THE SNOW QUEEN (VARDA FISZBEIN)

THE SNOW QUEEN

 Adapted by Varda Fiszbein
Translated by Sandra Dermark from the Spanish
(RBA, ÉRASE UNA VEZ UN CUENTO)
Illustrated with screenshots from "The Fairytaler" episode by Egmont (Denmark, 2005)

I)
There once was a mischievous little sprite who, feeling bored, decided to have some fun making a magic mirror. He made it from a strange crystal through which everything that was beautiful appeared reflected as ugly; even people's feelings and thoughts were turned from positive to negative and vice versa as they looked at themselves in that mirror.
After playing for a while, our sprite tossed the mirror into the air and, as it fell, it shattered into tiny shards, like specks of dust or pollen, that scattered all over the Earth's atmosphere. 
Whenever one such shard entered a human body, the heart of that person would freeze into ice.

II)

Gerda and Kai were the best of friends, and they were always playing together; in winter they made snowballs, in autumn they roasted chestnuts, in springtime they picked flowers, in summer they went fishing in the river. 

On that day when the sprite shattered his mirror, the two of them were flying a kite, and Kai felt a little crystal shard enter one of his eyes. Then he got cross with Gerda, kicked a stray puppy that was passing by, and it seemed to him that everything he liked and even loved was horrible. Since then, he never played with Gerda again, and, with the first snowfall of that winter, he left on his own to enjoy the snowy slopes.

In that place, children hitched their sleds to larger sleighs, whether their parents' or the neighbours', in order to sled faster. Right when Kai was getting on his own sled, he saw a great grand luxurious troika passing by, and he could not resist the temptation to lasso it.
He didn't know that, but that troika carried the Snow Queen, and she dragged him far, far away, into unknown frozen lands.

They crossed frozen forests, frozen mountain ranges, frozen rivers... until they stopped before a castle of ice and the Snow Queen welcomed Kai into her home with a kiss on the forehead.

He felt a shiver run all the way down his spine... and, half a minute later, he no longer remembered who he was, nor where had he come from, because the kiss of the Queen had completely frozen his heart.

III)
In the meantime, the days, the weeks, the months went by without a clue to his whereabouts. They searched for him far and wide, and, upon not finding him, they presumed that he had fallen into the river and frozen to death before he could drown.

But his friend Gerda would not be satisfied with that, and, when springtime came, she asked the sun, the songbirds, the flowers, and even her own dolls if they knew where he was. 
Unfortunately, everyone hoped, but no one knew! On her twelfth birthday, she received as a present a pair of brand new little shoes, the loveliest ones she'd ever had. She took them to the riverbank and tossed them into the water, saying:
Please take my left shoe,
please take my right;
make that my dear friend
is soon in sight.
But the stream only returned the shoes to her. The little maiden thought that she maybe had to toss them further away from land, and she boarded a fishing boat to that effect. But the rapids swept her downstream and across to the other bank, where there was only one single thatched cottage, although it was a great big huge one.

When Gerda knocked on the door, an old lady came out, and, since she was a mage and felt lonely, she wanted to keep her there for a lifetime. She brewed a potion, gave it to Gerda to drink in a teacup, and, instantly, the maiden forgot her intentions and remained there.
On a certain day, she was playing in the enchanted garden of the witch and the perfume of a rose jogged her memories. All of a sudden, she remembered everything, and escaped to keep on looking for Kai.

IV)

She stopped to rest under a tree and spotted a nightingale, whom she told her story. The songbird, who was very kind-hearted, told her to help her:
"Not long ago, our princess married a stranger... cannot he have been your friend?"
Gerda thanked the nightingale and decided to head for the palace, heart full of hope.

There in the royal halls, there was no Kai to be found, but she met the prince and the princess, and told them her story. As kind-hearted as they would ever be, they told her to help her:
"You cannot keep on walking, on foot, or you would waste a lot of time. Please take our golden carriage with us; its horses are swift as the winds."
Gerda thanked them for the gesture and decided to resume her quest in that more comfortable way.

V)
The carriage drove deep into the forest, but its dazzling décor caught the attention of some brigands who were hidden there in ambush, and they stormed it. They took Gerda prisoner to their cave, on board, as they knocked out the coachman, and claimed the carriage and horses for themselves.

The leaders of this band of robbers had a daughter who was elated upon meeting Gerda, having longed for human company for ages, and Gerda told the robber maiden her story. In order to help her, she told her:
"Speak to my reindeer."
And she led Gerda to a shack where, tied to the wall, there was an enormous reindeer whom the two girls asked if he had seen Kai.
"At the start of last winter I saw the Snow Queen's troika storming by," the deer replied, "and to the back of its blades there was tied a small sled on which a boy was riding. If he is your friend, it must be ages since he reached Sápmi."

The reindeer, who was very bright, also offered to help Gerda:
"I can carry you; I know the way because I was born in those lands."
Gerda thanked the robber maiden, who set both her and the deer free, and left on reindeerback for Sápmi, in a happier mood.
When they arrived, the reindeer showed her the Snow Queen's castle.
But when Gerda wanted to breach the walls, she was attacked by an army of throwing-star-like snowflakes that blocked her path.
An exhausted Gerda knelt down and sobbed, and the tears of love and yearning she felt for her friend made the cloud of steam that stole through her lips warm so that it melted, one by one, the snowflakes until they all turned to white ice butterflies that escorted her all the way to the castle gates.



VI)
She found Kai in the throne room, but he looked at her and did not recognise her. And that caused her so much sorrow that she burst once more into tears, thinking that her long and painful and exhausting journey had all been in vain.
Before she left, she embraced the lad, and her tears fell onto Kai's chest, thawing the ice in his heart. Then, he replied with tears of joy, of excitement, and the tears washed his eyes clean, sweeping out the remains of the mirror shard.

And then everything returned to being as well as it had been.
The boy recognised his female friend and embraced her, full of love and elation.
Both of them praised that everything had occurred and decided to return home, now happier than ever.