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_The Old Oak Tree's Last Dream (A Christmas Tale)_ was
written by Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875), and was
translated from the Danish by M. R. James (1862-1936) as
part of his _Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories_ (1930).

Title: Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories
   -- The Old Oak Tree's Last Dream (A Christmas Tale)
Author: Andersen, Hans Christian (1805-1875)
Translator: James, Montague Rhodes (1862-1936)
Date of first publication: 1930
Place and date of edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Faber and Faber, 1953
Date first posted: 10 March 2010
Date last updated: 10 March 2010
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #499

This ebook was produced by:
David T. Jones, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net




_The Old Oak Tree's Last Dream_

_A Christmas Tale_

by

Hans Christian Andersen

(from _Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories_ [1930],
translated by M. R. James)


There stood in the wood, high up on the slope, by the open shore, a
good old Oak tree that was just exactly three hundred and sixty-five
years old; that long time was for the tree no more than the same
number of days would be for us human beings. We are awake in the
daytime and sleep at night, and then it is that we have our dreams;
but with the tree it is different. The tree is awake for three of the
seasons, and it is only towards winter that it gets its sleep. Winter
is its sleeping-time, its night, after the long day that we call
Spring, Summer and Autumn.

For many a warm summer day had the Day-fly danced about the tree's
top; it had lived and hovered about and enjoyed itself, and when for
an instant the little creature rested itself, in quiet happiness, on
one of the big green oak leaves, the tree would always say: "Poor
little thing, a single day is the whole of your life! How short that
is! It is very sad."

"Sad!" the Day-fly would answer. "What do you mean by that? Everything
is bright and warm and lovely as it can be, and I am very happy."

"But think, only one day and it is all over."

"Over?" said the Day-fly. "What's over? Are you 'over', too?"

"No, I shall live for perhaps thousands of your days, and my day lasts
for three whole seasons. That means a time so long that you can't
reckon it up."

"No, I can't, for I don't understand you. You have thousands of my
days, perhaps, but I have thousands of moments to be glad and happy
in. Will all the beauty of the world come to an end when you die?"

"Ah, no!" said the tree. "It will certainly last longer, infinitely
longer than I can imagine."

"Why, then, we both have the same amount, only we reckon it
differently."

And the Day-fly danced and played in the air and rejoiced in its
delicate fine-wrought wings with their silk and velvet, and in the
warm air that was spiced with the scent of the clover fields and the
wild roses in the hedge, of elder and honeysuckle, not to speak of
woodruff and cowslips and wild mint. So strong was the perfume that
the Day-fly thought it must have made him a little drunk. Long and
lovely was the day, full of happiness, and the little fly always felt
comfortably tired of all the pleasure. His wings wouldn't carry him
any longer, and quite gently he settled down on a soft swaying blade
of grass, nodded his head after his own fashion, and fell happily to
sleep; and the sleep was death.

"Poor little Day-fly," said the Oak, "that really was a short life!"

And every summer day the same dance went on again. There was the same
question and answer and the same sleeping away to death. It repeated
itself through whole generations of Day-flies, and they were all
equally gay and happy. The Oak stood there awake through the morning
of spring, the noon of summer, and the evening of autumn, and now its
hour of sleep, its night, was at hand: winter was coming.

Already the great winds were singing: "Good night! Good night! Here
falls a leaf! There falls a leaf! We are plucking, plucking! Look out
for your sleep! We are singing you to sleep, rustling you to sleep,
but it's good for the old branches, eh? They creak with the pure
pleasure of it. Sleep well, sleep well! This is your three hundred and
sixty-fifth night: you're really only a yearling now. Sleep well. The
clouds will drop snow, and there'll be a whole blanket of it, a snug
coverlet about your feet. Sleep well, and pleasant dreams to you!"

And the Oak stood stripped of all his leaves, ready to go to bed for
the whole winter long and to dream many a dream: and his dreams, like
ours, were always of something he had experienced.

Once he too had been little; yes, an acorn had been his cradle. Now,
according to our counting, he was in his fourth century. He was the
largest and most vigorous tree in the wood: his crown soared high over
all the other trees and was seen far out at sea--a landmark for
ships: little thought he how many eyes there were that looked only for
him. High up in his green crown the wood-pigeons built, and the cuckoo
called there, and in autumn, when his leaves shone like plates of
beaten copper, the migrant birds came and rested there before they
flew away over the sea: but now it was winter, and the tree stood
leafless. It was plain to be seen how bent and gnarled his branches
spread. Crows and jackdaws came and sat there by turns and talked
about the hard times that were setting in and how difficult it was to
get food in winter.

It was just the holy Christmas time when the tree had his most
beautiful dream: and that is what we are to hear.

The tree had a clear perception that it was a holiday time. He seemed
to hear all the church bells of the countryside ringing: and besides
it was mild and warm as on a beautiful day. He spread out his mighty
crown all fresh and green. The sunbeams played between leaf and
branch, the air was full of the scent of plants and bushes: spangled
butterflies played hide-and-seek, and the Day-flies danced as if
everything were only arranged for them to dance and enjoy themselves.
All that the tree had lived through and seen round him in all the
years passed by as in one great pageant. He saw knights and ladies of
the olden time ride through the wood with plumed hats and hawk on
hand. The hunting-horn sounded and the hounds bayed. He saw the
enemy's troops, with bright weapons and gay clothing, with spear and
halberd, pitch their tents and strike them; the watch fires blazed up
and there was singing and sleeping under the tree's spreading
branches. He saw lovers meet in the moonlight in quiet happiness and
cut their names, or the first letters of them, on his grey-green bark.
Once--years ago, it was--lutes and Aeolian harps had been hung up on
the boughs of the Oak by merry prentices off on their journeys: now
again they hung there, and rang out once more to delight him. The
wood-pigeons cooed as if they wanted to express all that the tree
felt, and the cuckoo cuckooed to tell how many a summer day he was to
live.

Then it seemed as if a new current of life was thrilling through the
tree, down into his tiniest root, up into his topmost twig, and out
into all his leaves. The tree felt that he was stretching himself. He
was conscious in his roots how even down in the earth below there was
life and warmth: conscious that his strength was increasing, that he
was growing higher and higher. Up rose his trunk, there was no pause:
more and more he grew--his crown waxed fuller, spread out, spread
upward--and as the tree grew his vigour grew too--his exhilarating
desire to reach even higher, right up to the bright warm sun.

Already he had grown far up above the clouds which sailed away below
him like dark skeins of migrant birds or great white flights of swans.
And every one of his leaves could see, as if it had eyes. The stars
became visible in the daylight, all large and bright; each of them
shone like a pair of eyes, so kind, so clear, they reminded him of
eyes he had known, loving eyes, eyes of children, of lovers, when they
met beneath the tree.

A pleasant sight it was and a joyful, and yet with all the joy he felt
a longing, a yearning. If only all the other trees of the wood down
below, all the bushes, the weeds, the flowers, could rise along with
him and feel and drink in all this light and gladness! The mighty Oak
in the midst of his dream of glory was yet not completely happy unless
he had them all with him, small and great; and this feeling penetrated
through every branch and leaf as deeply and as strongly as in a human
breast.

The tree moved his crown as if seeking something he could not find.
He looked downward, and then--then there came to him a scent of
woodruff, and upon that, stronger still, a scent of honeysuckle and
violet: he thought he could hear the cuckoo call and answer itself.
Yes, through the clouds the green top of the wood was peeping up. The
tree saw beneath him the other trees growing and rising like himself:
bushes and weeds shot high into the air--some tore themselves loose,
root and all, and flew up more quickly. Swiftest of all was the birch;
like a white flash of lightning its slender trunk flickered upward,
its branches waving like green pennants and flags. The whole growth of
the wood, down to the brown-plumaged reeds, was springing together,
and the birds kept it company and sang, and in the grass, which flew
and floated wide like a long green silken thread, sat the grasshopper
playing on his shinbone with his wing: cockchafers boomed and bees
hummed, every bird sang full-throated, everything was music and
gladness right up into the heaven.

"But the little red flower by the waterside, that should be here too,"
said the Oak, "and the blue cuckoo-flower and the little daisy"--for
the Oak would have them all together with him.

"We are here! We are here!" Voices rang and sang in answer. "But the
pretty woodruff of last summer--and the year before there was a bed of
lilies of the valley--and the wild apple tree, how pretty it was! And
all the beauty of the wood for years past, many years--had it but
lived and lasted till now, it could have been with me too."

"We are with you," rang the voices from yet higher up; it seemed as if
they had flown on before.

"No, but this is too beautiful to be believed!" the old Oak cried
joyfully. "I have them all together, big and small! not one is
forgotten! How can such happiness be possible or thinkable?" "In God's
heaven it is possible and thinkable," rang the voices.

Then the tree, which was still growing, felt that his roots were
tearing themselves from the earth.

"Now this is best of all," said he. "Now no bond holds me. I can soar
up to the brightest of all in light and brightness, and I have all my
dear ones with me, great and small--all together! All!"

That was the dream of the Oak tree: and while he dreamt, there passed
a mighty storm far over land and sea on the holy eve of Christmas. The
sea rolled heavy billows against the beach, the tree creaked, cracked,
was torn up by the roots. Just as it was dreaming that its roots were
loosening themselves, it fell. Its three hundred and sixty-five years
were now as the single day of the Day-fly.

On Christmas morning, when the sun rose, the storm had laid itself to
rest. All the church bells were chiming for the holy day, and from
every chimney, even the least, on the cottager's roof, the smoke rose
blue, as from the altar at the Druid's feast--the smoke of the
thank-offering. Calmer and calmer grew the sea, and on a great ship
that stood off the land and had bravely fought out the hard weather of
last night, every flag was being run up, in gay Christmas fashion.

"The tree is gone, the old Oak that was our landmark!" said the
sailormen. "It's fallen in last night's storm! Who'll find us such
another? Why, nobody!"

That was the funeral sermon that the tree got--(short it was, but well
meant) as it lay stretched on the carpet of snow on the shore--and far
over it rang the sound of a hymn from the ship--a song of the joy of
Christmas and of the redemption of man's soul by Christ, and of the
life everlasting.


    _Unto the clouds, O flock of God
     Your voices raise. Hallelujah!
     So all mankind contenting
     This joy hath no repenting.
     Hallelujah!_


So ran the old hymn, and everyone on the ship out there was uplifted
after his own fashion by it, and by the prayer, just as the old tree
had risen upward in its last and fairest dream on Christmas Eve.




[End of _The Old Oak Tree's Last Dream (A Christmas Tale)_
by Hans Christian Andersen, from _Hans Andersen Forty-Two Stories_,
translated by M. R. James]
