Folk Myths

The General's family lived on the first floor, and the Porter's family lived in the cellar. There was a vast distance between them - the whole first floor, as well as all the grades of society; but both families lived under the same roof, and their windows looked out in the same street and the same garden.

On board the steamer was an elderly man with such a joyful face that if it didn't belie him he must have been the happiest person on earth. In fact, he said he was the happiest; I heard it from his own mouth. He was a Dane, a countryman of mine, and a traveling theatrical producer. His whole company was with him and lay in a large box, for he was the proprietor of a puppet show. He said that his natural cheerfulness had been enlightened by a Polytechnic student, and the experiment had left him completely happy.

It was wintertime; the air was cold, the wind sharp, but indoors all was snug and well. Indoors lay the flower; it lay in its bulb, under earth and snow.

At dawn, when the clouds are red, a great star shines, the beautiful morning star. Her beams tremble on the white wall, as if she would like to write there the story of all she has seen during the thousands of years she has watched our revolving earth.

Around the garden ran a hedge of hazelnut bushes, and beyond it lay fields and meadows with cows and sheep; but in the middle of the garden stood a blooming Rosebush, and under it sat a Snail, who had a lot inside his shell - namely, himself.

There was once a shilling; it came out bright and shiny from the mint, and sprang up, shouting, "Hurrah! Now I'm going out into the wide world!" And into the wide world he went. The child held it with soft, tender hands; the miser clutched it with cold, clammy fingers; the old man turned it over many times before letting it go; while the youth immediately passed it along. The Shilling was of silver, with very little copper in it; already it had been in the world for a whole year now-that is, in the country where it was made.

Beneath the tree of knowledge in the garden of paradise stood a rosebush. And here, in the first rose, a bird was born. His plumage was beautiful, his song glorious, and his flight was like the flashing of light. But when Eve plucked the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and she and Adam were driven from paradise, a spark fell from the flaming sword of the angel into the nest of the bird and set it afire. The bird perished in the flames, but from the red egg in the nest there flew a new bird, the only one of its kind, the one solitary phoenix bird.

Have you ever seen a very old chest, black with age, and covered with outlandish carved ornaments and curling leaves? Well, in a certain parlor there was just such a chest, handed down from some great-grandmother. Carved all up and down it, ran tulips and roses—odd-looking flourishes—and from fanciful thickets little stags stuck out their antlered heads.

You ought to have known Aunty; she was so lovely. And yet, to be more specific, she wasn't lovely in the usual sense of the word, but she was sweet and charming and funny in her own way - just the type to gossip about when one is in the mood to gossip and be facetious over someone. She should have been put in a play, just because she herself simply lived for the theater and everything that goes on in it. She was so very respectable, even if Agent Nob, whom Aunty called Snob, said she was stage-struck.

Father, and mother, and brothers, and sisters, were gone to the play; only little Anna and her grandpapa were left at home. - "We'll have a play too," he said, "and it may begin immediately."

In a house, with a large courtyard, in a provincial town, at that time of the year in which people say the evenings are growing longer, a family circle were gathered together at their old home. A lamp burned on the table, although the weather was mild and warm, and the long curtains hung down before the open windows, and without the moon shone brightly in the dark-blue sky.

"It's a dreadful story!" said a hen, and she said it in a part of town, too, where it had not taken place. "It's a dreadful story to happen in a henhouse. I'm afraid to sleep alone tonight; it's a good thing there are many of us on the perch!" And then she told a story that made the feathers of the other hens stand on end and the rooster's comb fall. It's quite true!

It was bitterly cold, the sky glittered with stars, and not a breeze stirred. "Bump"—an old pot was thrown at a neighbor's door; and "bang, bang," went the guns; for they were greeting the New Year. It was New Year's Eve, and the church clock was striking twelve.

There was once a mighty Queen, in whose gardens were found the most glorious flowers at all seasons of the year and from all countries of the world. But best of all she loved roses, and therefore she had all possible varieties of this flower, from the wild dog rose, with its apple-scented green leaves, to the most splendid roses of Provence. They grew along the walls of the castle, wound around pillars and window frames, and spread into the passages and along the ceilings of all the halls; and the roses were varied in fragrance, form, and color.

High up in the thin, clear air there flew an angel bearing a flower from the garden of heaven. As he kissed it, a tiny leaf drifted down into the muddy soil in the middle of the wood; it very soon took root there, and sprouted, and sent up shoots among the other plants.

Once upon a time, a flea, a grasshopper, and a jumping goose wanted to see which one could jump the highest. They invited the whole world, and even a few others, to come to a festival to watch the test. They were three famous jumpers indeed, and they all met together in a big room.

The Flax is a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about the development and use of the flax plant. The story was first published in 1849 in the periodical Fædrelandet. The fairy tale tells the story of the journey of the flax plant, which begins its life full of optimism, dismissing the warnings of the fern about the fleeting nature of life. Flax is ultimately uprooted and undergoes a series of painful transformations, first becoming fabric – flax, and later practical items, such as linen.

It was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the old year, and the snow was falling fast. In the cold and the darkness, a poor little girl, with bare head and naked feet, roamed through the streets. It is true she had on a pair of slippers when she left home, but they were not of much use.

Among the other children in the charity school was a little Jewish girl, clever and good-in fact, the brightest of them all. But there was one class she could not attend, the one where religion was taught, for she was in a Christian school.

Little Claus and Big Claus (Danish: Lille Claus og store Claus) is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, published in Danish in 1835 in the first instalment of his booklet Fairy Tales Told for Children. First Collection. (Danish title: "Eventyr fortalte for børn. Første Samling."). In a village lived two men called Claus. In order to tell them apart, the one who owns only one horse is called Little Claus, and the other one, who owns four horses, is called Big Claus. Each week, Little Claus borrows the horses from Big Claus to plow his field.