It is out of reality that the most peculiar tale of all is born … Some call me the Elder Granny, others – the Dryad, but my real name is Memory. It is I who sits on a tree that keeps on growing, and growing, it is I who reminisces and tells stories.
We haven’t yet got eyes that can gaze into all the splendour that God has created, but we shall get them one day; and that will be the finest fairy tale of all, for we shall be in it ourselves.
And the Top spoke no more of his old love; for that dies away when the beloved objects has lain for five years in a roof gutter and got wet through; yes, one does not know her again when one meets her in the dust box.
Farewell, farewell,” said the swallow, with a heavy heart, as he left the warm countries, to fly back into Denmark. There he had a nest over the window of a house in which dwelt the writer of fairy tales. The swallow sang “Tweet, tweet,” and from his song came the whole story.
There was once a merchant who was so rich that he might have paved the whole street, and a little alley besides, with silver money. But he didn’t do it–he knew better how to use his money than that.
At first she was overjoyed that he would be with her, but then she recalled that human people could not live under the water, and he could only visit her father’s palace as a dead man.
I have gone through the most terrible affair that could possibly happen; only imagine, my shadow has gone mad; I suppose such a poor, shallow brain, could not bear much; he fancies that he has become a real man, and that I am his shadow.
Almighty God, thee only have I; thou steerest my fate, I must give myself up to thee! Give me a livelihood! Give me a bride! My blood wants love, as my heart does!
I would give gladly all the hundreds of years that I have to live, to be a human being only for one day, and to have the hope of knowing the happiness of that glorious world above the stars.
She thought, “He whom I love more than my father or mother, he of whom I am always thinking, and in whose hands I would so willingly trust my lifelong happiness.
Then she saw a star fall, leaving behind it a bright streak of fire. “Someone is dying,” thought the little girl, for her old grandmother, the only one who had ever loved her, and who was now dead, had told her that when a star falls, a soul was going up to God.
