The Fir Tree

The Fir Tree

Retold from Hans Christian Andersen

Once upon a time there was a pretty, little green Fir Tree. The sun shone on him; he had plenty of fresh air, and around him grew many large comrades, pines as well as firs. But the little Fir was not satisfied. He did not think of the large sun and the fresh air. He wanted to be a big tree like the others.

Sometimes the little children living in the cottages nearby came into the woods to play. “What a nice little fir!” they said. But the Tree did not like to hear them talk this way. He did not like to be called 'Little.”

By the time he was a year old he had grown a good deal. Another year passed and he was another long bit taller. “Oh, if I were only as tall as the other tress,” he thought. “Then I could spread out my branches and look out into the wide world. The birds would build nests in my branches; and when there was a breeze I could bend with a stately bow jut like the others.”

The Tree sighed, taking no pleasure in the sunbeams and the birds and the red clouds, which morning and evening sailed above him.

In the wintertime, when the snow lay white and glittering on the ground, a hare would often come leaping along. Sometimes he jumped right over the little Tree, and that made him very angry. But by the third winter the Tree had grown so large the hare had to go around it. That made the Tree feel better. “The most delightful thing in the world,” he thought, “is to grow and grow and be tall and old.”

In autumn the woodcutters came and cut down some of the largest trees. This happened every year and the little Fir Tree, which was not so little any more, was frightened. How he trembled as the magnificent trees fell to the earth with a great noise. After the branches had been lopped off, the trees looked so long and bare that it was hard to recognize them. They they were laid in carts, and the horses dragged them out of the woods.

“What becomes of them?” the Fir Tree wondered.

In spring, when the Swallows and the Storks came, the Tree said to them, “Do you know where they have been taken?”

The Swallows didn't know anything about it, but one of the Storks nodded his head thoughtfully, “I think I know,” he said. “As I was flying hither from Egypt, I met many ships with tall masts and they smelled of fir. You may feel proud of them, so majestic did they look.”

“If I were only old enough to fly across the ocean!” sighed the Tree. “How does the ocean look?”

“That would take a long time to explain,” said the Stork, and off he flew.

“Rejoice in thy youth!” said the sunbeams. “Rejoice in thy growth!” And the Wind kissed the Tree, the Dew wept tears over him; but the Fir did not understand.

When Christmas came, many young trees were cut down. Their branches were left on them when they were laid on the carts, and the horses drew them out of the woods.

“They are no taller than I,”complained the Fir Tree. “Indeed one of them was much shorter. Why are they allowed to keep all their branches? Where are they going?”

“We know! We know!” twittered the Sparrows. “We have peeped in at the windows in the town below! We saw the trees planted in the middle of the warm rooms and ornamented with the most splendid things - with gilded apples, with gingerbread, with toys and hundred of lights!:

A tremor ran through the Fir Tree. “And then? What happens after that?”

“We did not see anything more, but it was very beautiful.”

“Ah, perhaps I shall know the same magnificence some day,” the Tree rejoiced. “If Christmas would only come! I am as tall as the trees that were carried off last year. Oh, if I were only on the cart now! If I were only in the warm room with all the splendor! Something better, something still grander, is sure to follow – but what? How long, how I suffer! I wonder what is the matter with me!”

“Rejoice in us!” said the Air and the Sunlight. “Rejoice in thy own youth!”

But the Tree did not rejoice. He grew and grew. He was green both in winter and summer. “What a fine tree!” people said, and toward Christmas he was one of the first to be cut down The ax struck deep, and the Tree fell to earth with a sigh. He was not happy; he could only think how sad it was to be taken away from the place where he had sprung up. He knew that never again would he see his dear old comrades, the little bushes and flowers around him; perhaps he would never even see the birds again. And he didn't like it at all.

The Tree was laid on a cart with several others and taken away. When he came to himself again, he was being unloaded in a big yard, and two servants in handsome livery carried him into a beautiful drawing room. The fir tree was stuck upright in a tub filled with sand' but it did not look like a tub, for green cloth was hung all around it and it stood on a large bright carpet.

A tremor ran through the Tree What was going to happen? Several young ladies decorated it, aided by the servants. On one branch they hung little nets made of colored paper and filled with sugarplums. On the other boughs they hung gilded apples and walnuts which looked as though they had grown there. Then little blue and white and red candles were fastened to the branches. Among the foliage there were dolls which looked like people, the Tree had never seen anything like them before, and at the very top there was a large star of gold tinsel. It was really splendid, too splendid for any words to describe.

“Just wait till evening!” everybody said. “How the Tree will shine this evening!”

“Oh, if evening would only come!” thought the Tree. “If the candles were only lighted! What will happen then, I wonder. Will the other trees from the forest come to look at me? Will the Sparrows beat against the window panes? Perhaps I shall take root and stand here winter and summer covered with ornaments!” He grew so impatient that he got a pain in his bark, and this with trees is the same as a headache with us.

When at last the candles were lighted, there was such brightness,such splendor, the Tree trembled in every bough. One of the candles set fire to the foliage, and it blazed up splendidly.

“Help! Help!” cried the young ladies and rushed to put out the fire.

After that the Tree did not dare tremble. He was quite bewildered by the glare and the brightness. Suddenly both the folding doors opened and in rushed the children, with the older persons following more quietly. The little ones stood quite still, but only for a moment. Then they shouted for joy, and the room echoed with their shouts. They began dancing around the tree, pulling off one present after another.

“What are they doing?” thought the Tree. “what is to happen now?”

The candles burned down to the very branches, and as they burned down they were put out, one after another. Then the children were given permission to plunder the Tree, and they rushed upon it so violently that all its branches cracked Then the children went on playing with their beautiful toys. No one even looked at the Tree, except the old nurse, who peeped in among the branches to see if there was a fig or an apple that had been overlooked.

“A story! A story!” the children cried, dragging a little fat man over toward the Tree. He sat down under it and said, “Now the Tree can listen, too. I shall tell you only one story, so which will you have: the one about Ivedy-Avedy, or the one about Klumpy-Dumpy who fell downstairs and yet married the princess and came to the throne after all?”

“Ivedy-Avedy!” cried some. “Klumpy-dumpy!” cried others. There was a great deal of squealing and finally the man told about Klumpy-Dumpy and the children clapped their hands and cried, “Go on! Go on!” The Fir Tree stood quite still, thinking, “Who knows? Perhaps I shall fall downstairs, too, and marry a princess!” And he looked forward to the next day, when he hoped to be decked out again with lights and bows and bright tinsel.

“I won't tremble tomorrow,” he thought. “Tomorrow I shall hear again the story of Klumpy-Dumpy and perhaps that of Ivedy-Avedy, too.” And all night long the Tree stood quite still, thinking.

The next morning in came the servants.

“Ah, now the splendor will begin again!” thought the Fir.

But no. The servants dragged him out of the room, up the stairs into the attic and there, in a dark corner, they left him. “What can this mean?” wondered the Tree, and he leaned against the wall lost in thought. And he had plenty of time for thinking. Days and nights passed and nobody came near him. When at last somebody did come up to the attic, it was only to leave some trunks. There stood the Tree quite hidden. There stood the Tree quite forgotten.

“It is winter out of doors!” he thought. “The earth is hard and cover with snow. I could not be planted now. These people are really very kind. They have put me up here under shelter until spring comes! If only it were not so dark and lonely here! Not even a hare! I liked it out in the woods when the snow was on the ground and the hare leaped by; yes, even when he jumped over me. Ah, but I was not content then.”

“Squeak, squeak!” said the little Mouse, peeping out of his hole. Then another little Mouse came and they sniffed at the Fir Tree and ran in and out among the branches.

“It is dreadfully cold,” said the Mouse. Except for that, it would be nice here, wouldn't it, old Fir?”

“I am not old,” said the Fir Tree. “There is many a tree much older than I.”

“Where do you come from?” asked the Mice. “Tell us about the most beautiful place in the world. Have you ever been there? Have you ever been in the larder where there are cheeses lying on the shelves and hams hanging from the ceiling, where one may dance on tallow candles; a place where one goes in lean and comes out fat?”

“I know of no such place,” said the Tree. “But I know the woods where the sun shines and the birds sing.” Then he told them of the time when he was young, and the little Mice had never heard the like before.

“How much you have seen!” they said. “How happy you must have been!”

“I?” said the Fir Tree, thinking it over. “Yes, those really were happy times.” Then he told about Christmas Eve, when he had been decked out with beautiful ornaments.

“Oh,” said the little mice. “How lucky you have been, old fir Tree.”

“I am not old,” said he. “I came from the woods only this winter.”

“But what wonderful stories you know!” said the Mice, and the next night they came with four other little mice who wanted to hear the stories also. The more the Fir Tree talked about his youth, the more plainly he remembered it himself, and he realized that those times had really been very happy times. “But they may come again. Klumpy-Dumpy fell downstairs and yet he married a princess.” said the Fir Tree.

“Who is Klumpy-Dumpy?” asked the Mice. So the Fir Tree told the story, and the little Mice were so pleased they jumped to the very top of the Tree. The next night two more Mice came and heard the story.

At last the little Mice stopped coming, and the Tree sighed. “After all I like having the sleek little Mice listen to my stories, but that is over now. When I am brought out again I am going to enjoy myself.”

But when was that to be? Why, one morning a number of people came up to the attic. Trunks were moved and the Tree was pulled out and thrown down on the floor. Then a man drew him toward the stairs, where the sun shone.

“Now life begins again,” thought the Tree. He felt the fresh air, the first sunbeam, and then he was out in the yard. Roses hung over the fence and lindens were in bloom.

“Now I shall enjoy life,” said the Tree, and spread out his branches. But alas, they were all withered and yellow. He lay in a corner among weeds and nettles. The golden star was still on the tree, and it glittered in the sunlight.

In the yard some children were playing , the same children who had danced gaily around the Fir Tree at Christmas time. They were glad to see him again, and the youngest child ran up to him and tore off the golden star.

“Look what is till on the ugly old Christmas Tree!” said he. And he trampled on the crackling branches.

The Tree looked at the beautiful garden and then at himself. He wished he had stayed in his dark corner in the loft. He thought of his youth in the woods, of the merry Christmas Eve, and of the little Mice.

“'Tis over,” said the poor Tree. “Had I but been happy when I had reason to be! But 'tis over now.”

Then the gardener's boy chopped the Tree into small pieces for firewood. When it flamed up in the fireplace, it sighed deeply, and each sigh was like a shot.

The children went on playing in the yard. On his chest the youngest wore the gold star which the Tree had had on the happiest evening of his life.