The Snow Queen

The Snow Queen

Long ago, an evil magician made a strange mirror. In it, everything good and beautiful looked tiny and ridiculous, while everything ugly or unkind became enormous. A smile looked foolish, a kind person looked naive, and a lovely flower looked like a miserable weed.

The magician was proud of his invention. His pupils carried the mirror around the world, laughing at the way it distorted everything. At last they tried to lift it high into the sky.

The higher they flew, the more the mirror trembled. Suddenly it slipped from their hands, fell, and shattered into millions of pieces.

Tiny splinters scattered everywhere. If one entered a person’s eye, that person began to notice mostly what was wrong. If another reached the heart, the heart became cold as ice.

In a large city lived two children, Kay and Gerda. Their families lived in neighboring houses so close that they could almost reach from one window to the other. Wooden boxes of roses stood between the roofs. In summer the children sat beside the flowers, read books, listened to Grandmother’s stories, and invented adventures.

Kay and Gerda loved each other like the dearest of friends.

One winter evening, Grandmother told them about the Snow Queen.

“She travels with the blizzard,” Grandmother said. “Snowflakes whirl around her like white bees.”

Kay looked toward the frosted window.

“If she came here, I would sit her beside the warm fire. Then we would see how frightening she really is.”

Gerda laughed. At that moment, a large snowflake appeared outside. It seemed to grow until it looked like a tall woman dressed in white. Her face was beautiful but perfectly still, as though carved from ice.

A moment later she vanished.

Spring came. The roses bloomed again.

One day Kay suddenly cried out.

“Ow! Something got into my eye... and something hurts in my chest.”

Gerda hurried to him but could see nothing. She did not know that two tiny splinters of the enchanted mirror had found Kay: one in his eye, the other in his heart.

Kay began to change.

“These roses are ridiculous,” he said. “One is crooked and another has a spot.”

“But yesterday you liked them,” Gerda said.

“Yesterday I was not looking properly.”

He began mocking Grandmother’s stories, imitating neighbors, and laughing when Gerda was hurt. He loved sharp snowflakes, straight lines, and cold patterns because they seemed perfect to him.

Winter returned. Boys tied little sledges behind larger sleighs and raced through the streets.

One day Kay saw a magnificent white sleigh. A figure in fur sat inside, surrounded by glittering snow.

Kay fastened his little sledge behind it.

The white sleigh moved faster.

“Stop!” Kay shouted.

But the city was already behind them. Wind whistled around him. Kay tried to untie the rope and could not.

The figure turned.

It was the Snow Queen.

“Are you cold?” she asked.

She touched his forehead. Cold flowed through him, but afterward he barely felt the frost.

She kissed him again, and his memories of Gerda, the roses, and home became distant, almost like a dream.

The Snow Queen carried him north.

Back in the city, everyone searched for Kay. Spring came, but he did not return.

Gerda refused to believe he was gone forever.

“He is alive,” she said. “I will find him.”

She put on her strongest shoes and went to the river.

“River, did you take Kay? If you know where he is, help me.”

She sat in a little boat near the bank. The rope slipped free, and the current carried her downstream. At first Gerda was frightened. Then she thought:

“Perhaps the river is showing me the way.”

Soon she reached a cottage in a beautiful garden. An old woman lived there and knew a little magic. She fed Gerda and combed her hair. The old woman liked her guest so much that she wished the girl would stay.

With a magical comb she made Gerda forget, for a while, whom she was searching for.

The garden was always summer. Tulips, lilies, bells, and poppies bloomed everywhere. Only roses were missing, because the old woman had hidden them.

One day Gerda noticed a painted rose on the woman’s hat.

“Roses! Where are the roses in your garden?”

She searched. A tear fell onto the earth, and at once a rosebush rose from the ground.

Gerda remembered everything.

“Kay! I am looking for Kay!”

She left the garden and continued. Outside, autumn had already arrived. Gerda realized how much time had passed.

In a field she met a black crow.

“Caw! Whom are you searching for?”

Gerda told him about Kay.

“Perhaps I have seen your boy,” said the crow. “A clever young man recently came to our palace and married the princess.”

Hope filled Gerda’s heart.

The crow helped her enter the palace. At night she raised a lamp over the young prince.

It was not Kay.

Gerda cried.

The prince and princess awoke. When they heard her story, they did not become angry. They gave her warm clothes, food, and a carriage so she could continue her journey.

In the forest, robbers stopped the carriage. They took the horses and valuables and brought Gerda to their camp.

Among them was a girl about Gerda’s age. She was bold, rough, and used to giving orders.

“You will sleep near me,” she said. “And you will tell me why you were traveling through the forest alone.”

Gerda told her about Kay.

A reindeer in the enclosure heard the story.

“I know the Snow Queen,” he said. “Her palace is far north, in Lapland. Perhaps the boy is there.”

The robber girl frowned.

“If that is true, you must go.”

She opened the enclosure.

“Run, Reindeer. Take Gerda north. And do not lose her!”

She gave Gerda warm mittens and food.

The reindeer ran day and night. Forests grew thinner, the land turned white, and the sky seemed enormous. At last they reached the hut of a Lapland woman.

She listened and wrote a message to a wise Finnish woman.

The Finnish woman’s cottage was so warm that Gerda’s cheeks immediately turned pink.

“Give the girl the strength of twelve warriors,” begged the reindeer. “Then she can defeat the Snow Queen.”

The Finnish woman shook her head.

“I cannot give her greater strength than she already has.”

“What strength?” asked the reindeer.

“She has crossed half the world not for gold or glory, but because she loves her friend and refuses to abandon him. That is the strength carrying her forward.”

She explained the road to the Snow Queen’s lands.

The reindeer carried Gerda farther, but at the border of the icy kingdom the blizzard became too strong.

“You must go on alone,” he said sadly.

Gerda stood in the snow. In her hurry she had even forgotten the warm mittens.

Snowflakes around her seemed to grow into strange white animals and riders.

Gerda was afraid, but she did not turn back. She remembered everything good she knew: Grandmother’s prayers, roses by the window, Kay’s summer laughter.

It seemed to her that bright figures walked beside her, shielding her from the icy wind.

The snow creatures parted.

The palace stood ahead.

There were no warm fires or cozy rooms inside. The walls were made of snow, and enormous halls shone with cold northern light.

At the center lay a frozen lake broken into thousands of equal pieces.

Kay sat there.

He was pale from cold but did not notice it. Ice pieces lay before him. He arranged them into shapes and words.

The Snow Queen had told him:

“When you form the word ETERNITY, you will be free.”

Kay had been trying for a very long time.

The Snow Queen was away, flying over warmer lands to scatter snow across mountain peaks.

“Kay!” Gerda called.

The boy raised his head.

He looked at her without recognition.

“Who are you?”

Gerda’s heart ached.

She ran to him and embraced him.

“It is me, Gerda. I have searched so long for you.”

She began to cry. Warm tears fell onto Kay’s chest and seemed to melt the splinter of mirror inside his heart.

Kay began to cry too.

A tear washed the second splinter from his eye.

He looked at Gerda truly for the first time.

“Gerda...”

Everything returned to him: the small windows, the roses, Grandmother, the summer days.

“Gerda! Where have you been? And where have I been?”

They laughed and cried together.

Around them, the pieces of ice began to move. They slid across the frozen lake and whirled as though dancing. Then, by themselves, they formed the word:

ETERNITY.

Kay was free.

The children took each other’s hands and left the palace.

On the way home, the reindeer, the Lapland woman, and the Finnish woman helped them again. Gerda remembered the robber girl and smiled, imagining her already riding toward another adventure.

When Kay and Gerda returned to their city, spring had come.

They climbed the old stairs and saw the familiar windows. Boxes of roses once again stood between the houses.

Grandmother sat by the window reading.

“You came home,” she said, embracing them.

Kay and Gerda sat beside the roses. They suddenly noticed that they were older. The journey had changed them. Yet when they looked at one another, they still saw the same dear friends who had once sat there listening to stories.

Kay touched a rose.

“It is beautiful,” he said.

Gerda smiled.

And this time, no crooked mirror could persuade him otherwise.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨