Prevod
Once upon a time there was a woman who longed for a tiny little child, but she had no idea where to get one. So she went to an old witch and said, “I should so dearly love to have a little child. Won’t you tell me where I might get one?”
“Oh, we can certainly manage that!” said the witch. “Here is a grain of barley for you. It is not at all the sort that grows in the farmer’s fields or is given to the hens to eat. Plant it in a flowerpot, and you shall see something!”
“Thank you!” said the woman. She gave the witch twelve shillings, then went home and planted the grain of barley. At once a lovely great flower sprang up. It looked just like a tulip, but its petals were tightly closed, as though it were still in bud.
“What a pretty flower!” said the woman, and she kissed its beautiful red and yellow petals. But just as she kissed it, the flower opened with a loud pop. Now she could see that it really was a tulip, but in the very middle of the flower, on its green seat, sat a tiny little girl, so delicate and lovely. She was only an inch tall, and that was why she was called Tommelise.
A pretty varnished walnut shell served as her cradle, blue violet petals were her mattresses, and a rose petal was her quilt. There she slept at night, but by day she played on the table, where the woman had set a plate surrounded by a wreath of flowers with their stems in the water. A large tulip petal floated there, and Tommelise could sit on it and sail from one side of the plate to the other, rowing with two white horsehairs. It was a lovely sight. She could sing, too, oh, so sweetly and beautifully, as no one there had ever heard before.
One night, as she lay in her beautiful bed, a hideous toad came hopping through the window, where one of the panes was broken. The toad was so ugly, so big and wet, and she hopped straight down onto the table where Tommelise lay asleep beneath the red rose petal.
“What a lovely wife she would make for my son!” said the toad. Then she seized the walnut shell in which Tommelise was sleeping and hopped away with her through the broken pane and down into the garden.
A broad river ran through the garden, but close to its banks the ground was marshy and muddy. Here the toad lived with her son. Ugh! He was ugly and horrid too, just like his mother. “Croak, croak, brek-ke-ke-kex!” That was all he could say when he saw the pretty little girl in the walnut shell.
“Don’t speak so loudly, or you’ll wake her!” said the old toad. “She might still run away from us, for she is as light as swan’s down! We’ll put her out in the river on one of the broad water-lily leaves. To someone so small and light, it will be just like an island! She won’t be able to run away from there while we put the best room in order down beneath the mud, where the two of you will make your home!”
Out in the river grew a great many water lilies, with broad green leaves that seemed to float on top of the water. The leaf farthest from the bank was also the largest of all. The old toad swam out to it and set down the walnut shell with Tommelise inside.
The poor tiny creature woke very early in the morning, and when she saw where she was, she began to weep bitterly, for there was water on every side of the great green leaf, and she could not possibly reach the shore.
The old toad sat down in the mud, decorating her room with reeds and yellow water lilies. Everything must look very fine for her new daughter-in-law. Then she swam out with her ugly son to the leaf where Tommelise stood. They had come to fetch her pretty bed, which was to be placed in the bridal chamber before she herself arrived. The old toad curtsied low in the water before her and said, “Here is my son. He is to be your husband, and you will have such a lovely home down in the mud!”
“Croak, croak! Brek-ke-ke-kex!” was all the son could say. Then they took the pretty little bed and swam away with it, but Tommelise sat all alone on the green leaf and cried, for she did not want to live with the horrid toad or have her hideous son for a husband. The little fish swimming below in the water had seen the toad and heard what she said, so they poked their heads up to have a look at the little girl. As soon as they saw her, they thought her so lovely, and felt so sorry that she should have to go down to the ugly toad. No, that must never happen! They gathered in the water around the green stalk that held the leaf she stood on, gnawed through it with their teeth, and away floated the leaf down the river with Tommelise, far away, where the toad could not reach her.
Tommelise sailed past so many places, and the little birds sitting in the bushes saw her and sang, “What a lovely little maiden!” The leaf with Tommelise on it floated farther and farther away, and so she travelled to foreign lands.
A pretty little white butterfly kept fluttering all around her, and at last settled on the leaf, for he had taken quite a liking to Tommelise. She was so happy, for now the toad could not reach her, and everything was so beautiful along the way. The sun shone on the water, making it look like the loveliest gold. Then she took her sash, tied one end around the butterfly, and fastened the other to the leaf. Now it glided along much faster, and she with it, for she was standing on the leaf.
Just then a great cockchafer came flying by. He caught sight of her and in an instant clasped his claw around her slender waist and flew up into a tree with her. But the green leaf floated on down the river, and the butterfly flew along with it, for he was tied to the leaf and could not get free.
Oh, how frightened poor Tommelise was when the cockchafer flew up into the tree with her! But most of all she grieved for the beautiful white butterfly she had tied to the leaf. If he could not get free, he would surely starve to death. The cockchafer, however, did not care about that at all. He sat down with her on the largest green leaf in the tree, gave her sweet nectar from the flowers to eat, and told her how pretty she was, although she did not look at all like a cockchafer. Presently all the other cockchafers who lived in the tree came to pay a visit. They looked at Tommelise, and the young lady cockchafers twitched their feelers and said, “She has only two legs. How pitiful!” “She has no feelers!” said another. “Her waist is so slender—ugh! She looks just like a human being! How ugly she is!” said all the female cockchafers. Yet Tommelise was so lovely. The cockchafer who had carried her off thought so too, but when all the others said she was hideous, he came to believe it himself and would have nothing more to do with her. She could go wherever she pleased. They flew down from the tree with her and set her on a daisy. There she wept because she was so ugly that the cockchafers would not have her, though she was really the loveliest creature imaginable, as delicate and radiant as the most beautiful rose petal.
All through the summer poor Tommelise lived quite alone in the great forest. She wove herself a bed of grass and hung it beneath a large dock leaf, where the rain could not fall on her. She gathered the sweetness from the flowers to eat, and drank the dew that stood on the leaves each morning. So summer and autumn passed, but now winter came, the long, cold winter. All the birds that had sung so sweetly to her flew away, the trees and flowers withered, and the great dock leaf beneath which she had lived curled up until nothing remained but a yellow, withered stalk. She was dreadfully cold, for her clothes were torn and she herself was so tiny and delicate. Poor Tommelise would surely freeze to death. It began to snow, and every snowflake that fell on her was like a whole shovelful thrown over one of us, for we are big, and she was only an inch tall. She wrapped herself in a withered leaf, but it would not keep her warm, and she shivered with cold.
Just outside the forest, where she had now wandered, lay a great cornfield, but the corn had long since been harvested, and only the bare, dry stubble stood up from the frozen earth. It was like a whole forest for her to walk through. Oh, how she shivered with cold! Then she came to the field mouse’s door. It was a little hole beneath the stubble. There the field mouse lived snug and warm, with a whole roomful of grain, a lovely kitchen, and a pantry. Poor Tommelise stood just inside the doorway, like any other little beggar girl, and asked for a small piece of a barleycorn, for she had not had the least morsel to eat for two days.
“You poor little thing!” said the field mouse, for at heart she was a kind old field mouse. “Come into my warm room and have something to eat with me!” As she had taken a liking to Tommelise, she said, “You may stay with me for the winter, but you must keep my room nice and clean and tell me stories, for I am very fond of them.” Tommelise did as the kind old field mouse asked, and lived very comfortably indeed.
“We shall probably have a visitor soon!” said the field mouse. “My neighbour comes to see me once a week. He has an even finer home than mine, with great halls, and he wears such a beautiful black velvet coat! If only you could have him for a husband, you would be well provided for. But he cannot see. You must tell him the prettiest stories you know!”
But Tommelise did not care for the idea at all. She had no wish to marry the neighbour, for he was a mole. He came to pay a visit in his black velvet coat. He was so rich and so learned, the field mouse said, and his home was more than twenty times larger than hers. Learned he certainly was, but he could not bear the sun or the beautiful flowers, and spoke ill of them, for he had never seen them. Tommelise had to sing, and she sang both “Cockchafer, Fly, Fly!” and “The Monk Walks in the Meadows.” The mole fell in love with her because of her lovely voice, but he said nothing, for he was a very cautious gentleman.
He had recently dug a long passage through the earth from his house to theirs, and the field mouse and Tommelise were welcome to walk in it whenever they pleased. But he warned them not to be frightened of the dead bird lying in the passage. It was a whole bird, with feathers and a beak, which must have died quite recently, when winter began, and had been buried just where he had made his passage.
The mole took a piece of rotten wood in his mouth, for it glows like fire in the dark, and walked ahead to light their way through the long, dark passage. When they reached the place where the dead bird lay, the mole pressed his broad nose against the ceiling and pushed up the earth, making a large hole through which the daylight could shine. In the middle of the floor lay a dead swallow, its beautiful wings pressed close to its sides, its feet and head tucked beneath its feathers. The poor bird had surely died of cold. Tommelise felt so sorry for it. She loved all the little birds, for they had sung and twittered so sweetly to her all summer. But the mole nudged it with his short legs and said, “It won’t be squeaking any more now! What a miserable thing it must be to be born a little bird! Thank God none of my children will be birds. Such a creature has nothing but its chirping, and must starve to death when winter comes!”
“Yes, you may well say that, sensible man that you are,” said the field mouse. “What good is all its chirping when winter comes? It must starve and freeze, and yet I suppose it is thought something quite grand!”
Tommelise said nothing, but when the other two turned their backs on the bird, she bent down, parted the feathers covering its head, and kissed its closed eyes. “Perhaps this was the one that sang so sweetly to me in the summer,” she thought. “What happiness it brought me, the dear, beautiful bird!”
The mole now stopped up the hole through which the daylight shone and escorted the ladies home. But that night Tommelise could not sleep at all. She got out of bed and wove a large, beautiful blanket of hay, carried it down, and spread it around the dead bird. She tucked soft cotton, which she had found in the field mouse’s room, along its sides, so that it might lie warmly in the cold earth.
“Farewell, you beautiful little bird!” she said. “Farewell, and thank you for your lovely songs in the summer, when all the trees were green and the sun shone so warmly on us!” Then she laid her head against the bird’s breast, but at once drew back in fright, for it seemed that something was beating inside. It was the bird’s heart. The bird was not dead; it had lain in a stupor, and now that it was warm, it was coming back to life.
In autumn all the swallows fly away to the warm countries, but if one lingers behind, it becomes so chilled that it falls to the ground as though dead. There it lies where it has fallen, and the cold snow settles over it.
Tommelise trembled all over, she was so frightened, for the bird was enormous beside her, who was only an inch tall. But she plucked up her courage, tucked the cotton more closely around the poor swallow, and fetched a spearmint leaf she had used as her own quilt and laid it over the bird’s head.
The next night she crept down to it again. By then it was quite alive, but so weak that it could only open its eyes for a moment and look at Tommelise, who stood holding a piece of rotten wood in her hand, for she had no other lantern.
“Thank you, you lovely little child!” the sick swallow said to her. “I am so beautifully warm now! Soon I shall regain my strength and be able to fly again, out in the warm sunshine!”
“Oh!” she said. “It is so cold outside. It is snowing and freezing! Stay in your warm bed, and I shall look after you!” Then she brought the swallow water in a flower petal, and it drank and told her how it had torn one wing on a thorn bush and so could not fly as fast as the other swallows, who had flown away, far away to the warm countries. At last it had fallen to the ground, but beyond that it could remember nothing, and had no idea how it had come here.
It stayed down there all winter, and Tommelise was kind to it and grew very fond of it. Neither the mole nor the field mouse knew the least thing about it, for they could not bear the poor, penniless swallow.
As soon as spring came and the sun warmed the earth, the swallow said goodbye to Tommelise, who opened the hole the mole had made in the ceiling. The sunlight shone in so beautifully, and the swallow asked if she would like to come along. She could sit on its back, and they would fly far away into the green forest. But Tommelise knew that the old field mouse would be grieved if she left her like that.
“No, I cannot!” said Tommelise. “Farewell, farewell, you kind, lovely girl!” said the swallow, and flew out into the sunshine. Tommelise watched it go, and tears came into her eyes, for she loved the poor swallow so dearly.
“Tweet! Tweet!” sang the bird, and flew into the green forest. Tommelise was very sad. She was not allowed to go out into the warm sunshine at all. The corn sown in the field above the field mouse’s house had grown tall, too, making a whole dense forest for the poor little girl, who was only an inch tall.
“This summer you must sew your trousseau!” the field mouse told her, for now their neighbour, the tiresome mole in the black velvet coat, had asked for her hand. “You must have both woollens and linens! You must have things to sit on and sleep on when you become the mole’s wife!”
Tommelise had to spin with a spindle, and the field mouse hired four spiders to spin and weave day and night. Every evening the mole paid a visit, and always talked of how, once summer was over, the sun would not shine nearly so hot. Just now it was baking the earth as hard as stone. Yes, when summer ended, he and Tommelise would be married. But she was not happy at all, for she had no love for the tiresome mole. Every morning when the sun rose, and every evening when it set, she crept out to the doorway. When the wind parted the ears of corn so that she could see the blue sky, she thought how bright and beautiful it was outside, and wished so much that she might see the dear swallow again. But it never came back; no doubt it was flying far away in the lovely green forest.
By the time autumn came, Tommelise had her whole trousseau ready. “In four weeks you will be married!” the field mouse told her. But Tommelise wept and said she would not have the tiresome mole.
“Fiddle-faddle!” said the field mouse. “Don’t be obstinate, or I shall bite you with my white tooth! What a fine husband you are getting! The queen herself has nothing to match his black velvet coat! His kitchen and cellar are both well stocked. You should thank God for him!”
And so the wedding day arrived. The mole had already come to fetch Tommelise. She was to live with him deep beneath the earth and never come out into the warm sunshine, for he could not bear it. The poor child was so unhappy. Now she must say goodbye to the beautiful sun, which, at least while she lived with the field mouse, she had been allowed to look at from the doorway.
“Farewell, bright sun!” she said, stretching her arms high into the air. She went a little way outside the field mouse’s house, for the corn had now been harvested, and only the dry stubble remained. “Farewell, farewell!” she said, putting her little arms around a small red flower growing there. “Give my love to the little swallow, if you should see it!”
“Tweet, tweet!” sounded just then above her head. She looked up, and there was the little swallow, flying past at that very moment. As soon as it saw Tommelise, it was delighted. She told it how unwilling she was to have the ugly mole for a husband, and how she would then have to live deep underground, where the sun never shone. She could not help crying as she spoke.
“The cold winter is coming now,” said the little swallow. “I am flying far away to the warm countries. Will you come with me? You can sit on my back! Just tie yourself on with your sash, and we shall fly away from the ugly mole and his dark room, far away over the mountains to the warm countries, where the sun shines more beautifully than here, where it is always summer and there are lovely flowers. Come and fly with me, sweet little Tommelise, who saved my life when I lay frozen in the dark cellar under the earth!”
“Yes, I will come with you!” said Tommelise. She climbed onto the bird’s back, with her feet resting on its outspread wing, and tied her sash firmly to one of its strongest feathers. Then the swallow flew high into the air, over forests and lakes, high above the great mountains where snow always lies. Tommelise shivered in the cold air, but then she crept beneath the bird’s warm feathers, putting out only her little head to look at all the beauty below.
At last they came to the warm countries. There the sun shone much more brightly than here, the sky was twice as high, and the loveliest green and purple grapes grew along the ditches and hedges. Lemons and oranges hung in the woods, the air was fragrant with myrtle and spearmint, and along the country roads the prettiest children ran about, playing with great brightly coloured butterflies. But the swallow flew farther still, and everything grew more and more beautiful. Beneath the loveliest green trees, beside a blue lake, stood a gleaming white marble palace from ancient times. Vines twined around its tall pillars, and high above were many swallows’ nests. In one of these lived the swallow that was carrying Tommelise.
“Here is my home!” said the swallow. “But if you will choose one of the splendid flowers growing down there, I shall set you in it, and you shall have everything as lovely as you could wish!”
“How wonderful!” she said, clapping her little hands. A great white marble column lay on the ground, where it had fallen and broken into three pieces, and among those pieces grew the most beautiful large white flowers. The swallow flew down with Tommelise and set her on one of the broad petals. But how astonished she was! In the middle of the flower sat a little man, as white and transparent as if he were made of glass. He wore the prettiest gold crown on his head, and had beautiful clear wings on his shoulders. He was no bigger than Tommelise herself. He was the spirit of the flower. In every flower lived just such a little man or woman, but this one was king over them all.
“Oh, how handsome he is!” Tommelise whispered to the swallow. The little prince was frightened of the swallow, for it was a giant bird beside someone so tiny and delicate. But when he saw Tommelise, he was delighted. She was the loveliest girl he had ever seen. So he took the gold crown from his own head and placed it on hers, asked her name, and asked whether she would be his wife; then she would be queen of all the flowers! Here indeed was a husband, quite different from the toad’s son and the mole in his black velvet coat. So she said yes to the handsome prince. From every flower came a lady or a gentleman, each so lovely that it was a joy to see them. Each brought Tommelise a present, but the best of all was a pair of beautiful wings from a large white fly. These were fastened to Tommelise’s back, and now she too could fly from flower to flower. There was great rejoicing, and the little swallow sat up in its nest and sang to them as well as it could. Yet in its heart it was sad, for it loved Tommelise so dearly and would never have wished to part from her.
“You shall not be called Tommelise!” the flower spirit said to her. “That is an ugly name, and you are so beautiful. We shall call you Maja!” “Farewell! Farewell!” said the little swallow, and flew away again from the warm countries, far away, back to Denmark. There it had a little nest above the window of the man who tells fairy tales. To him it sang, “Tweet, tweet!” And that is how we came to know the whole story.
