This retelling by Grace De La Touche of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Tinder Box" , illustrated by Pam Storey, was copyrighted to Grandreams in 1993. It was published as part of Grandreams' Good Night, Sleep Tight Storybook series, as part of a quartet alongside retellings of 'The Princess and the Pea', 'The Wild Swans', and 'The Emperor's New Clothes', likely in a boxed set, as all share the same ISBN.
Cover, front and back matter
The front cover shows a middle-aged man wearing 18th century European clothing and carrying a tinderbox, as he stands beside the trunk of a tree in the woods. The image is framed by twine, tied in a bow at the top. (Note that this figure bears no correlation to the main character in the illustrations inside the book – the soldier is depicted in those illustrations as a much younger man).
The inside of the front cover features an old witch with a long and wart-covered nose peeking out from behind the trunk of a tree, smiling devilishly. The image is framed by leaves.
The title page features a tinderbox, lying on a wooden table alongside an old metal candle-holder with a lit candle burning down within it, with publication details below.
The story takes place over 20 pages, beginning on the back of the title page and ending on the inside of the back cover.
The story – retold by Grace De La Touche
This was my first encounter with "The Tinderbox" and I can see why it's not the most popular of fairy tales – the main character, a soldier, acts in many ways that appear villainous, starting with the murder of a witch who was harming no-one and ending with a regicide that leaves him in power. Macbeth was vilified for less, when you consider that with this regicide the soldier is also murdering his future wife's parents.
De La Touche's story is a very close retelling of the original Hans Christian Andersen story, in which a soldier returning from the wars meets a witch on the road and is asked to fetch her grandmother's tinderbox from inside a tree, with the reward of filling his pockets with as many copper, silver, and/or gold coins as he wants, each type of coins guarded by a dog, each with increasingly large eyes. He gets his reward but decides he wants the tinderbox as well, so kills the witch for it, then goes to town, where he lives the high life, until he runs out of money.
Eventually he strikes the tinderbox for a light and discovers that one, two, and three strikes calls one of each of the three dogs, and he uses this magic to get rich again and meet the mysterious princess that has been kept in isolation by her parents since it was foretold that she would marry a common soldier. Her parents are against their romance (if it can be called that) and plan to have him killed, but he uses the tinderbox to kill her parents and becomes the new king.
The original story as translated by Jean Hersholt¹ is irreverent in tone, with jolly-sounding statements like:
- "There came a soldier marching down the high road – one, two! one, two! He had his knapsack on his back and his sword at his side as he came home from the wars."
- "So he cut her head off. There she lay! But he tied all his money in her apron, slung it over his shoulder, stuck the tinder box in his pocket, and struck out for town."
- "The servant who cleaned his boots may have thought them remarkably well worn for a man of such means, but that was before he went shopping."
- "But he spent money every day without making any, and wound up with only two coppers to his name. He had to quit his fine quarters to live in a garret, clean his own boots, and mend them himself with a darning needle. None of his friends came to see him, because there were too many stairs to climb."
- "Back went the soldier to his comfortable quarters. Out strode the soldier in fashionable clothes. Immediately his friends knew him again, because they liked him so much."
- "Then the soldiers trembled and the people shouted, "Soldier, be our King and marry the pretty Princess." So they put the soldier in the King's carriage. All three of his dogs danced in front of it, and shouted "Hurrah!" The boys whistled through their fingers, and the soldiers saluted. The Princess came out of the copper castle to be Queen, and that suited her exactly. The wedding lasted all of a week, and the three dogs sat at the table, with their eyes opened wider than ever before."
Despite its alignment with the plot points of the original, La Touche's story doesn't have this jubilant tone, and so (quite unintentionally, I think) feels darker than the original. To compare:
- "Long ago, and far away a soldier was returning from the wars. He had been away for many years and was very happy to be going home. He whistled as he walked, his knapsack bouncing on his back."
- "Tell me why [you want the tinderbox]," said the soldier. "If not, I shall kill you." And that's exactly what he did. The soldier went into town, with the gold heavy in his pockets."
- "He immediately rented fine rooms and bought new clothes."
- "Eventually the day came when the soldier had spent all his money. His fine friends disappeared without a word. He had to move to a small tower room, as it was all he could afford."
- "He moved back to his fine lodgings, and his friends all came back."
- "The people were terrified. "Be our new King!" they cried to the soldier. And the soldier was pleased to become their King. He married the princess, who was glad to leave the copper tower. The dogs were guests of honour at the feast, and they were all eyes."
In the original it is the soldiers who were terrified and the people seemed quite pleased with the idea of the soldier as their king; in De La Touche's version it is the people who are terrified, which makes for a much darker story. In the original story, the description that the "Princess came out of the copper castle to be Queen, and that suited her exactly" is a sly statement that suggests the princess enjoys her change in circumstances for reasons that may be selfish or vain, while the statement that she "was glad to leave the copper tower" instead paints her as a victim.
One tweak I enjoyed in De La Touche's version is the final line that states the dogs were "all eyes". I'm not sure that this English idiom exists in Danish, but it is a clever touch here.
The illustrations – Pam Storey
Footnote
¹ Quotes from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Tinder Box" are from the translation by Jean Hersholt available online at the Hans Christian Andersen Centre. Of note, the original version as translated by Erik Christian Haugaard (Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories, © 1974) is quieter (less jubilant) in its irreverency, but still has the same effect.