Big Claus and Little Claus

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

In a village there once lived two men, who had both the same name. Both were called Claus, but the one had four horses and the other had only a single one. So, to distinguish them from each other, he who had four horses was called “Big Claus,” and he who had only one “Little Claus.’’ Now let us hear what happened to both, for it is a true story.

Throughout the whole week Little Claus had to plow for Big Claus and lend him his only horse; then in return Big Claus lent him his four, but only once a week, and that was on Sunday. Hurrah! how Little Claus cracked his whip over all the five horses; they were indeed as good as his, on that one day. The sun shone beautifully, all the bells in the church steeple were ringing, and the people, dressed in their best, were going to church, with their hymn-books under their arm, to hear the vicar preach. They saw Little Claus, who was plowing with five horses, and he was so happy that he kept on cracking his whip and shouting, “Gee-up, all my horses!”

“You must not talk like that,” said Big Claus, “only one of them is yours!”

But as soon as some one went by Little Claus forgot that he ought not to say so, and cried: “Gee-up, all my horses!”

“Well, now I must ask you to leave off saying that,” said Big Claus; “for if you say it once more, I shall strike your horse on the head, so that it will die on the spot; it will be all over with him then.”

“I will really not say so any more,” said Little Claus. But as soon as people came near again, and nodded him “good-day,” he felt happy, and thought how very fine it looked to have five horses to plow his field; so he cracked his whip once more and cried, “Gee-up, all my horses!”

“I’ll gee-up your horses!” said Big Claus, and taking a heavy bar struck Little Claus’s only horse on the head, so that it fell down dead on the spot.

“Oh, now I have no longer any horse,” said Little Claus, and began to cry. He then took the hide from off his horse and let it dry well in the wind, put it into a sack which he slung across his shoulder, and went to the town to sell it.

He had a very long way to go, through a great, dark wood, and a violent storm came on; he lost his way entirely, and before he came to the right road again it was evening, and much too far to reach the town or to return home before nightfall.

Close to the road lay a large farm; the shutters were up before the windows, but the light could still shine through at the top. “I daresay I shall be able to get permission to stay there for the night,” thought Little Claus, and went up and knocked.

The farmer’s wife opened the door, but when she heard what he wanted, she told him to be off, saying that her husband was not at home, and that she did not take in strangers.

“Well, then I must lie down outside,” said Little Claus, and the farmer’s wife shut the door in his face.

Close by stood a large haystack, and between this and the house was a small shed covered with a flat thatched roof.

“I can lie down there,” thought little Claus, when he spied the roof; “that will make a splendid bed. I don’t suppose the stork will fly down and bite my legs.” For a live stork was standing high up on the roof, where it had its nest.

Little Claus now crept up on the shed, where he lay and turned himself over to settle down comfortably. The wooden shutters before the windows did not reach to the top, and so he could see right into the room.

There was a big table laden with wine and roast meat and a splendid fish; at this table were seated the farmer’s wife and the sexton, but no one else. She was filling his glass, and he was pegging away with his fork at the fish, for it was his favorite dish.

“How ever could I get some of it, too?” thought Little Claus, and stretched his head out toward the window. Heavens! what a fine cake he saw in there! That was indeed a feast!

Now he heard some one riding from the high road towards the house; that was the woman’s husband, who was coming home. He was a very good man, but he had the strange peculiarity that he could never bear to see a sexton; if he caught sight of a sexton he would get quite mad. It was also for this reason that the sexton had gone to see the wife to bid her good-day, because he knew that her husband was not at home, and the good woman therefore placed before him the best fare that she had. But when they heard the husband coming they were startled, and the woman begged the sexton to creep into a great empty chest. He did so, because he knew that the poor man could not bear to see a sexton. The woman hastily hid all the fine things and the wine in her oven, for if her husband had seen them, he would certainly have asked what it meant.

“Ah me!” sighed Little Claus up on his shed when he saw the good things vanishing.

“Is any one up there?” asked the farmer, and cast his eyes up to Little Claus. “What are you lying there for? You had better come with me into the room.”

Then Little Claus told how he had lost his way, and begged to be allowed to stay there for the night.

“Most certainly!” said the farmer; “but we must first have something to live on.”

The woman received them both in a very friendly manner, laid the cloth on a long table, and gave them a large dish of porridge. The farmer was hungry and ate with a good appetite, but Little Claus could not help thinking of the fine roast meat, fish, and cake which he knew were in the oven. Under the table, at his feet, he had placed the sack containing the horse-hide, which, as we know, he was going to sell in the town. He did not care for the porridge, and therefore trod upon his sack so that the dry hide creaked.

“Hush!” said Little Claus to his sack, treading, at the same time, on it again, when it creaked louder than before.

“What is it that you have in your sack?” asked the farmer.

“Oh, that’s a magician!” said Little Claus. “He says we should not eat any porridge, as he has conjured the whole oven full of roast meat, fish and cake.”

“Gracious me!” said the farmer, and quickly opened the oven, where he saw all the nice dainty fare which his wife had hidden there, but which he believed the magician in the sack had conjured up for them. The woman dared not say anything, but put the things on the table at once, and so they both ate of the fish, the roast meat and the cake. Little Claus then trod on his sack again, so that the hide creaked.

“What does he say now?” asked the farmer.

“He says that he has also conjured three bottles of wine for us, and that they are standing in the corner near the oven.” The woman was now obliged to bring out the wine which she had hidden, and the farmer drank and became very merry. A magician, such as Little Claus had in his sack, he would have very much liked to possess.

“Can he conjure up the devil too?” asked the farmer; “I should like to see him, for I am merry now.”

“Yes,” said Little Claus, “my magician can do anything that I ask of him. Can’t you?” he asked, and trod on the sack to make it creak. “Do you hear? He says, ‘Yes,’ but the devil is very ugly; we had better not see him.”

“Oh, I’m not at all afraid. I wonder what he is like.”

“He will take the form of a sexton.”

“Ugh!” said the farmer, “that’s awful! I must tell you that I cannot bear to see a sexton. But that’s nothing; I know that it’s the devil, so I can easily put up with it. Now I have courage. But he must not come too near to me.”

“Then I will ask my magician,” said Little Claus, and treading on the sack held his ear to it.

“What does he say?”

“He says that if you open the chest which is standing in the corner there, you will see the devil crouching inside; but you must hold the lid so that he does not escape.”

“Will you help me to hold it?” he said, and went up to the chest in which the woman had hidden the real sexton, who was sitting inside in a great fright.

The farmer opened the lid a little, and looked in under it. “Ugh!” he cried, and sprang back. “Yes, now I’ve seen him; he looked exactly like our sexton. Nay, that was terrible.”

After that they were obliged to drink, and so they drank till far into the night.

“You must sell me the magician,” said the farmer. “Ask what you like for him. I’ll give you a whole bushel full of money at once.”

“No, I can’t do that,” said Little Claus. “Just think, how much profit I can get out of this magician.”

“I should so much like to have him,” said the farmer, and went on begging.

“Well,” said Little Claus at last, “as you have been so good as to give me shelter to-night, I’ll do it. You shall have the magician for a bushel full of money, but I must have the bushel heaped up.”

“That you shall have,” said the farmer. “But you must take the chest there with you. I won’t keep it in my house an hour; one can never know, perhaps he is still in there.”

Little Claus gave the farmer his sack containing the dry hide, and received for it a bushel full of money, heaped up too. The farmer even gave him a truck as well, to carry away the money and the chest.

“Good-bye!” said Little Claus, and went away with his money and the large chest in which the sexton was still concealed.

On the other side of the wood was a large, deep river; the water flowed so rapidly that it was scarcely possible to swim against the stream. A large new bridge had been built across it; Little Claus stopped on the middle of this, and said quite loud so that the sexton in the chest could hear it:

“Whatever am I to do with this stupid chest? It’s as heavy as if there were stones in it. I shall only get tired by dragging it farther; I’ll throw it into the river. If it swims home to me, well and good, and if it doesn’t, it won’t matter much.”

He then took hold of the chest with one hand and lifted it up a little, as if he wanted to throw it into the water.

“No, don’t do that!” cried the sexton in the chest. “Let me out first.”

“Ugh!” said Little Claus, and pretended to be frightened. “He’s still inside! Then I must throw him into the river quickly, so that he drowns.”

“Oh no, no!” shouted the sexton. “I’ll give you a whole bushel full of money, if you let me go.”

“Oh, well! that’s different,” said Little Claus, and opened the chest. The sexton crept out quickly, threw the empty chest into the water, and went to his home, where Little Claus received a bushel full of money; he had already received one from the farmer, so he now had his truck full of money.

“See, I was well paid for the horse!” he said to himself, when he shook out all the money into a heap in his room at home. “That will make Big Claus angry, when he hears how rich I have become through my single horse; but I won’t tell him all about it.”

He then sent a boy to Big Claus to borrow a bushel measure.

“What can he want with that?” thought Big Claus, and smeared some tar on the bottom, so that something of whatever was measured would remain sticking to it. And so it happened, too; for when he got the bushel measure back, three new silver shilling pieces were sticking to it.

“What’s that?” said Big Claus, and immediately ran to Little Claus.

“Where did you get so much money from?”

“Oh! that’s for my horse-hide; I sold it yesterday evening.”

“That’s really well paid!” said Big Claus, and running quickly home, took an axe, and struck all his four horses on the head; he then flayed them, and drove to the town with the hides.

“Hides! Hides! Who’ll buy hides!” he cried through the streets. All the shoemakers and tanners came running up and asked what he wanted for them.

“A bushel of money for each,” said Big Claus.

“Are you mad?” they all cried. “Do you think we have money by the bushel?”

“Hides! Hides! Who’ll buy hides!” and to all who asked him what the hides cost, he answered: “A bushel of money.”

“He wants to fool us,” they all said; so the shoemakers took their straps, and the tanners their leather aprons, and gave Big Claus a sound thrashing.

“Hides! Hides!” they jeeringly called after him; “yes, we’ll tan your hide, till the red liquor runs down from you. Out of the town with him!” they cried, and Big Claus had to run as fast as he could, for he had never had such a sound thrashing before.

“Well,” he said, when he got home, “Little Claus shall pay me for that; I’ll strike him dead for it.”

Little Claus’s grandmother, who lived with him, had died. She had really been very cross and bad to him, but still he was sorry, and took the dead woman and laid her in his warm bed to see whether she did not come to life again. He would let her lie there the whole night; he himself would go to sleep upon a chair in the corner, as he had often done before.

As he was sitting there in the night, the door opened, and Big Claus came in with his axe. He well knew where Little Claus’s bed stood, went straight up to it, and struck the grandmother on the head, thinking that it was Little Claus.

“There,” he said, “now you shall not make a fool of me again,” and went home.

“That is a very wicked man,” thought Little Claus. “He wanted to kill me. It is lucky for grandmother that she was dead already, else he would have taken her life.”

He then dressed his grandmother in her Sunday clothes, borrowed a horse of his neighbor and harnessed it to the cart; then he put his grandmother on the back seat, in order that she could not fall out as he drove, and so they rode away through the wood. By sunrise they had arrived at a large inn; here Little Claus stopped and went in to get something to drink. The landlord had a great deal of money: he was a very good man, too, but as passionate as if he were filled with pepper and tobacco.

“Good morning!” he said to Little Claus. “You got into your clothes early to-day.”

“Yes,” said Little Claus, “I am going to the town with my grandmother; she is sitting outside on the cart, I can’t bring her into the room. Will you give her a glass of mead? But you must speak very loud, for she can’t hear well.”

“Yes, certainly I will,” said the landlord, and poured out a large glass of mead, which he took out to the dead grandmother, who was placed upright in the cart.

“Here is a glass of mead from your son,” said the landlord. The dead woman, however, did not answer a word, and sat still.

“Don’t you hear?” shouted the landlord, as loud as he could; “here is a glass of mead from your grandson.”

He shouted it out once more and then still once more, but as she did not move at all from her place he became angry and threw the glass in her face, so that the mead ran down her nose and she fell backwards in the cart; for she had only been placed upright and not tied fast.

“Hallo!” cried Little Claus, rushing out and seizing the landlord by the throat; “you have killed my grandmother. Look here, there is a large hole in her forehead.”

“Oh, what a misfortune!” cried the landlord, wringing his hands. “All this comes of my hot temper. My dear Little Claus, I will give you a bushel of money and have your grandmother buried as if she were my own; but keep silent, or they will cut off my head and that would be so unpleasant.” So Little Claus got a bushel of money, and the landlord buried his grandmother as if she had been his own.

When Little Claus came home again with all the money, he at once sent his boy over to ask Big Claus to lend him a bushel measure.

“What’s that?” said Big Claus. “Have I not killed him? I must go and see for myself.” So he himself took the bushel measure over to Little Claus.

“Tell me where you got all that money,” he said, and opened his eyes wide when he saw what had been added.

“You didn’t kill me, but my grandmother,” said Little Claus; “I have sold her and got a bushel of money for her.”

“That’s really well paid,” said Big Claus; and hurrying home, took an axe and killed his grandmother on the spot. Placing her in the cart, he drove with her to the town where the apothecary lived, and asked him whether he could buy a dead body.

“Who is it, and where did you get it?” asked the apothecary.

“It’s my grandmother,” said Big Claus. “I killed her to get a bushel of money for her.”

“Heaven preserve us!” said the apothecary. “You are mad. Don’t talk like that, or you will lose your head.” And then he explained to him what a wicked deed he had done, and what a bad man he was, and that he ought to be punished; this frightened Big Claus so, that he rushed out of the shop into the cart, lashed his horses and drove home. But the apothecary and all the people thought he was mad, and so let him drive where he liked.

“You shall pay me for that!” said Big Claus, when he got on the high road outside the town. “Yes, you shall pay me for it, Little Claus.” As soon as he reached home he took the largest sack that he could find, went over to Little Claus, and said, “You have made a fool of me again. First I killed my horse, then my grandmother. That’s all your fault, but you shall not fool me again.” With that he took hold of Little Claus round the body and put him in his sack, then took him on his back, and called out to him: “Now I am going to take you away to drown you.”

It was a long way that he had to go before he came to the river, and Little Claus was not very light to carry. The road led close by the church, and the organ was pealing and the people were singing beautifully. So Big Claus put down his sack with Little Claus in it close to the church door, and thought it might be a very good thing to go in and hear a psalm before going any farther. Little Claus could not possibly get out of the sack, and all the people were in the church; so he went in.

“Oh dear! oh dear!” sighed Little Claus in the sack, turning and twisting about; but it was impossible for him to untie the string. By-and-bye an old cattle-driver with snow-white hair passed by, with a long staff in his hand. He was driving a herd of cows and oxen before him, and these, stumbling against the sack in which Little Claus lay, it was thrown over. “Ah me!” sighed Little Claus, “I am still so young, and am going already to heaven.”

“And I, poor man,” said the driver, “who am already so old, cannot get there yet.”

“Open the sack,” called out Little Claus; “get in instead of me, and you will go to heaven immediately.”

“With all my heart,” said the driver, and untied the sack, out of which Little Claus crept at once.

“But will you look after my cattle?” asked the old man, as he got into the sack; upon which Little Claus tied it up and went away with all the cows and oxen.

Soon afterward Big Claus came out of the church and took his sack on his back again, although it seemed to him to have become lighter, for the old cattle-driver was only half as heavy as Little Claus. “How light he is to carry now! That is because I have heard a psalm.” So he went to the river, which was deep and wide, threw the sack, with the old driver in it, into the water, and called out after him, for he believed that it was Little Claus: “Lie there! You will not fool me again.” He then went home; but when he came to the place where two roads crossed, he met Little Claus, who was driving his cattle along.

“What’s that?” said Big Claus. “Haven’t I drowned you?”

“Yes!” said Little Claus. “You threw me into the river scarcely half an hour ago.”

“But where did you get these beautiful cattle?” asked Big Claus.

“These are sea-cattle,” said Little Claus. “I will tell you the whole story, and thank you for having drowned me, for now I am up in the world and am really rich. How frightened I was while I was in the sack! the wind whistled in my ears as you threw me down from the bridge into the cold water. I immediately sank to the bottom, but did not hurt myself, for down there grows the finest soft grass. I fell on that and the sack was opened at once; a most lovely maiden, with snow-white clothes and a green wreath around her wet hair, took me by the hand and said, ‘Are you there, Little Claus? Here you have some cattle to begin with. A mile farther on the road there is another large herd, which I will give you.’ Then I saw that the river formed a great highway for the people of the sea. Down at the bottom they were walking and driving straight from the sea right up into the land, as far as the place where the river ends. It was full of lovely flowers and the freshest grass; the fish, which swam in the water, shot past my ears, just as the birds do here in the air. What lovely people there were there, and what fine cattle grazing in the valleys and on the hills!”

“But why did you come up again to us so quickly?” asked Big Claus. “I shouldn’t have done so, if it is so fine down there.”

“Well,” said Little Claus, “that was good policy on my part. You heard me say that the sea-maiden told me there was a herd of cattle for me a mile farther on the road. Now by the road she meant the river, for she cannot go anywhere else. But I know what windings the river makes, first here and then there, so that it is a long way round; it is much shorter by landing here and cutting across the field back to the river. I save almost half a mile in that way, and get to my cattle more quickly.”

“Oh, you are a lucky man,” said Big Claus. “Do you think that I should get some cattle too if I went to the bottom of the river?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Little Claus. “But I can’t carry you in the sack to the river; you are too heavy for me. If you will walk there yourself and creep into the sack, I will throw you in with the greatest pleasure.”

“Thank you,” said Big Claus; “but if I don’t get any sea-cattle when I reach the bottom, I promise you I’ll give you a sound thrashing.”

“Oh, don’t be as bad as that!” So they both went to the river. When the cattle, who were thirsty, saw the water, they ran as fast as they could, to get down to the stream.

“See how they hurry!” said Little Claus. “They are longing to get back to the bottom.”

‘‘Yes, but help me first,” said Big Claus, “else I’ll thrash you”; and he crept into a large sack which had been lying across the back of one of the oxen. “Put a stone into it, or I am afraid I shall not sink to the bottom,” he added.

“That’s all right!” said Little Claus; but he put a large stone into the sack all the same, tied the string tightly, and then pushed. Plump! there lay Big Claus in the river, and immediately sank to the bottom.

“I don’t think he’ll find the cattle,” said Little Claus, and went home with those that he had.