Hans Christian Andersen Wonderful Stories for Children
OLÉ LUCKOIÈ, (SHUT-EYE.)
Now when the children are asleep, Olé Luckoiè sits down on the bed; he is very well dressed; his coat is of silk, but it is not possible to tell what color it is, because it shines green, and red, and blue, just as if one color ran into another. He holds an umbrella under each arm; one of them is covered all over the inside with pictures, and this he sets over the good child, and it dreams all night long the most beautiful histories. The other umbrella has nothing at all within it; this he sets over the heads of naughty children, and they sleep so heavily, that next morning when they wake they have not dreamed the least in the world.
Now we will hear how Olé Luckoiè came every evening for a whole week to a little boy, whose name was Yalmar, and what he told him. There are seven stories, because there are seven days in a week.
"What is that?" said Olé Luckoiè, and went to the table and opened the drawer. It was the slate that was in great trouble; for there was an addition sum on it that was added up wrong, and the slate-pencil was hopping and jumping about in its string, like a little dog that wanted to help the sum, but it could not! And besides this, Yalmar's copy-book was crying out sadly! All the way down each page stood a row of great letters, each with a little one by its side; these were the copy; and then there stood other letters, which fancied that they looked like the copy; and these Yalmar had written; but they were some one way and some another, just as if they were tumbling over the pencil-lines on which they ought to have stood.
"Look, you should hold yourselves up thus!" said the copy; "thus, all in a line, with a brisk air!"
"Oh! we would so gladly, if we could," said Yalmar's writing; "but we cannot, we are so miserable!"
"Then we will make you!" said Olé Luckoiè gruffly.
"Oh, no!" cried the poor little crooked letters; but for all that they straightened themselves, till it was quite a pleasure to see them.
"Now, then, cannot we tell a story?" said Olé Luckoiè; "now I can exercise them! One, two! One, two!" And so, like a drill-sergeant, he put them all through their exercise, and they stood as straight and as well-shaped as any copy. After that Olé Luckoiè went his way; and Yalmar, when he looked at the letters next morning, found them tumbling about just as miserably as at first.
There hung over the chest of drawers a great picture in a gilt frame; it was a landscape; one could see tall, old trees, flowers
in the grass, and a great river, which ran through great woods, past many castles out into the wild sea.
Olé Luckoiè touched the picture with his wand; and with that the birds in the picture began to sing, the tree-branches began to wave, and the clouds regularly to move, one could see them moving along over the landscape!
Olé Luckoiè now lifted little Yalmar up into the picture; he put his little legs right into it, just as if into tall grass, and there he stood. The sun shone down through the tree-branches upon him. He ran down to the river, and got into a little boat which lay there. It was painted red and white, the sails shone like silk, and six swans, each with a circlet of gold round its neck and a beaming blue star upon its head, drew the little boat past the green-wood, where he heard the trees talking about robbers, and witches, and flowers, and the pretty little fairies, and all that the summer birds had told them of.
The loveliest fishes, with scales like silver and gold, swam after the boat, and leaped up in the water; and birds, some red and some blue, small and great, flew, in two long rows, behind; gnats danced about, and cockchafers said hum, hum! They all came following Yalmar, and you may think what a deal they had to tell him.
It was a regular voyage! Now the woods were so thick and so dark now they were like the most beautiful garden, with sunshine and flowers; and in the midst of them there stood great castles of glass and of marble. Upon the balconies of these castles stood princesses, and every one of them were the little girls whom Yalmar knew very well, and with whom he had played. They all reached out their hands to him, and held out the most delicious sticks of barley-sugar which any confectioner could make; and Yalmar bit off a piece from every stick of barley-sugar as he sailed past, and Yalmar's piece was always a very large piece! Before every castle stood little princes as sentinels; they stood with their golden swords drawn, and showered down almonds and raisins. They were perfect princes!
Yalmar soon sailed through the wood, then through a great hall, or into the midst of a city; and at last he came to that in which his nurse lived, she who had nursed him when he was a very little child, and had been so very fond of him. And there he saw her, and she nodded and waved her hand to him, and sang the pretty little verse which she herself had made about Yalmar