FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN SOUP FROM A SAUSAGE SKEWER

                                      1872

                     FAIRY TALES OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

                           SOUP FROM A SAUSAGE SKEWER

                           by Hans Christian Andersen

    "WE had such an excellent dinner yesterday," said an old mouse

of the female sex to another who had not been present at the feast. "I

sat number twenty-one below the mouse-king, which was not a bad place.

Shall I tell you what we had? Everything was first rate. Mouldy bread,

tallow candle, and sausage. And then, when we had finished that

course, the same came on all over again; it was as good as two feasts.

We were very sociable, and there was as much joking and fun as if we

had been all of one family circle. Nothing was left but the sausage

skewers, and this formed a subject of conversation, till at last it

turned to the proverb, 'Soup from sausage skins;' or, as the people in

the neighboring country call it, 'Soup from a sausage skewer.' Every

one had heard the proverb, but no one had ever tasted the soup, much

less prepared it. A capital toast was drunk to the inventor of the

soup, and some one said he ought to be made a relieving officer to the

poor. Was not that witty? Then the old mouse-king rose and promised

that the young lady-mouse who should learn how best to prepare this

much-admired and savory soup should be his queen, and a year and a day

should be allowed for the purpose."

    "That was not at all a bad proposal," said the other mouse; "but

how is the soup made?"

    "Ah, that is more than I can tell you. All the young lady mice

were asking the same question. They wished very much to be queen,

but they did not want to take the trouble of going out into the

world to learn how to make soup, which was absolutely necessary to

be done first. But it is not every one who would care to leave her

family, or her happy corner by the fire-side at home, even to be

made queen. It is not always easy to find bacon and cheese-rind in

foreign lands every day, and it is not pleasant to have to endure

hunger, and be perhaps, after all, eaten up alive by the cat."

    "Most probably some such thoughts as these discouraged the

majority from going out into the world to collect the required

information. Only four mice gave notice that they were ready to set

out on the journey. They were young and lively, but poor. Each of them

wished to visit one of the four divisions of the world, so that it

might be seen which was the most favored by fortune. Every one took

a sausage skewer as a traveller's staff, and to remind them of the

object of their journey. They left home early in May, and none of them

returned till the first of May in the following year, and then only

three of them. Nothing was seen or heard of the fourth, although the

day of decision was close at hand. "Ah, yes, there is always some

trouble mixed up with the greatest pleasure," said the mouse-king; but

he gave orders that all the mice within a circle of many miles

should be invited at once. They were to assemble in the kitchen, and

the three travelled mice were to stand in a row before them, while a

sausage skewer, covered with crape, was to be stuck up instead of

the missing mouse. No one dared to express an opinion until the king

spoke, and desired one of them to go on with her story. And now we

shall hear what she said.

                   WHAT THE FIRST LITTLE MOUSE

                   SAW AND HEARD ON HER TRAVELS

    "When I first went out into the world," said the little mouse,

"I fancied, as so many of my age do, that I already knew everything,

but it was not so. It takes years to acquire great knowledge. I went

at once to sea in a ship bound for the north. I had been told that the

ship's cook must know how to prepare every dish at sea, and it is easy

enough to do that with plenty of sides of bacon, and large tubs of

salt meat and mouldy flour. There I found plenty of delicate food, but

no opportunity for learning how to make soup from a sausage skewer. We

sailed on for many days and nights; the ship rocked fearfully, and

we did not escape without a wetting. As soon as we arrived at the port

to which the ship was bound, I left it, and went on shore at a place

far towards the north. It is a wonderful thing to leave your own

little corner at home, to hide yourself in a ship where there are sure

to be some nice snug corners for shelter, then suddenly to find

yourself thousands of miles away in a foreign land. I saw large

pathless forests of pine and birch trees, which smelt so strong that I

sneezed and thought of sausage. There were great lakes also which

looked as black as ink at a distance, but were quite clear when I came

close to them. Large swans were floating upon them, and I thought at

first they were only foam, they lay so still; but when I saw them walk

and fly, I knew what they were directly. They belong to the goose

species, one can see that by their walk. No one can attempt to

disguise family descent. I kept with my own kind, and associated

with the forest and field mice, who, however, knew very little,

especially about what I wanted to know, and which had actually made me

travel abroad. The idea that soup could be made from a sausage

skewer was to them such an out-of-the-way, unlikely thought, that it

was repeated from one to another through the whole forest. They

declared that the problem would never be solved, that the thing was an

impossibility. How little I thought that in this place, on the very

first night, I should be initiated into the manner of its preparation.

    "It was the height of summer, which the mice told me was the

reason that the forest smelt so strong, and that the herbs were so

fragrant, and the lakes with the white swimming swans so dark, and yet

so clear. On the margin of the wood, near to three or four houses, a

pole, as large as the mainmast of a ship, had been erected, and from

the summit hung wreaths of flowers and fluttering ribbons; it was

the Maypole. Lads and lasses danced round the pole, and tried to outdo

the violins of the musicians with their singing. They were as merry as

ever at sunset and in the moonlight, but I took no part in the

merry-making. What has a little mouse to do with a Maypole dance? I

sat in the soft moss, and held my sausage skewer tight. The moon threw

its beams particularly on one spot where stood a tree covered with

exceedingly fine moss. I may almost venture to say that it was as fine

and soft as the fur of the mouse-king, but it was green, which is a

color very agreeable to the eye. All at once I saw the most charming

little people marching towards me. They did not reach higher than my

knee; they looked like human beings, but were better proportioned, and

they called themselves elves. Their clothes were very delicate and

fine, for they were made of the leaves of flowers, trimmed with the

wings of flies and gnats, which had not a bad effect. By their manner,

it appeared as if they were seeking for something. I knew not what,

till at last one of them espied me and came towards me, and the

foremost pointed to my sausage skewer, and said, 'There, that is

just what we want; see, it is pointed at the top; is it not

capital?' and the longer he looked at my pilgrim's staff, the more

delighted he became. 'I will lend it to you,' said I, 'but not to

keep.'

    "'Oh no, we won't keep it!' they all cried; and then they seized

the skewer, which I gave up to them, and danced with it to the spot

where the delicate moss grew, and set it up in the middle of the

green. They wanted a maypole, and the one they now had seemed cut

out on purpose for them. Then they decorated it so beautifully that it

was quite dazzling to look at. Little spiders spun golden threads

around it, and then it was hung with fluttering veils and flags so

delicately white that they glittered like snow in the moonshine. After

that they took colors from the butterfly's wing, and sprinkled them

over the white drapery "which gleamed as if covered with flowers and

diamonds, so that I could not recognize my sausage skewer at all. Such

a maypole had never been seen in all the world as this. Then came a

great company of real elves. Nothing could be finer than their

clothes, and they invited me to be present at the feast; but I was

to keep at a certain distance, because I was too large for them.

Then commenced such music that it sounded like a thousand glass bells,

and was so full and strong that I thought it must be the song of the

swans. I fancied also that I heard the voices of the cuckoo and the

black-bird, and it seemed at last as if the whole forest sent forth

glorious melodies- the voices of children, the tinkling of bells,

and the songs of the birds; and all this wonderful melody came from

the elfin maypole. My sausage peg was a complete peal of bells. I

could scarcely believe that so much could have been produced from

it, till I remembered into what hands it had fallen. I was so much

affected that I wept tears such as a little mouse can weep, but they

were tears of joy. The night was far too short for me; there are no

long nights there in summer, as we often have in this part of the

world. When the morning dawned, and the gentle breeze rippled the

glassy mirror of the forest lake, all the delicate veils and flags

fluttered away into thin air; the waving garlands of the spider's web,

the hanging bridges and galleries, or whatever else they may be

called, vanished away as if they had never been. Six elves brought

me back my sausage skewer, and at the same time asked me to make any

request, which they would grant if in their power; so I begged them,

if they could, to tell me how to make soup from a sausage skewer.

    "'How do we make it?' said the chief of the elves with a smile.

'Why you have just seen it; you scarcely knew your sausage skewer

again, I am sure.'

    "They think themselves very wise, thought I to myself. Then I told

them all about it, and why I had travelled so far, and also what

promise had been made at home to the one who should discover the

method of preparing this soup. 'What use will it be,' I asked, 'to the

mouse-king or to our whole mighty kingdom that I have seen all these

beautiful things? I cannot shake the sausage peg and say, Look, here

is the skewer, and now the soup will come. That would only produce a

dish to be served when people were keeping a fast.'

    "Then the elf dipped his finger into the cup of a violet, and said

to me, 'Look here, I will anoint your pilgrim's staff, so that when

you return to your own home and enter the king's castle, you have only

to touch the king with your staff, and violets will spring forth and

cover the whole of it, even in the coldest winter time; so I think I

have given you really something to carry home, and a little more

than something.'"

    But before the little mouse explained what this something more

was, she stretched her staff out to the king, and as it touched him

the most beautiful bunch of violets sprang forth and filled the

place with perfume. The smell was so powerful that the mouse-king

ordered the mice who stood nearest the chimney to thrust their tails

into the fire, that there might be a smell of burning, for the perfume

of the violets was overpowering, and not the sort of scent that

every one liked.

    "But what was the something more of which you spoke just now?"

asked the mouse-king.

    "Why," answered the little mouse, "I think it is what they call

'effect;'" and thereupon she turned the staff round, and behold not

a single flower was to be seen upon it! She now only held the naked

skewer, and lifted it up as a conductor lifts his baton at a

concert. "Violets, the elf told me," continued the mouse, "are for the

sight, the smell, and the touch; so we have only now to produce the

effect of hearing and tasting;" and then, as the little mouse beat

time with her staff, there came sounds of music, not such music as was

heard in the forest, at the elfin feast, but such as is often heard in

the kitchen- the sounds of boiling and roasting. It came quite

suddenly, like wind rushing through the chimneys, and seemed as if

every pot and kettle were boiling over. The fire-shovel clattered down

on the brass fender; and then, quite as suddenly, all was still,-

nothing could be heard but the light, vapory song of the tea-kettle,

which was quite wonderful to hear, for no one could rightly

distinguish whether the kettle was just beginning to boil or going

to stop. And the little pot steamed, and the great pot simmered, but

without any regard for each; indeed there seemed no sense in the

pots at all. And as the little mouse waved her baton still more

wildly, the pots foamed and threw up bubbles, and boiled over; while

again the wind roared and whistled through the chimney, and at last

there was such a terrible hubbub, that the little mouse let her

stick fall.

    "That is a strange sort of soup," said the mouse-king; "shall we

not now hear about the preparation?"

    "That is all," answered the little mouse, with a bow.

    "That all!" said the mouse-king; "then we shall be glad to hear

what information the next may have to give us."

                WHAT THE SECOND MOUSE HAD TO TELL

    "I was born in the library, at a castle," said the second mouse.

"Very few members of our family ever had the good fortune to get

into the dining-room, much less the store-room. On my journey, and

here to-day, are the only times I have ever seen a kitchen. We were

often obliged to suffer hunger in the library, but then we gained a

great deal of knowledge. The rumor reached us of the royal prize

offered to those who should be able to make soup from a sausage

skewer. Then my old grandmother sought out a manuscript which,

however, she could not read, but had heard it read, and in it was

written, 'Those who are poets can make soup of sausage skewers.' She

then asked me if I was a poet. I felt myself quite innocent of any

such pretensions. Then she said I must go out and make myself a

poet. I asked again what I should be required to do, for it seemed

to me quite as difficult as to find out how to make soup of a

sausage skewer. My grandmother had heard a great deal of reading in

her day, and she told me three principal qualifications were

necessary- understanding, imagination, and feeling. 'If you can manage

to acquire these three, you will be a poet, and the sausage-skewer

soup will be quite easy to you.'

    "So I went forth into the world, and turned my steps towards the

west, that I might become a poet. Understanding is the most

important matter in everything. I knew that, for the two other

qualifications are not thought much of; so I went first to seek for

understanding. Where was I to find it? 'Go to the ant and learn

wisdom,' said the great Jewish king. I knew that from living in a

library. So I went straight on till I came to the first great

ant-hill, and then I set myself to watch, that I might become wise.

The ants are a very respectable people, they are wisdom itself. All

they do is like the working of a sum in arithmetic, which comes right.

'To work and to lay eggs,' say they, and to provide for posterity,

is to live out your time properly;' and that they truly do. They are

divided into the clean and the dirty ants, their rank is pointed out

by a number, and the ant-queen is number ONE; and her opinion is the

only correct one on everything; she seems to have the whole wisdom

of the world in her, which was just the important matter I wished to

acquire. She said a great deal which was no doubt very clever; yet

to me it sounded like nonsense. She said the ant-hill was the loftiest

thing in the world, and yet close to the mound stood a tall tree,

which no one could deny was loftier, much loftier, but no mention

was made of the tree. One evening an ant lost herself on this tree;

she had crept up the stem, not nearly to the top, but higher than

any ant had ever ventured; and when at last she returned home she said

that she had found something in her travels much higher than the

ant-hill. The rest of the ants considered this an insult to the

whole community; so she was condemned to wear a muzzle and to live

in perpetual solitude. A short time afterwards another ant got on

the tree, and made the same journey and the same discovery, but she

spoke of it cautiously and indefinitely, and as she was one of the

superior ants and very much respected, they believed her, and when she

died they erected an eggshell as a monument to her memory, for they

cultivated a great respect for science. I saw," said the little mouse,

"that the ants were always running to and fro with her burdens on

their backs. Once I saw one of them drop her load; she gave herself

a great deal of trouble in trying to raise it again, but she could not

succeed. Then two others came up and tried with all their strength

to help her, till they nearly dropped their own burdens in doing so;

then they were obliged to stop for a moment in their help, for every

one must think of himself first. And the ant-queen remarked that their

conduct that day showed that they possessed kind hearts and good

understanding. 'These two qualities,' she continued, 'place us ants in

the highest degree above all other reasonable beings. Understanding

must therefore be seen among us in the most prominent manner, and my

wisdom is greater than all.' And so saying she raised herself on her

two hind legs, that no one else might be mistaken for her. I could not

therefore make an error, so I ate her up. We are to go to the ants

to learn wisdom, and I had got the queen.

    "I now turned and went nearer to the lofty tree already mentioned,

which was an oak. It had a tall trunk with a wide-spreading top, and

was very old. I knew that a living being dwelt here, a dryad as she is

called, who is born with the tree and dies with it. I had heard this

in the library, and here was just such a tree, and in it an

oak-maiden. She uttered a terrible scream when she caught sight of

me so near to her; like many women, she was very much afraid of

mice. And she had more real cause for fear than they have, for I might

have gnawed through the tree on which her life depended. I spoke to

her in a kind and friendly manner, and begged her to take courage.

At last she took me up in her delicate hand, and then I told her

what had brought me out into the world, and she promised me that

perhaps on that very evening she should be able to obtain for me one

of the two treasures for which I was seeking. She told me that

Phantaesus was her very dear friend, that he was as beautiful as the

god of love, that he remained often for many hours with her under

the leafy boughs of the tree which then rustled and waved more than

ever over them both. He called her his dryad, she said, and the tree

his tree; for the grand old oak, with its gnarled trunk, was just to

his taste. The root, spreading deep into the earth, the top rising

high in the fresh air, knew the value of the drifted snow, the keen

wind, and the warm sunshine, as it ought to be known. 'Yes,' continued

the dryad, 'the birds sing up above in the branches, and talk to

each other about the beautiful fields they have visited in foreign

lands; and on one of the withered boughs a stork has built his

nest,- it is beautifully arranged, and besides it is pleasant to

hear a little about the land of the pyramids. All this pleases

Phantaesus, but it is not enough for him; I am obliged to relate to

him of my life in the woods; and to go back to my childhood, when I

was little, and the tree so small and delicate that a

stinging-nettle could overshadow it, and I have to tell everything

that has happened since then till now that the tree is so large and

strong. Sit you down now under the green bindwood and pay attention,

when Phantaesus comes I will find an opportunity to lay hold of his

wing and to pull out one of the little feathers. That feather you

shall have; a better was never given to any poet, it will be quite

enough for you.'

    "And when Phantaesus came the feather was plucked, and," said

the little mouse, "I seized and put it in water, and kept it there

till it was quite soft. It was very heavy and indigestible, but I

managed to nibble it up at last. It is not so easy to nibble one's

self into a poet, there are so many things to get through. Now,

however, I had two of them, understanding and imagination; and through

these I knew that the third was to be found in the library. A great

man has said and written that there are novels whose sole and only use

appeared to be that they might relieve mankind of overflowing tears- a

kind of sponge, in fact, for sucking up feelings and emotions. I

remembered a few of these books, they had always appeared tempting

to the appetite; they had been much read, and were so greasy, that

they must have absorbed no end of emotions in themselves. I retraced

my steps to the library, and literally devoured a whole novel, that

is, properly speaking, the interior or soft part of it; the crust,

or binding, I left. When I had digested not only this, but a second, I

felt a stirring within me; then I ate a small piece of a third

romance, and felt myself a poet. I said it to myself, and told

others the same. I had head-ache and back-ache, and I cannot tell what

aches besides. I thought over all the stories that may be said to be

connected with sausage pegs, and all that has ever been written

about skewers, and sticks, and staves, and splinters came to my

thoughts; the ant-queen must have had a wonderfully clear

understanding. I remembered the man who placed a white stick in his

mouth by which he could make himself and the stick invisible. I

thought of sticks as hobby-horses, staves of music or rhyme, of

breaking a stick over a man's back, and heaven knows how many more

phrases of the same sort relating to sticks, staves, and skewers.

All my thoughts rein on skewers, sticks of wood, and staves; and as

I am, at last, a poet, and I have worked terribly hard to make

myself one, I can of course make poetry on anything. I shall therefore

be able to wait upon you every day in the week with a poetical history

of a skewer. And that is my soup."

    "In that case," said the mouse-king, "we will hear what the

third mouse has to say."

    "Squeak, squeak," cried a little mouse at the kitchen door; it was

the fourth, and not the third, of the four who were contending for the

prize, one whom the rest supposed to be dead. She shot in like an

arrow, and overturned the sausage peg that had been covered with

crape. She had been running day and night. She had watched an

opportunity to get into a goods train, and had travelled by the

railway; and yet she had arrived almost too late. She pressed forward,

looking very much ruffled. She had lost her sausage skewer, but not

her voice; for she began to speak at once as if they only waited for

her, and would hear her only, and as if nothing else in the world

was of the least consequence. She spoke out so clearly and plainly,

and she had come in so suddenly, that no one had time to stop her or

to say a word while she was speaking. And now let us hear what she

said.

                WHAT THE FOURTH MOUSE, WHO SPOKE

                  BEFORE THE THIRD, HAD TO TELL

    "I started off at once to the largest town," said she, "but the

name of it has escaped me. I have a very bad memory for names. I was

carried from the railway, with some forfeited goods, to the jail,

and on arriving I made my escape, and ran into the house of the

turnkey. The turnkey was speaking of his prisoners, especially of

one who had uttered thoughtless words. These words had given rise to

other words, and at length they were written down and registered: 'The

whole affair is like making soup of sausage skewers,' said he, 'but

the soup may cost him his neck.'

    "Now this raised in me an interest for the prisoner," continued

the little mouse, "and I watched my opportunity, and slipped into

his apartment, for there is a mouse-hole to be found behind every

closed door. The prisoner looked pale; he had a great beard and large,

sparkling eyes. There was a lamp burning, but the walls were so

black that they only looked the blacker for it. The prisoner scratched

pictures and verses with white chalk on the black walls, but I did not

read the verses. I think he found his confinement wearisome, so that I

was a welcome guest. He enticed me with bread-crumbs, with

whistling, and with gentle words, and seemed so friendly towards me,

that by degrees I gained confidence in him, and we became friends;

he divided his bread and water with me, gave me cheese and sausage,

and I really began to love him. Altogether, I must own that it was a

very pleasant intimacy. He let me run about on his hand, and on his

arm, and into his sleeve; and I even crept into his beard, and he

called me his little friend. I forgot what I had come out into the

world for; forgot my sausage skewer which I had laid in a crack in the

floor- it is lying there still. I wished to stay with him always where

I was, for I knew that if I went away the poor prisoner would have

no one to be his friend, which is a sad thing. I stayed, but he did

not. He spoke to me so mournfully for the last time, gave me double as

much bread and cheese as usual, and kissed his hand to me. Then he

went away, and never came back. I know nothing more of his history.

    "The jailer took possession of me now. He said something about

soup from a sausage skewer, but I could not trust him. He took me in

his hand certainly, but it was to place me in a cage like a

tread-mill. Oh how dreadful it was! I had to run round and round

without getting any farther in advance, and only to make everybody

laugh. The jailer's grand-daughter was a charming little thing. She

had curly hair like the brightest gold, merry eyes, and such a smiling

mouth.

    "'You poor little mouse,' said she, one day as she peeped into

my cage, 'I will set you free.' She then drew forth the iron

fastening, and I sprang out on the window-sill, and from thence to the

roof. Free! free! that was all I could think of; not of the object

of my journey. It grew dark, and as night was coming on I found a

lodging in an old tower, where dwelt a watchman and an owl. I had no

confidence in either of them, least of all in the owl, which is like a

cat, and has a great failing, for she eats mice. One may however be

mistaken sometimes; and so was I, for this was a respectable and

well-educated old owl, who knew more than the watchman, and even as

much as I did myself. The young owls made a great fuss about

everything, but the only rough words she would say to them were,

'You had better go and make some soup from sausage skewers.' She was

very indulgent and loving to her children. Her conduct gave me such

confidence in her, that from the crack where I sat I called out

'squeak.' This confidence of mine pleased her so much that she assured

me she would take me under her own protection, and that not a creature

should do me harm. The fact was, she wickedly meant to keep me in

reserve for her own eating in winter, when food would be scarce. Yet

she was a very clever lady-owl; she explained to me that the

watchman could only hoot with the horn that hung loose at his side;

and then she said he is so terribly proud of it, that he imagines

himself an owl in the tower;- wants to do great things, but only

succeeds in small; all soup on a sausage skewer. Then I begged the owl

to give me the recipe for this soup. 'Soup from a sausage skewer,'

said she, 'is only a proverb amongst mankind, and may be understood in

many ways. Each believes his own way the best, and after all, the

proverb signifies nothing.' 'Nothing!' I exclaimed. I was quite

struck. Truth is not always agreeable, but truth is above everything

else, as the old owl said. I thought over all this, and saw quite

plainly that if truth was really so far above everything else, it must

be much more valuable than soup from a sausage skewer. So I hastened

to get away, that I might be home in time, and bring what was

highest and best, and above everything- namely, the truth. The mice

are an enlightened people, and the mouse-king is above them all. He is

therefore capable of making me queen for the sake of truth."

    "Your truth is a falsehood," said the mouse who had not yet

spoken; "I can prepare the soup, and I mean to do so."

                     HOW IT WAS PREPARED

    "I did not travel," said the third mouse; "I stayed in this

country: that was the right way. One gains nothing by travelling-

everything can be acquired here quite as easily; so I stayed at

home. I have not obtained what I know from supernatural beings. I have

neither swallowed it, nor learnt it from conversing with owls. I

have got it all from my reflections and thoughts. Will you now set the

kettle on the fire- so? Now pour the water in- quite full- up to the

brim; place it on the fire; make up a good blaze; keep it burning,

that the water may boil; it must boil over and over. There, now I

throw in the skewer. Will the mouse-king be pleased now to dip his

tail into the boiling water, and stir it round with the tail. The

longer the king stirs it, the stronger the soup will become. Nothing

more is necessary, only to stir it."

    "Can no one else do this?" asked the king.

    "No," said the mouse; "only in the tail of the mouse-king is

this power contained."

    And the water boiled and bubbled, as the mouse-king stood close

beside the kettle. It seemed rather a dangerous performance; but he

turned round, and put out his tail, as mice do in a dairy, when they

wish to skim the cream from a pan of milk with their tails and

afterwards lick it off. But the mouse-king's tail had only just

touched the hot steam, when he sprang away from the chimney in a great

hurry, exclaiming, "Oh, certainly, by all means, you must be my queen;

and we will let the soup question rest till our golden wedding,

fifty years hence; so that the poor in my kingdom, who are then to

have plenty of food, will have something to look forward to for a long

time, with great joy."

    And very soon the wedding took place. But many of the mice, as

they were returning home, said that the soup could not be properly

called "soup from a sausage skewer," but "soup from a mouse's tail."

They acknowledged also that some of the stories were very well told;

but that the whole could have been managed differently. "I should have

told it so- and so- and so." These were the critics who are always

so clever afterwards.

    When this story was circulated all over the world, the opinions

upon it were divided; but the story remained the same. And, after all,

the best way in everything you undertake, great as well as small, is

to expect no thanks for anything you may do, even when it refers to

"soup from a sausage skewer."

                            THE END