id the Lapland woman, "you have a long way to
go yet. You must travel more than a hundred miles farther, to Finland.
The Snow Queen lives there now, and she burns Bengal lights every
evening. I will write a few words on a dried stockfish, for I have no
paper, and you can take it from me to the Finland woman who lives there.
She can give you better information than I can."

So when Gerda was warmed and had taken something to eat and drink, the
woman wrote a few words on the dried fish and told Gerda to take great
care of it. Then she tied her again on the back of the reindeer, and he
sprang high into the air and set off at full speed. Flash, flash, went
the beautiful blue northern lights the whole night long.

And at length they reached Finland and knocked at the chimney of the
Finland woman's hut, for it had no door above the ground. They crept in,
but it was so terribly hot inside that the woman wore scarcely any
clothes. She was small and very dirty looking. She loosened little
Gerda's dress and took off the fur boots and the mittens, or Gerda would
have been unable to bear the heat; and then she placed a piece of ice on
the reindeer's head and read what was written on the dried fish. After
she had read it three times she knew it by heart, so she popped the fish
into the soup saucepan, as she knew it was good to eat, and she never
wasted anything.

The reindeer told his own story first and then little Gerda's, and the
Finlander twinkled with her clever eyes, but said nothing.

"You are so clever," said the reindeer; "I know you can tie all the
winds of the world with a piece of twine. If a sailor unties one knot,
he has a fair wind; when he unties the second, it blows hard; but if the
third and fourth are loosened, then comes a storm which will root up
whole forests. Cannot you give this little maiden something which will
make her as strong as twelve men, to overcome the Snow Queen?"

"The power of twelve men!" said the Finland woman. "That would be of
very little use." But she went to a shelf and took down and unrolled a
large skin on which were inscribed wonderful characters, and she read
till the perspiration ran down from her forehead.

But the reindeer begged so hard for little Gerda, and Gerda looked at
the Finland woman with such tender, tearful eyes, that her own eyes
began to twinkle again. She drew the reindeer into a corner and
whispered to him while she laid a fresh piece of ice on his head:
"Little