TRUYỆN CỔ ANDERSEN - Trang 1018

things,” said the Lapland woman, “you have a long way to go yet. You must
travel more than a hundred miles farther, to Finland. The Snow Queen lives
there now, and she burns Bengal lights every evening. I will write a few
words on a dried stock-fish, for I have no paper, and you can take it from
me to the Finland woman who lives there; she can give you better
information than I can.” So when Gerda was warmed, and had taken
something to eat and drink, the woman wrote a few words on the dried fish,
and told Gerda to take great care of it. Then she tied her again on the
reindeer, and he set off at full speed. Flash, flash, went the beautiful blue
northern lights in the air the whole night long. And at length they reached
Finland, and knocked at the chimney of the Finland woman’s hut, for it had
no door above the ground. They crept in, but it was so terribly hot inside
that that woman wore scarcely any clothes; she was small and very dirty
looking. She loosened little Gerda’s dress, and took off the fur boots and the
mittens, or Gerda would have been unable to bear the heat; and then she
placed a piece of ice on the reindeer’s head, and read what was written on
the dried fish. After she had read it three times, she knew it by heart, so she
popped the fish into the soup saucepan, as she knew it was good to eat, and
she never wasted anything. The reindeer told his own story first, and then
little Gerda’s, and the Finlander twinkled with her clever eyes, but she said
nothing. “You are so clever,” said the reindeer; “I know you can tie all the
winds of the world with a piece of twine. If a sailor unties one knot, he has
a fair wind; when he unties the second, it blows hard; but if the third and
fourth are loosened, then comes a storm, which will root up whole forests.
Cannot you give this little maiden something which will make her as strong
as twelve men, to overcome the Snow Queen?”