garden-Ole. “I don’t quite have a grasp of it yet. And then he will have to read the other one about the woodcutter.”

Those two stories were enough for Ole. They were like two sunbeams that shone into the simple cottage and into the downtrodden thoughts that had made them grumpy and cross.

Hans had read the whole book, read it many times. The fairy tales carried him out into the world, there where he couldn’t go since his legs couldn’t carry him.

The schoolteacher sat by his bed. They talked together, and it was pleasant for both of them.

From that day on the schoolteacher came more often to see Hans when his parents were working. It was like a celebration for the boy every time he came. How he listened to what the old man told him! About the earth’s size and about many other countries, and that the sun was almost a half million times the size of the earth and so far away that a cannonball would take twenty five years to travel from the sun to earth, while light rays could reach the earth in eight minutes.

Every capable schoolboy knows all this now, but for Hans it was new and even more marvelous than everything written in the book of fairy tales.

A couple of times a year the schoolteacher was invited to dinner at the manor house, and on one such occasion he told them how important the fairy tale book had been in the poor cottage, where just two stories had resulted in revival and blessings. The weak, clever little boy had brought reflection and joy to the house through his reading.

When the schoolteacher went home from the manor, the mistress pressed a couple of shiny silver dollars in his hand for little Hans.

“Father and mother must have those!” said the boy when the schoolteacher brought him the money.

And Garden-Ole and Garden-Kirsten said, “Cripple Hans is, after all, a benefit and a blessing.”

A few days later when the parents were at work on the estate, its family coach stopped outside. It was the tender-hearted mistress who came, happy that her Christmas present had been such comfort and brought such pleasure to the boy and his parents.

She brought along some fine bread, fruit, and a bottle of sweet syrup, but what was even better, she brought him a little black bird in a gilded cage. It could whistle so beautifully. The cage with the bird was placed on the old chest of drawers, not far from the boy’s bed. He could see the bird and hear it, and even people way out on the road could hear the bird singing.

Garden-Ole and Garden-Kirsten didn’t come home until the mistress had left. They saw how happy Hans was, but thought that such a gift could only bring inconvenience.

“Rich people don’t consider things!” they said. “Now we’ll have that to take care of too. Cripple Hans can’t do it, and the cat will end up taking it.”

A week went by, and then another. During that time the cat had been in the room many times without scaring the bird, let alone harming it. Then something great occurred. It was in the afternoon. His parents and the other children were working, and Hans was quite alone. He had the fairy tale book in his hands and was reading about the fisherman’s wife, who had all her wishes fulfilled.⁴ She wanted to be King, and she became it. She wanted to be emperor, and she became it. But then she wanted to be God and so ended up in the muddy ditch, where she had come from. This story has nothing to do with the bird and the cat, but it happened to be the story he was reading when the event happened. He always remembered that.

The cage was standing on the bureau. The cat was standing on the floor staring hard with its yellow-green eyes at the bird. There was something in the cat’s face—as if it wanted to tell the bird, “How beautiful you are! I would really like to eat you^!”

Hans understood this. He could read it in the cat’s face.

“Scram, cat!” he shouted. “Get out of here!”

It was as if the cat was readying itself to spring.

Hans couldn’t reach it. He had nothing to throw at it except his dearest treasure, the fairy tale book. He threw it, but the cover was loose and flew to one side, and the book itself with all the pages flew to the other side. The cat slowly retreated a little bit and looked at Hans, as if it wanted to say: “Don’t involve yourself in this matter, little Hans. I can walk, and I can spring, and you can do neither.”

Hans kept his eye on the cat and was very uneasy. The bird became uneasy too. There was no person to call upon, and it was as if the cat knew this. It once again readied itself to spring. Hans could use his hands, and he waved his bedspread, but the cat didn’t care about the bedspread and when this too was thrown at it, to no avail, it leaped up on the chair and then into the windowsill, where it was closer to the bird.

Hans sensed the warm blood flowing in his veins, but he didn’t think about that. He only thought about the cat and the bird. He couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t stand on his legs, much less walk. It was as if his heart turned over in his chest when he saw the cat jump from the window right onto the bureau and push the cage so it tipped over. The bird was fluttering around confusedly in there.

Hans gave a cry. His body jerked, and without thinking, he sprang from the bed, towards the chest of drawers. He threw the cat down and grasped the cage firmly. The bird was scared to death. With the cage in his hand he ran out the door and onto the road.

The tears were streaming down his face. He shouted for joy and screamed loudly, “I can walk! I can walk!”

He had regained the use of his limbs. Such things can happen, and it happened to him.

The schoolteacher lived close by, and the boy came running in to him in his bare feet, wearing only his shirt and bed jacket and carrying the bird in the cage.

“I can walk!” he shouted. “Lord, my God!” and he sobbed tearfully from pure joy.

And there was joy in the home of Garden-Ole and Garden-Kirsten. “We’ll never see a happier day!” they both said.

Hans was summoned to the manor house. He hadn’t walked that way for many years. It was as if the trees and hazelnut bushes that he knew so well nodded to him and said, “Hello, Hans. Welcome back out here.” The sun shone into his face and right into his heart.

At the manor the young, kind master and mistress had him sit by them, and looked as happy as if he were one of their own family.

Happiest of all was the mistress, who had given him the book of fairy tales, and the little songbird. It was, true enough, dead now. It had died of fright, but in a way it had been the means to his recovery, and the book had been an awakening for him and his parents. He still had it, and he would keep it and read it, no matter how old he became. And now he could also be useful to them at home. He would learn a trade, preferably become a bookbinder, “because,” he said, “then I can read all the new books.”

In the afternoon the mistress summoned Hans’ parents. She and her husband had talked about Hans. He was a good and clever boy, had a love of reading and good aptitude. Our Lord always approves a worthy cause.

That evening the parents came home happy from the manor, especially Kirsten, but the next week she cried because little Hans was going away. He had new clothes and was a good boy, but now he was going over the sea, far away, to go to school, a classical education. It would be many years before they would see him again.

He didn’t take the book of fairy tales along with him. His parents wanted it as a keepsake. And father often read it, but only the two stories that he knew.

And they received letters from Hans, one happier than the next. He lived with nice people in good circumstances, but the very best thing was going to school. There was so much to learn and know. He wanted only to live to be a hundred and become a schoolteacher sometime.

“If we could live to see that!” said his parents, and they held each other’s hands, as if they were at communion.

“Think what’s happened to Hans,” said Ole. “It shows that our Lord also thinks of poor people’s children. And that it happened to a cripple! It’s just like something Hans could read to us from his book of fairy tales!”