There were once five-and-twenty tin soldiers, who were all brothers,
for they had been made out of the same old tin spoon. They shouldered
arms and looked straight before them, and wore a splendid uniform, red 
and blue. The first thing in the world they ever heard were the words, 
"Tin soldiers!" uttered by a little boy, who clapped his hands with 
delight when the lid of the box, in which they lay, was taken off. 
They were given him for a birthday present, and he stood at the table 
to set them up. The soldiers were all exactly alike, excepting one, 
who had only one leg; he had been left to the last, and then there was 
not enough of the melted tin to finish him, so they made him to stand 
firmly on one leg, and this caused him to be very remarkable.

The table on which the tin soldiers stood, was covered with other
playthings, but the most attractive to the eye was a pretty little
paper castle. Through the small windows the rooms could be seen. In 
front of the castle a number of little trees surrounded a piece of 
looking-glass, which was intended to represent a transparent lake. 
Swans, made of wax, swam on the lake, and were reflected in it. All 
this was very pretty, but the prettiest of all was a tiny little lady, 
who stood at the open door of the castle; she, also, was made of 
paper, and she wore a dress of clear muslin, with a narrow blue ribbon 
over her shoulders just like a scarf. In front of these was fixed a 
glittering tinsel rose, as large as her whole face. The little lady 
was a dancer, and she stretched out both her arms, and raised one of 
her legs so high, that the tin soldier could not see it at all, and he 
thought that she, like himself, had only one leg. "That is the wife 
for me," he thought; "but she is too grand, and lives in a castle, 
while I have only a box to live in, five-and-twenty of us altogether, 
that is no place for her. Still I must try and make her acquaintance." 
Then he laid himself at full length on the table behind a snuff-box 
that stood upon it, so that he could peep at the little delicate lady, 
who continued to stand on one leg without losing her balance. When 
evening came, the other tin soldiers were all placed in the box, and 
the people of the house went to bed. Then the playthings began to have 
their own games together, to pay visits, to have sham fights, and to 
give balls. The tin soldiers rattled in their box; they wanted to get 
out and join the amusements, but they could not open the lid. The 
nut-crackers played at leap-frog, and the pencil jumped about the 
table. There was such a noise that the canary woke up and began to 
talk, and in poetry too. Only the tin soldier and the dancer remained 
in their places. She stood on tiptoe, with her legs stretched out, as 
firmly as he did on his one leg. He never took his eyes from her for 
even a moment. The clock struck twelve, and, with a bounce, up sprang 
the lid of the snuff-box; but, instead of snuff, there jumped up a 
little black goblin; for the snuff-box was a toy puzzle.

"Tin soldier," said the goblin, "don't wish for what does not belong 
to you."

But the tin soldier pretended not to hear.

"Very well; wait till to-morrow, then," said the goblin.

When the children came in the next morning, they placed the tin 
soldier in the window. Now, whether it was the goblin who did it, or 
the draught, is not known, but the window flew open, and out fell the 
tin soldier, heels over head, from the third story, into the street 
beneath. It was a terrible fall; for he came head downwards, his 
helmet and his bayonet stuck in between the flagstones, and his one 
leg up in the air. The servant maid and the little boy went down 
stairs directly to look for him; but he was nowhere to be seen, 
although once they nearly trod upon him. If he had called out, "Here I 
am," it would have been all right, but he was too proud to cry out for 
help while he wore a uniform.

Presently it began to rain, and the drops fell faster and faster, till 
there was a heavy shower. When it was over, two boys happened to pass 
by, and one of them said, "Look, there is a tin soldier. He ought to 
have a boat to sail in."

So they made a boat out of a newspaper, and placed the tin soldier in 
it, and sent him sailing down the gutter, while the two boys ran by 
the side of it, and clapped their hands. Good gracious, what large
waves arose in that gutter! and how fast the stream rolled on! for the 
rain had been very heavy. The paper boat rocked up and down, and 
turned itself round sometimes so quickly that the tin soldier 
trembled; yet he remained firm; his countenance did not change; he 
looked straight before him, and shouldered his musket. Suddenly the 
boat shot under a bridge which formed a part of a drain, and then it 
was as dark as the tin soldier's box.

"Where am I going now?" thought he. "This is the black goblin's fault, 
I am sure. Ah, well, if the little lady were only here with me in the 
boat, I should not care for any darkness."

Suddenly there appeared a great water-rat, who lived in the drain.

"Have you a passport?" asked the rat, "give it to me at once." But the 
tin soldier remained silent and held his musket tighter than ever. The 
boat sailed on and the rat followed it. How he did gnash his teeth and 
cry out to the bits of wood and straw, "Stop him, stop him; he has not 
paid toll, and has not shown his pass." But the stream rushed on 
stronger and stronger. The tin soldier could already see daylight 
shining where the arch ended. Then he heard a roaring sound quite 
terrible enough to frighten the bravest man. At the end of the tunnel 
the drain fell into a large canal over a steep place, which made it as 
dangerous for him as a waterfall would be to us. He was too close to 
it to stop, so the boat rushed on, and the poor tin soldier could only 
hold himself as stiffly as possible, without moving an eyelid, to show 
that he was not afraid. The boat whirled round three or four times, 
and then filled with water to the very edge; nothing could save it 
from sinking. He now stood up to his neck in water, while deeper and 
deeper sank the boat, and the paper became soft and loose with the 
wet, till at last the water closed over the soldier's head. He thought 
of the elegant little dancer whom he should never see again, and the 
words of the song sounded in his ears -

                                "Farewell, warrior! ever brave,
                                Drifting onward to thy grave."

Then the paper boat fell to pieces, and the soldier sank into the 
water and immediately afterwards was swallowed up by a great fish. Oh 
how dark it was inside the fish! A great deal darker than in the 
tunnel, and narrower too, but the tin soldier continued firm, and lay 
at full length shouldering his musket. The fish swam to and fro, 
making the most wonderful movements, but at last he became quite 
still. After a while, a flash of lightning seemed to pass through him, 
and then the daylight approached, and a voice cried out, "I declare 
here is the tin soldier." The fish had been caught, taken to the 
market and sold to the cook, who took him into the kitchen and cut him 
open with a large knife. She picked up the soldier and held him by the 
waist between her finger and thumb, and carried him into the room. 
They were all anxious to see this wonderful soldier who had travelled 
about inside a fish; but he was not at all proud. They placed him on 
the table, and- how many curious things do happen in the world!- there 
he was in the very same room from the window of which he had fallen, 
there were the same children, the same playthings, standing on the 
table, and the pretty castle with the elegant little dancer at the 
door; she still balanced herself on one leg, and held up the other, so 
she was as firm as himself. It touched the tin soldier so much to see 
her that he almost wept tin tears, but he kept them back. He only 
looked at her and they both remained silent. Presently one of the 
little boys took up the tin soldier, and threw him into the stove. He 
had no reason for doing so, therefore it must have been the fault of 
the black goblin who lived in the snuff-box. The flames lighted up the 
tin soldier, as he stood, the heat was very terrible, but whether it 
proceeded from the real fire or from the fire of love he could not 
tell. Then he could see that the bright colors were faded from his 
uniform, but whether they had been washed off during his journey or 
from the effects of his sorrow, no one could say. He looked at the 
little lady, and she looked at him. He felt himself melting away, but 
he still remained firm with his gun on his shoulder. Suddenly the door 
of the room flew open and the draught of air caught up the little 
dancer, she fluttered like a sylph right into the stove by the side of 
the tin soldier, and was instantly in flames and was gone. The tin 
soldier melted down into a lump, and the next morning, when the maid 
servant took the ashes out of the stove, she found him in the shape of 
a little tin heart. But of the little dancer nothing remained but the 
tinsel rose, which was burnt black as a cinder.