Wonderful Stories for Children

by H. C. Andersen

The mole took a piece of touchwood in his mouth, for it shines just like fire in the dark, and went before them, to light them in the long, dark passage. When they were come where the dead bird lay, the mole set his broad nose to the ground, and ploughed up the earth, so that there was a large hole, through which the daylight could shine. In the middle of the floor lay a dead swallow, with its beautiful wings pressed close to its sides. Its legs and head were drawn up under the feathers; the poor bird had certainly died of cold. Tommelise was very sorry for it, for she was so fond of little birds; they had, through the whole summer, sung and twittered so beautifully to her; but the mole stood beside it, with his short legs, and said,—"Now it will tweedle no more! It must be a shocking thing to be born a little bird; thank goodness that none of my children have been such; for a bird has nothing at all but its singing; and it may be starved to death in winter!"

"Yes, that you, who are a sensible man, may well say," said the fieldmouse; "what has the bird, with all its piping and singing, when winter comes? It may be famished or frozen!"

Tommelise said nothing; but when the two others had turned their backs, she bent over it, stroked aside the feathers which lay over its head, and kissed its closed eyes.

"Perhaps it was that same swallow which sang so sweetly to me in summer," thought she; "what a deal of pleasure it caused me, the dear, beautiful bird!"

The mole stopped up the opening which it had made for the daylight to come in, and accompanied the ladies home. Tommelise, however, could not sleep in the night; so she got up out of bed, and wove a small, beautiful mat of hay; and that she carried down and spread over the dead bird; laid soft cotton-wool, which she had found in the fieldmouse's parlor, around the bird, that it might lie warm in the cold earth.

"Farewell, thou pretty little bird," said she; "farewell, and thanks for thy beautiful song, in summer, when all the trees were green, and the sun shone so warmly upon us!"

With this she laid her head upon the bird's breast, and the same moment was quite amazed, for it seemed to her as if there were a slight movement within it. It was the bird's heart. The bird was not dead; it lay in a swoon, and now being warmed, it was reanimated.

In the autumn all the swallows fly away to the warm countries; but if there be one which tarries behind, it becomes stiff with cold, so that it falls down as if dead, and the winter's snow covers it.

Tommelise was quite terrified, for in comparison with her the bird was a very large creature; but she took courage, however, laid the cotton-wool closer around the poor swallow, and fetched a coverlet of chrysanthemum leaves, which she had for her bed, and laid it over its head.