Among the children in a charity school sat a little Jewish girl. She was a good, intelligent child, the quickest in all the school; but she had to be excluded from one lesson, for she was not allowed to take part in the scripture-lesson, for it was a Christian school. In that hour the girl […]

An old story yet lives of the “Thorny Road of Honour,” of a marksman, who indeed attained to rank and office, but only after a lifelong and weary strife against difficulties. Who has not, in reading this story, thought of his own strife, and of his own numerous “difficulties?” The story is very closely akin […]

In a little provincial town, in the time of the year when people say “the evenings are drawing in,” there was one evening quite a social gathering in the home of a father of a family. The weather was still mild and warm. The lamp gleamed on the table; the long curtains hung down in […]

There is a street in Copenhagen that has this strange name–“Hysken Straede.” Whence comes this name, and what is its meaning? It is said to be German; but injustice has been done to the Germans in this matter, for it would have to be “Haeuschen,” and not “Hysken.” For here stood, once upon a time, […]

The storks tell their little ones very many stories, all of the moor and the marsh. These stories are generally adapted to the age and capacity of the hearers. The youngest are content if they are told “Kribble-krabble, plurre-murre” as a story, and find it charming; but the older ones want something with a deeper […]

In the forest, high up on the steep shore, hard by the open sea coast, stood a very old oak tree. It was exactly three hundred and sixty-five years old, but that long time was not more for the tree than just as many days would be to us men. We wake by day and […]

“Ding-dong! Ding-dong!” It sounds up from the “bell-deep,” in the Odense-Au. Every child in the old town of Odense, on the island of Fuenen, knows the Au, which washes the gardens round about the town, and flows on under the wooden bridges from the dam to the water-mill. In the Au grow the yellow water-lilies […]

On board the steamer was an elderly man with such a merry face that, if it did not belie him, he must have been the happiest fellow in creation. And, indeed, he declared he was the happiest man; I heard it out of his own mouth. He was a Dane, a travelling theatre director. He […]

Charles Dickens once told us about a pig, and since that time we are in a good humour if we only hear one grunt. St. Antony took the pig under his protection; and when we think of the prodigal son we always associate with him the idea of feeding swine; and it was in front […]

Anne Lisbeth had a colour like milk and blood; young, fresh, and merry, she looked beautiful, with gleaming white teeth and clear eyes; her footstep was light in the dance, and her mind was lighter still. And what came of it all? Her son was an ugly brat! Yes, he was not pretty; so he […]

Alfred the sculptor–you know him? We all know him: he won the great gold medal, and got a travelling scholarship, went to Italy, and then came back to his native land. He was young in those days, and indeed he is young yet, though he is ten years older than he was then. After his […]

A duck arrived from Portugal. Some said she came from Spain, but that’s all the same. At any rate she was called the Portuguese, and laid eggs, and was killed and cooked, and that was her career. But the ducklings which crept forth from her eggs were afterwards also called Portuguese, and there is something […]

The story of the girl who trod on the loaf, to avoid soiling her shoes, and of the misfortunes that befell this girl, is well known. It has been written, and even printed. The girl’s name was Inge; she was a poor child, but proud and presumptuous; there was a bad foundation in her, as […]

This is a story from the sand-dunes or sand-hills of Jutland; though it does not begin in Jutland, the northern peninsula, but far away in the south, in Spain. The ocean is the high road between the nations–transport thyself thither in thought to sunny Spain. There it is warm and beautiful, there the fiery pomegranate […]

Our scene is in Northern Jutland, in the so called “wild moor.” We hear what is called the “Wester-wow-wow”–the peculiar roar of the North Sea as it breaks against the western coast of Jutland. It rolls and thunders with a sound that penetrates for miles into the land; and we are quite near the roaring. […]

“It’s so wonderfully cold that my whole body crackles!” said the Snow Man. “This is a kind of wind that can blow life into one; and how the gleaming one up yonder is staring at me.” He meant the sun, which was just about to set. “It shall not make me wink–I shall manage to […]

Have you ever seen a maiden? I mean what our paviours call a maiden, a thing with which they ram down the paving-stones in the roads. A maiden of this kind is made altogether of wood, broad below, and girt round with iron rings; at the top she is narrow, and has a stick passed […]

There were two Cocks–one on the dunghill, the other on the roof. Both were conceited; but which of the two effected most? Tell us your opinion; but we shall keep our own nevertheless. The poultry-yard was divided by a partition of boards from another yard, in which lay a manure-heap, whereon lay and grew a […]

I. “That was a remarkably fine dinner yesterday,” observed an old Mouse of the female sex to another who had not been at the festive gathering. “I sat number twenty-one from the old mouse king, so that I was not badly placed. Should you like to hear the order of the banquet? The courses were […]

In the room of a poet, where his inkstand stood upon the table, it was said, “It is wonderful what can come out of an inkstand. What will the next thing be? It is wonderful!” “Yes, certainly,” said the Inkstand. “It’s extraordinary–that’s what I always say,” he exclaimed to the pen and to the other […]