This charming story by Hans Christian Andersen is about two ornaments who fall in love and decide to run away to the Big Wide World.

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Have you ever seen a very old chest, black with age, and covered with outlandish carved ornaments and curling leaves? Well, in a certain parlor there was just such a chest, handed down from some great-grandmother. Carved all up and down it, ran tulips and roses, odd-looking flourishes, and from fanciful thickets little stags stuck out their antlered heads.

Right in the middle of the chest a whole man was carved. He would make you laugh to look at him grinning away, though one couldn’t call his grinning laughing. He had hind legs like a goat’s, a little horn on his forehead, and a long beard. All his children called him ‘General Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs.’ It was a difficult name to pronounce and not many people get to be called by it, but he must have been very important or why should anyone have taken trouble to carve him at all?

However, there he stood, forever eyeing a delightful little china shepherdess on the table top under the mirror. The little shepherdess wore golden shoes, and looped up her gown fetchingly with a red rose. Her hat was gold, and even her crook was gold. She was simply charming!

Close by her stood a little chimney-sweep, as black as coal, but made of porcelain too. He was as clean and tidy as anyone can be, because you see he was only an ornamental chimney-sweep. If the china-makers had wanted to, they could just as easily have turned him out as a prince, for he had a jaunty way of holding his ladder, and his cheeks were as pink as a girl’s. That was a mistake, don’t you think? He should have been dabbed with a pinch or two of soot.

He and the shepherdess stood quite close together. They had both been put on the table where they stood and, having been placed there, they had become engaged because they suited each other exactly. Both were young, both were made of the same porcelain, and neither could stand a shock.

Near them stood another figure, three times as big as they were. It was an old Chinaman who could nod his head. He too was made of porcelain, and he said he was the little shepherdess’s grandfather. But he couldn’t prove it. Nevertheless he claimed that this gave him authority over her, and when General-Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs asked for her hand in marriage, the old Chinaman had nodded consent.

‘There’s a husband for you!’ the old Chinaman told the shepherdess. ‘A husband who, I am inclined to believe, is made of mahogany. He can make you Mrs. General-Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs. He has the whole chest full of silver, and who knows what else he’s got hidden away in his secret drawers?’

‘But I don’t want to go and live in the dark chest,’ said the little shepherdess. ‘I have heard people say he’s got eleven china wives in there already.’

‘Then you will make twelve,’ said the Chinaman. ‘Tonight, as soon as the old chest commences to creak I’ll marry you off to him, as sure as I’m a Chinaman.’ Then he nodded off to sleep. The little shepherdess cried and looked at her true love, the porcelain chimney-sweep.

‘Please let’s run away into the big, wide world,’ she begged him, ‘for we can’t stay here.’

‘I’ll do just what you want me to,’ the little chimney-sweep told her. ‘Let’s run away right now. I feel sure I can support you by chimney-sweeping.’

‘I wish we were safely down off this table,’ she said. ‘I’ll never be happy until we are out in the big, wide world.’

He told her not to worry, and showed her how to drop her little feet over the table edge, and how to step from one gilded leaf to another down the carved leg of the table. He set up his ladder to help her, and down they came safely to the floor. But when they glanced at the old chest they saw a great commotion. All the carved stags were craning their necks, tossing their antlers, and turning their heads. General-Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and -Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs jumped high in the air, and shouted to the old Chinaman, ‘They’re running away! They’re running away!’

This frightened them so that they jumped quickly into a drawer of the window-seat. Here they found three or four decks of cards, not quite complete, and a little puppet theatre, which was set up as well as it was possible to do. A play was in progress, and all the diamond queens, heart queens, club queens, and spade queens sat in front row and fanned themselves with the tulips they held in their hands. Behind them the knaves lined up, showing that they had heads both at the top and at the bottom, as face cards do have. The play was all about two people, who were not allowed to marry, and it made the shepherdess cry because it was so like her own story.

‘I can’t bear to see any more,’ she said. ‘I must get out of this drawer at once.’ But when they got back to the floor and looked up at the table, they saw the old Chinaman was wide awake now. Not only his head, but his whole body rocked forward. The lower part of his body was one solid piece, you see.

‘The old Chainman’s coming!’ cried the little Shepherdess, who was so upset that she fell down on her porcelain knees.

‘I have an idea,’ said the chimney-sweeper. ‘We’ll hide in the pot-pourri vase in the corner. There we can rest upon rose petals and lavender, and when he finds us we can throw salt in his eyes.’

‘It’s no use,’ she said. ‘Besides, I know the pot-pourri vase was once the old Chainman’s sweetheart, and where there used to be love a little affection is sure to remain. No, there’s nothing for us to do but to run away into the big wide world.’

‘Are you really so brave that you’d go into the wide world with me?’ asked the chimney-sweep. ‘Have you thought about how big it is, and that we can never come back here?’

‘I have,’ she said.

The chimney-sweep looked her straight in the face and said, ‘My way lies up through the chimney. Are you really so brave that you’ll come with me into the stove, and crawl through the stovepipe? It will take us to the chimney. Once we get there, I’ll know what to do. We shall climb so high that they’ll never catch us, and at the very top there’s an opening into the big wide world.’

He led her to the stove door.

‘It looks very black in there,’ she said. But she let him lead her through the stove and through the stovepipe, where it was pitch-black night.

‘Now we’ve come to the chimney,’ he said. ‘And see! See how the bright star shines over our heads.’

A real star, high up in the heavens, shone down as if it wished to show them the way. They clambered and scuffled, for it was hard climbing and terribly steep-way, way up high! But he lifted her up, held her safe, and found the best places for her little porcelain feet. At last they reached the top of the chimney, where they sat down. For they were so tired, and no wonder!

Overhead was the starry sky, and spread before them were all the housetops in the town. They looked out on the big wide world. The poor shepherdess had never thought it would be like that. She flung her little head against the chimney-sweep, and sobbed so many tears that the gilt washed off her sash.

‘This is too much,’ she said. ‘I can’t bear it. The wide world is too big. Oh! If I only were back on my table under the mirror. I’ll never be happy until I stand there again, just as before. I followed you faithfully out into the world, and if you love me the least bit you’ll take me right home.’

The chimney-sweep tried to persuade her that it wasn’t sensible to go back. He talked to her about the old Chinaman, and of General-Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs, but she sobbed so hard and kissed her chimney-sweep so much that he had to do as she said, though he thought it was the wrong thing to do.

So back down the chimney they climbed with great difficulty, and they crawled through the wretched stovepipe into the dark stove. Here they listened behind the door, to find out what was happening in the room. Everything seemed quiet, so they opened the door and-oh, what a pity! There on the floor lay the Chinaman, in three pieces. When he had come running after them, he tumbled off the table and smashed. His whole back had come off in one piece, and his head had rolled into the corner. General-Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs was standing where he always stood, looking thoughtful.

‘Oh, dear,’ said the little shepherdess, ‘poor old grandfather is all broken up, and it’s entirely our fault. I shall never live through it.’ She wrung her delicate hands.

‘He can be patched,’ said the chimney-sweep. ‘He can be riveted. Don’t be so upset about him. A little glue for his back and a strong rivet in his neck, and he will be just as good as new, and just as disagreeable as he was before.’

‘Will he, really?’ she asked, as they climbed back to their old place on the table.

‘Here we are,’ said the chimney-sweep. ‘Back where we started from. We could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble.’

‘Now if only old grandfather were mended,’ said the little shepherdess. ‘Is mending terribly expensive?’

He was mended well enough. The family had his back glued together, and a strong rivet put through his neck. That made him as good as new, except that never again could he nod his head.

‘It seems to me that you have grown haughty since your fall, though I don’t see why you should be proud of it,’ General-Headquarters-Hindquarters-Gives-Orders-Front-and-Rear-Sergeant-Billygoat-Legs complained. ‘Am I to have her, or am I not?’

The chimney-sweep and the little shepherdess looked so pleadingly at the old Chinaman, for they were deathly afraid he would nod. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. And neither did he care to tell anyone that, forever and a day, he’d have to wear a rivet in his neck.

So the little porcelain people remained together. They thanked goodness for the rivet in grandfather’s neck, and they kept on loving each other until the day they broke.

The story from ancient Greece of the boy who flew too close to the sun.

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I’ve told you before about the half man-half bull called the Minotaur. This strange and terrible beast lived in a deep, dark Labyrinth on the island of Crete. Well you may remember that the Labyrinth was created by the cunning and ingenious mind of Daedalus.

Daedalus was a brilliant architect and inventor – in fact, he was so brilliant that King Minos of Crete did not want to let him go back to his home in Athens. Instead, he kept him as a prisoner. Daedalus lived with his son Icarus in a tower of the palace, and King Minos made him invent weapons of war that would make his army and navy even more powerful than they already were.

Although Daedalus and Icarus had every comfort that they could ask for, the father longed to return home to Athens. His son hardly remembered his home city, but he too wanted to leave, because he longed to run and play in the open, rather than be in a tower all day.

Daedalus looked out over the waves of the Mediterranean Sea, and he realised that even if they could manage to slip out of the tower and find a little boat, they wouldn’t not be able to sail very far before they were spotted and caught by one of the ships of King Minos’s navy.

He thought for a long time about the best way to escape, and finally he came up with a plan, and this is what he did. He told King Minos that he needed feathers and wax for a new invention that he was working on. When these were brought to him, he took them up onto the roof of the tower. Here he arranged them in four lines, starting with the smallest fathers, and following those with the longer ones, so that they formed gentle curves. Then he began to stick the feathers together with thread in the middle and wax at the base. While he was working, Icarus played with the wax, squashing it between his finger and thumb, and when the feathers blew away in the breeze he ran after them and caught them.

When Daedalus had finished, he showed Icarus his work. He had made the feathers into two pairs of wings. He fastened the larger pair to his arms, and began to flap them until his feet took off from the floor and he began to hover in mid air. Icarus laughed with delight and could not wait to try out the smaller pair of wings. Over the next few days father and son both practised with them until little Icaraus was almost as good at flying as his father.

Then one morning Deadalus said to Icarus:

‘Now Son, we are ready to leave this island for good. We shall fly home to Athens. But although you are now quite good at flying, you must not forget that it can be very dangerous. So listen to my instructions and be sure to follow then to the letter. At all times follow me, for I will find the way home. Do not veer off on a different flight path, or you will soon be lost. And do not fly too low, or your wings will fill with moisture from the waves and they will become too heavy you will sink down. Nor should you fly too high, or the sun will heat the wax and your wings will fall apart. Have you understood all that I have said?’

Little Icarus nodded to show his father that he had understood. And then Daedalus led his son up onto the battlements of the tower, and like a bird leading her fledglings from the nest for the first time, he jumped into mid air and flapped his wings, and Icarus followed soon after.

If a fisherman or a shepherd had looked up just then, he would have seen two very unusual birds hovering above the waves. No doubt he would have thought that they had caught sight of two winged gods : For who could have believed that a mortal father and son had mastered the art of flight?

Over the seas they sailed, and at first Icarus felt frightened for he had never ventured very far in his practice flights. But soon he found that he was really good at flying. In fact, it was the most tremendous fun you could ever have. He began to swoop up and down with the sea gulls. Wow! It was amazing ! His father turned round and called:

‘Icraus, Take Care!’ and for a while after that Icraus obeyed his father and flapped along behind him. But then his wings caught a warm air current, and he found that he could soar along and upwards almost without any effort. This was the life ! He was floating ever so high above the waves and the ships down below were like tiny little specks. His father called up to him

‘Icarus, remember what I told you. Come down right now!’ But Icarus could not hear, and his father could not catch up with him.

Icarus was way too close to the sun, and soon the wax that held the feathers together began to melt. Gradually his wings began to loose their shape, and some of the feathers even began to fall off. Icarus flapped his arms frantically, but it was too late. He had lost the power of flight and down he plunged into the sea.

A touching and adventurous story about how Prince Bertie had a lion as a pet when he was still a boy-prince.

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I was walking along by the Palace Pond when I heard Tim the Tadpole’s squeaky voice saying: ‘Bertie can I have a puppy? Oh please Bertie. I would so love to have a pet to play with.’

Bertie was looking a bit stumped for a reply, because he doesn’t like to say ‘no’ , but he can’t always do what Tim wants. Even though he used to be a prince, he can’t do everything. In fact, now that he’s a frog, most things are more difficult than ever: Except for hopping. And catching flies with his tongue.

But before Bertie could explain to Tim why it’s tricky for a tadpole to keep a puppy, Colin the Carp butted in:

‘Oh Dear. Is there no end to the silly questions of little tadpoles? You can’t have a pet that’s bigger than yourself. If you had a puppy, you would be the puppy’s pet – or his breakfast.’

‘Oh yes you can have a pet that’s bigger than yourself,’ said Bertie. ‘The Queen once had a camel and that was even bigger than her majesty.’

‘Well you can’t have a pet that’s big enough to eat you,’ said Colin. ‘And Tim wouldn’t even make a light snack for a puppy. He would be like little morsel on the end of his tongue.’

‘Oh yes you can have a pet that’s big enough to eat you,’ said Bertie. ‘When I was a prince, I had a Lion for a pet.’

‘Rubbish!’ said Colin. ‘You’re just making up stories again,’

‘Well I’m allowed to make up stories, ‘ said Bertie, ‘Because that’s what I’m best at. But this one happens to be true.’

And then Bertie told all the pond life the story of how he had a lion as a pet. I stopped to listen because it sounded jolly interesting..

One time when Bertie was still a small princeling, he went with his mother to the pet shop. This all happened in the good old days before the Wicked Queen took over and turned Bertie into a frog. Bertie’s mother was much nicer, all though a little bit eccentric, which meant that her ideas were sometimes out of the ordinary. She wanted to buy a camel because she thought it would look interesting roaming around the palace grounds. The shopkeeper considered himself to be a bit of a whit, so he said to the Queen:

‘Ah yes Ma’am, a camel. Will that be one hump or two?’

The Queen gave the shopkeeper one of her stares, as if she meant his head to be chopped off. So he stuttered.

‘Of course Ma’am. I do so apologise. Right now we are out of camels. But we do have all sorts of interesting animals fresh in from Africa. For instance, we have handsome lion cub. And a lion is rather more royal than a camel if you don’t mind me saying so.’

The Queen was about to say: ‘You silly little man! Lions are for statues, not pets’ but Prince Bertie had already run over to the cub’s corner of the shop. He was so small, fluffy and cute, and he also looked just a bit sad to be living in a box. He gave Berte a tiny little roar like:

‘Rawwwww !’

And so Bertie said:

‘Mummy Mummy. Do let’s have a lion cub. I promise I’ll look after him all by myself. Honest I will. I’ll keep him with me always and we’ll be bestest friends.’

Bertie’s mother sometimes seemed a bit fierce, but she was a big softie really, and she thought that the lion cub looked very cute and harmless too. So she gave the shopkeeper a gold coin and they took the cub home to the Palace.

Bertie called him Tiddles because he thought that was a funny name for a lion. The Queen said that it was alright for friends to call him Tiddles, but that he would have to have an official name too for special occasions. So she said that his proper name would be Leopold the First.

Leopold the First, or Tiddles as everybody called him, loved living in the palace. At night he slept in Bertie’s bed where he looked just like a fluffy toy lion. During the day he liked sitting on the roof and watching everyone come and go. Up there, he looked just like a statue of a lion, until he started to move and prowl along the battlements – which gave anyone who noticed a big surprise. At other times he went for walks around the palace grounds, and everyone agreed that he was far more interesting and royal than a camel would ever have been.

For breakfast, Tiddles ate raw steak. For lunch he ate raw steak. And for supper he ate raw steak.

And Tiddles grew. And he grew. And he became quite big.

But however big he became, he still loved Bertie. When he saw Bertie coming home from School, he would leap off the roof of the palace into the branches of a big oak tree, then he would climb down and bound up the drive to greet Bertie. He would jump up and hug him with his paws and lick his face. And then they would run into the grounds and play soccer together. Tiddles was great at dribbling the ball with his nose. Though one day when he was hungry he ate Bertie’s best football boots, but Bertie didn’t mind because he loved Tiddles so very much.

Anther game they liked playing was frightening the Royal Nanny. Tiddles and Bertie would both hide behind the curtains, and when they heard her coming along calling :

‘Bertie. It’s way past your bedtime young prince!’ The would both leap out and roar like this

RAAWWWWWWWWW!

And she would be so frightened that she would run off to her room and Bertie and Tiddles could say up for another half an hour and play.

But one day the King said to Bertie over breakfast:

‘That cub of yours has become quite a lion. He’s already growing a mane. It’s time he went to the zoo.’

‘The zoo!’ said Bertie. ‘You can’t put Tiddles behind bars! And besides I love him ! You should think of my feelings too Daddy!’

Of course he king didn’t want to make Bertie sad, so he agreed that Tiddles could live in the palace a little longer. But then one day Tiddles did something that made the king cross. Very cross indeed.

He had just appointed a new prime minister. The Prime Minister and all the grandest and most important people in the land came to see the King in the palace.

And Tiddles was waiting for them. By now Tiddles wasn’t quite a grown-up lion but he was no longer a cub. By the standards of cats he was big. Well actually, he was huge. And if you didn’t know him, you would be quite scared to meet him. In fact, you would be terrified.

A big velvet curtain hung behind the thrown, and sometimes Tiddles liked to sleep behind it. It was his hideaway place.

When the new ministers trooped into the thrown room to meet the King, three musicians sounded their trumpets :

The sound woke up Tiddles and he thought that there would be a party with lots of music and games. So he strolled out from behind the curtains, stretched out his body, and then turned around to lick his bottom. In actual fact, he didn’t do anything very frightening at all.

But the ministers were frightened.

The Minister of War climbed out of the window and jumped into a rose bush where he tore his trousers on the thorns. The prime minister had more metal than that, and he picked up a chair and held it out in front of himself like a lion tamer. Tiddles yawned and showed all his teeth. That was too much, the whole government including the Prime Minister leapt out of the widows.

The king was furious because they trampled all over his roses. He decided that he didn’t like the Government after all, so he sacked the lot of them and appointed some new ministers.
The next day the newspapers ran headlines like:

King throws ministers to the lions

And

Lion-Taming Prime Minister Gets The Sack.

The king was furious when he read the papers, and he resolved that Tiddles must go immediately. The new prime minister, who had replaced the old one who had run away from Tiddles, said he thought that the best place for a lion would be Africa. In fact, everyone in the palace who loved Tiddles – and that was everyone except the Royal Nanny- all agree that it would be a wonderful thing to set him free in the wild where he could live the life of a real lion.

And so that’s what happened. The Minister for Nature put Tiddles on a flight to Africa. Before the plane left the tarmac, Prince Bertie came on board to give his pet a special goodbye hug. Then the plane flew Tiddles to Tanzania in East Africa . First he lived in a special sanctuary for lions. Then they released him into the wild. Bertie knew that things had turned out how they should, though he was very sad that he would never see his best friend again.

Three years later, the Royal Family chose a very special holiday. They went on Safari in East Africa. They travelled across the open bush in four-wheel drive cars and saw all the wild animals. They had guides who carried guns just in case any creatures tried to attack them. At night they slept in tents under the stars.

One night they camped on the edge of the Ngorongoro Crater. The King and Queen decided to rest for the next day before continuing their safari.

Bertie had become friendly with the chief guide whose name was Joshua. He asked Joshua if had ever heard of a lion who had lived in a palace and been released into the wild. And to Bertie’s surprise, Joshua said that of course everyone who worked in the game reserve had heard the story of the royal lion called Tiddles.

Now he was a big strong grown-up lion, and was the leader of his pride – which is like a group of lions .

He agreed to take Bertie the next morning to see Tiddles come down to his favorite watering hole. But he made Bertie promise to stay in the car, because Tiddles was a wild lion now and might be dangerous.

So Bertie got up at 5AM. Rosy red clouds still veiled the fierce African sun so that the air was still lovely and fresh. The great Ngorongoro crater was filled with mists so it looked like a witch’s cauldron. Then the treetops started emerge from the swirling brew. They got into the car and slowly drove down the winding route into the base of the crater. By now the sunlight was starting to play on the bark of the acacia trees. Zebra and deer were grazing in the long grass, always watching with their big glassy eyes for any suspicious movement that could be a big cat hunting for its breakfast.

Eventually they came to the watering hole where Joshua said that Tiddles like to come and drink sometimes. He didn’t come here every day, so they would need to be lucky.

And so they waited. And Bertie saw lots of beautiful pink flamingos. And he saw a hippo give the biggest yawn he had ever seen. And eventually the grass began to move and a big lion followed by three lionesses began to gamble down to the water. Although he was much bigger than when he had last seen him, Bertie knew right away that it was Tiddles. But Tiddles took no notice of the car. He was used to tourists and didn’t think to see who was inside. Instead he led his pride down to drink. Bertie wound down the window and called out ‘Tiddles’ but still Tiddles didn’t hear him. So then Bertie did something very silly indeed. He forgot about Joshua’s warning, and he opened the door of the car and jumped out onto the ground. He started to walk towards Tiddles. Joshua immediately leapt out of the driver’s seat and trained his gun on Tiddles.

‘You’re royal highness,’ he said. ‘You had better get back into the car. Just come back slowly. Don’t run. If you run they will attack you.’

But Bertie carried on walking towards the lions and called out ‘Tiddles, Tiddles, don’t you remember me? I’m Bertie. Your best friend.’

Tiddles took his mouth up from the water and looked round at Bertie. He stared at him for about half a minute, and then he started to bound towards him, with a great cat like spring in his step. Joshua squeezed his trigger but his gun didn’t fire. Dust had blown up from the wheels of the car had got into the gun and jammed it. It all happened so fast. Bertie didn’t have time to be afraid or to regret not taking Joshua’s advice.

Tiddles feet took off from the ground. He flew towards Bertie, wrapped his paws around him, and licked his face. Then Bertie and Tiddles did a kind of dance under the acacia trees. The friends were united and over-joyed to see each other once again.

And that’s the story of how Bertie had a pet lion, set him free in the wild African bush, and then went out to meet him again. Bertie says that if you are ever near a wild animal you must be ever so careful and follow all the instructions that you are given. Wild animals are very beautiful but very dangerous.