The Wicked Prince
by
Hans Christian Andersen
(1840)
There lived once upon a time a wicked
prince whose heart and mind were set upon conquering all the countries of the
world, and on frightening the people; he devastated their countries with fire
and sword, and his soldiers trod down the crops in the fields and destroyed the
peasants’ huts by fire, so that the flames licked the green leaves off the
branches, and the fruit hung dried up on the singed black trees. Many a poor
mother fled, her naked baby in her arms, behind the still smoking walls of her
cottage; but also there the soldiers followed her, and when they found her, she
served as new nourishment to their diabolical enjoyments; demons could not
possibly have done worse things than these soldiers! The prince was of opinion
that all this was right, and that it was only the natural course which things
ought to take. His power increased day by day, his name was feared by all, and
fortune favoured his deeds.
He brought enormous wealth home from the conquered towns,
and gradually accumulated in his residence riches which could nowhere be
equalled. He erected magnificent palaces, churches, and halls, and all who saw
these splendid buildings and great treasures exclaimed admiringly: “What a
mighty prince!” But they did not know what endless misery he had brought upon
other countries, nor did they hear the sighs and lamentations which rose up from
the débris of the destroyed cities.
The prince often looked with delight upon his gold and his
magnificent edifices, and thought, like the crowd: “What a mighty prince! But I
must have more—much more. No power on earth must equal mine, far less exceed
it.”
He made war with all his neighbours, and defeated them.
The conquered kings were chained up with golden fetters to his chariot when he
drove through the streets of his city. These kings had to kneel at his and his
courtiers’ feet when they sat at table, and live on the morsels which they left.
At last the prince had his own statue erected on the public places and fixed on
the royal palaces; nay, he even wished it to be placed in the churches, on the
altars, but in this the priests opposed him, saying: “Prince, you are mighty
indeed, but God’s power is much greater than yours; we dare not obey your
orders.”
“Well,” said the prince. “Then I will conquer God too.”
And in his haughtiness and foolish presumption he ordered a magnificent ship to
be constructed, with which he could sail through the air; it was gorgeously
fitted out and of many colours; like the tail of a peacock, it was covered with
thousands of eyes, but each eye was the barrel of a gun. The prince sat in the
centre of the ship, and had only to touch a spring in order to make thousands of
bullets fly out in all directions, while the guns were at once loaded again.
Hundreds of eagles were attached to this ship, and it rose with the swiftness of
an arrow up towards the sun. The earth was soon left far below, and looked, with
its mountains and woods, like a cornfield where the plough had made furrows
which separated green meadows; soon it looked only like a map with indistinct
lines upon it; and at last it entirely disappeared in mist and clouds. Higher
and higher rose the eagles up into the air; then God sent one of his numberless
angels against the ship. The wicked prince showered thousands of bullets upon
him, but they rebounded from his shining wings and fell down like ordinary
hailstones. One drop of blood, one single drop, came out of the white feathers
of the angel’s wings and fell upon the ship in which the prince sat, burnt into
it, and weighed upon it like thousands of hundredweights, dragging it rapidly
down to the earth again; the strong wings of the eagles gave way, the wind
roared round the prince’s head, and the clouds around—were they formed by the
smoke rising up from the burnt cities?—took strange shapes, like crabs many,
many miles long, which stretched their claws out after him, and rose up like
enormous rocks, from which rolling masses dashed down, and became fire-spitting
dragons.
The prince was lying half-dead in his ship, when it sank
at last with a terrible shock into the branches of a large tree in the wood.
“I will conquer God!” said the prince. “I have sworn it:
my will must be done!”
And he spent seven years in the construction of wonderful
ships to sail through the air, and had darts cast from the hardest steel to
break the walls of heaven with. He gathered warriors from all countries, so many
that when they were placed side by side they covered the space of several miles.
They entered the ships and the prince was approaching his own, when God sent a
swarm of gnats—one swarm of little gnats. They buzzed round the prince and stung
his face and hands; angrily he drew his sword and brandished it, but he only
touched the air and did not hit the gnats. Then he ordered his servants to bring
costly coverings and wrap him in them, that the gnats might no longer be able to
reach him. The servants carried out his orders, but one single gnat had placed
itself inside one of the coverings, crept into the prince’s ear and stung him.
The place burnt like fire, and the poison entered into his blood. Mad with pain,
he tore off the coverings and his clothes too, flinging them far away, and
danced about before the eyes of his ferocious soldiers, who now mocked at him,
the mad prince, who wished to make war with God, and was overcome by a single
little gnat.
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