The Christmas Tree That Ends in Fire

The story as it is told

Most people know The Snow Queen as a frosty adventure about a girl rescuing her friend. The Fir Tree, published in the same thin book, is rarely retold at Christmas at all, and it goes like this.

A small fir in the woods is impatient to grow and be chosen. At Christmas it is cut down, set up in a cask filled with sand in a fine drawing room, hung with candles and presents, and topped with a gold-paper star. For one evening the children dance around it and strip it of its presents, and a man tells them the tale of "Klumpe-Dumpe" (Humpy-Dumpy in the 19th-century English), who fell downstairs and still married the princess. The tree expects the party to happen again the next night.

Instead, in the morning a manservant and a maid drag it "op ad Trappen, ind paa Loftet" (up the stairs, into the attic) and leave it in a dark corner. Mice come to hear its stories, and it tells the only one it knows, the Klumpe-Dumpe tale. Then rats arrive and call the story stupid and ask for one about bacon and tallow candles, and when the tree has none they leave, and the mice stop coming too.

In spring the tree is carried out to the yard, its needles yellow, still wearing its star. One of the children tears the gold star off and stamps on the branches, calling it "det ækle, gamle Juletræ" (the nasty old Christmas tree). The tree says "Forbi! forbi!" (Over! Over!). A servant chops it into small pieces, and it burns under the large brewing kettle, each sigh cracking like a little shot, while the children sit by the fire shouting "pif! paf!". The last lines say the tree was over, and the story with it, "og det blive alle Historier" (and so are all stories).

What we can confirm

On December 21, 1844, Andersen's "Nye Eventyr, 2. Samling" (New Fairy Tales, second installment) was printed in 2,000 copies, according to the H.C. Andersen Centre's timetable. It held two tales, "Grantræet" (The Fir Tree) and "Sneedronningen" (The Snow Queen). The Centre's register lists both as first published that day, in a volume titled with the year 1845.

The Snow Queen, in the same book, opens with a mirror made by a troll that Andersen's Danish calls "Dævelen" (a folksy spelling of "the Devil", our gloss; the text also says "Trolddjævelen", the troll-devil). The mirror shrinks everything good to nearly nothing and magnifies everything bad. When it shatters, its splinters lodge in people's eyes and hearts. The 19th-century English in Project Gutenberg #1597 calls its maker "a wicked sprite", a milder word than the Danish.

Earlier that year, on a trip to Berlin, Andersen called on Jacob Grimm, who, the Centre's timetable notes, had never heard of him.

The facts

• Nye Eventyr, 2. Samling printed Dec 21, 1844, in 2,000 copies, containing "Grantræet" and "Sneedronningen". H.C. Andersen Centre timetable 1844.
• Register: The Fir Tree (no. 67, BFN 455) and The Snow Queen (no. 68, BFN 456), both first published Dec 21, 1844, in "Nye Eventyr. Første Bind. Anden Samling. 1845". H.C. Andersen Centre register.
• Danish ending: "Det ækle, gamle Juletræ"; "Forbi! forbi!"; chopped by "Tjenestekarlen" and burned "under den store Bryggerkjædel"; children shout "pif! paf!"; "forbi, forbi, og det blive alle Historier!" Danish Wikisource, Grantræet.
• English (Gutenberg #1597): rats ask for "one about bacon and tallow candles"; "the gardener's boy chopped the Tree into small pieces"; "brewing copper"; "every tale must end at last". Note the English says "gardener's boy" for the Danish "Tjenestekarlen" (manservant). Gutenberg #1597.
• Snow Queen Danish: "en ond Trold! det var een af de allerværste, det var 'Dævelen'!"; English #1597: "a wicked sprite, indeed he was the most mischievous of all sprites". Danish Wikisource, Sneedronningen; Gutenberg #1597.
• July 1844, Berlin: Andersen visits Jacob Grimm, "who had never heard of HCA!" H.C. Andersen Centre timetable 1844 (their wording).

Related: What enters the public domain in 2027

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