The Tinderbox

In a long-ago time, in a far-away place, there was a soldier walking along a road. The soldier did not have a gun; this was before there were guns. He did have a sword, and he kept it shiny and sharp, for although the war was over and he had no more enemies to fight, he had heard that there were bandits along the roads and you could never be too careful.

But in fact, the soldier had no money in his pockets or in his knapsack or tucked into his boots or hidden under his hat, so any bandit who tried to rob him would soon find it was not worth the bother. Nonetheless, the soldier kept a cheerful smile on his face and a sweet whistle on his lips, and soon enough he met an old woman on the road.

‘Good day, soldier!’ said the old woman. ‘I see you have fallen on hard times.’

‘Hard times have fallen on me,’ said the soldier, ‘but I try to keep cheerful all the same.’

‘You’d find it easier to be cheerful if you had money in your pockets,’ said the old woman, ‘and if you do a favour for me, I can fill your pockets and your knapsack and your boots and your hat with more coins than you will ever have time to spend.’

‘Goodness!’ said the soldier, ‘that is a lot of coins! I will gladly do you this favour.’

The old woman took off her apron and handed it to him. ‘Do you see that hollow tree-trunk there? Climb down inside it. I’ll tie a rope around your waist, because you can never be too careful. You will find yourself in a tunnel, and in the walls of a tunnel you will see three doors. Open the first one and inside you will see a dog with eyes as wide as saucers, sitting on top of a chest. Don’t worry, she won’t hurt you. Just pick her up and set her down on my apron, and then you can open the chest and take out all the coins inside. They are copper. But maybe it’s silver you want! Then you should go into the second room. There you will see a dog with eyes as wide as millstones sitting on top of a chest. Don’t worry, she won’t hurt you. Just pick her up and set her down on my apron, and then you can open the chest and take out all the coins inside. They are silver. But if you want gold, there’s one more room you need to try. There you will see one more chest, and sitting upon it, a dog with eyes as wide as the tower of the King’s castle where he keeps his daughter the princess locked up for fear she should fall in love with a commoner. Don’t worry, she won’t hurt you. Just pick her up and set her down on my apron, and then you can open the chest and take out all the coins inside.

’Marvellous!’ said the soldier. ‘I will do as you say. But tell me, old woman, what is the favour you want me to do for you?’

‘Oh,’ said the old woman, ‘nothing, nothing, only there is a tinderbox in the tunnel, that was left there by my grandmother. It is quite worthless! But it means a lot to me. Bring it out and give it to me, and then we will be even.’

‘A tinderbox?’ said the soldier. ‘What’s a tinderbox?’

The old woman scowled. ‘Young people today!’ she muttered. ‘A tinderbox is for making fire! You youngsters with your matches don’t know how to really make a fire. You strike a special kind of flint with a special kind of blade, and let the sparks fall onto a piece of special cloth called tinder-cloth, so that its moulders. And the box you keep the flint and blade and cloth inside is called – ‘

‘A tinderbox!’ said the soldier. ‘What a useful thing that must be.’

‘Very useful indeed,’ said the old woman. ‘So you’ll fetch it for me?’

‘Of course,’ said the soldier.

Now, the old woman tied a rope around his waist and he climbed down inside the tree. Just as the old woman had said, there was a tunnel with three doors. He opened the first door and sure enough, there was a chest, and sitting on the chest was a dog with eyes as wide as saucers! The soldier bowed politely, and lay out the old woman’s apron on the floor, and picked the dog up and sat it down. ‘Nice doggie,’ he said, but the dog did not reply, only stared at him with her eyes as wide as saucers. The soldier opened the chest, and filled his pockets with copper coins. When they were as full as they could get, he closed the chest and lifted the dog back up onto the lid, and went out into the tunnel to open the second door.

In the second room, there was a chest, and sitting on the chest was a dog with eyes as wide as millstones! The soldier swallowed a little when he saw it, because millstones are very big indeed, and to hear the old woman say ‘eyes as big as millstones’ had not prepared him for what they would really look like. Nonetheless, he had been to war and seen many terrible and frightening things, and he was brave, so he lay down the apron, bowed politely, and lifted the dog down from the chest. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said as he did it. The dog only stared in reply, and the soldier opened the chest and quickly stuffed his boots and his hat with silver coins. When they were as full as they could get, he closed the chest and lifted the dog back up onto the lid, and went out into the tunnel to open the third door.

In the third room, there was a chest bigger than the first two chests, and on it was sitting a dog with eyes as wide as the tower in the King’s castle. The soldier stood and stared for a very long time, then shook his head. ‘Forgive my rudeness,’ he said to the dog, and lay out the old woman’s apron on the floor and picked the dog up and sat it down. The chest was full of gold coins, and he stuffed his knapsack full of them, and then he went back out to the tunnel and tugged on the rope to let the old woman know that he was finished.

‘Have you got the tinderbox?’ she cried.

‘Oh!’ said the soldier, for between the dogs and their enormous eyes, and the chests full of coins, he had quite forgotten about the tinderbox.

The soldier was a man who kept his promises, so he went back down the tunnel and found the tinderbox, and when the old woman pulled him up she grabbed the collar of his coat and said ‘Where is it? Where is it?’

‘Hold your horses,’ said the soldier. ‘There’s no need to be rude.’

‘Give me the tinderbox or I’ll slit your throat!’ said the old woman, pulling out a knife from her belt.

The soldier drew his sword. ‘Will you, now?’ he said, and he looked in her eyes and saw that she meant to kill him, whether he gave her the tinderbox or not. ‘None of that!’ he said, and he struck out with his sword. And because he always kept his sword shiny and sharp, he cut off her head with a single blow.

‘Well, now,’ he said to himself, ‘that proves the value of being well-prepared.’

And on he went along the road.

Now that his pockets and his knapsack and his boots and his hat were stuffed full of coins, the soldier had no trouble being cheerful. He walked along the road until he came to a town, and once he was there he rented the finest room in the town’s finest inn, and he began to live a fine and happy and jolly life. He rode a fine horse and dressed in fine clothes and gave money to the poor, for he had been poor once, and he hadn’t liked it much. He had a great many friends, who would toast his health in wine every night, as long as he was the one paying the bill. But before too long, he had spent all the gold coins in his knapsack, and then all the silver coins in his boots and his hat, and finally all the copper coins in his pockets, except for two small ones which were not worth enough to buy even a slice of bread. He was forced to leave the finest room in the town’s finest inn, and to sleep in a tiny little attic room in a house that was not even really an inn, but belonged to a blind old woman who often forgot to ask for his rent (which was the only reason he could afford even such a tiny room). His friends all said they couldn’t visit him there, because there were too many stairs.

One night the soldier was shivering in his room and staring out his one dirty window. It was the night of the new moon, and there were clouds covering the stars, so the sky was very dark and the soldier longed for a light. Suddenly he remembered seeing a little stub of candle in the old woman’s tinderbox. He dug the tinderbox out of his knapsack and struck up a spark. He had only hoped to create a little light, but to his great surprise, there at the window was the dog with eyes as wide as saucers!

‘Good day sir,’ said the dog, ‘and how may I serve you?’

‘Serve me?’ said the soldier. ‘Goodness! I hardly know. Can you bring me some money?’

The dog was gone in a flash, and in two flashes, she was back, carrying a bagfull of copper coins. ‘Marvellous!’ cried the soldier. ‘Now I know why the old woman was so keen to hold on to this tinderbox!’

The more he used the tinderbox, the better he liked it. If he struck it once, there would appear the dog with eyes as wide as saucers. If he struck it twice, there would appear the dog with eyes as wide as millstones. And if he struck it three times, there would appear the dog with eyes as wide as the tower of the King’s castle.

You can well imagine that the soldier’s life was jolly and happy once more. Now that he could summon the big-eyed dogs any time he liked, and could order them to bring him bags of coins if he needed them, he was able once again to rent his fine room in the inn, wear fine clothes, and ride a fine horse. His old friends suddenly appeared again, happy to drink his health; but the soldier had learned a lesson, and he no longer paid for other people’s wine. Now that the soldier no longer had so many friends, he found himself lonely many nights. And on one of those nights he took out the tinderbox and struck the steel against the flint, once, twice, three times! and at the window of his room appeared the dog with eyes as wide as the tower of the King’s castle. Looking at the dog’s eyes reminded him of something the old woman had said.

‘Tell me, my fine canine friend,’ he said to the dog, ‘what do you know of the King’s daughter?’

‘She lives in a tower the same size as my eyes,’ said the dog, ‘and she is very bored and very lonely. When she was born, there was a prophecy that she would fall in love with a common soldier. Ever since, the King has kept her locked up in a tower, away from the eyes of commoners. It is treason for any common soldier to look on her.’

‘Goodness!’ said the soldier, who was as common a soldier as ever there was, and yet felt a powerful desire to see the princess, even if it were treason. So he said to the dog, ‘Take me to her!’ and the dog let him ride on her back while she flew all the way to the highest room in the tower where the princess was locked up.

When he appeared at the princess’s window, all he meant to do was look; but the princess was awake, although it was late, and she saw him, and she saw the dog, and she said ‘Goodness!’ and ran to the window to let them both in.

‘Good evening to you, Your Highness,’ said the soldier, bowing politely.

‘Forgive the intrusion, but I thought perhaps you might like some company.’

‘Oh, yes!’ said the princess. ‘I am ever so bored in this tower, and I have no one to talk to. Is that your dog? Is she a husky? Have her eyes always been that big?’

‘Yes,’ said the soldier, ‘that is, yes, and no, and yes, as far as I know. Would you like to stroke her?’

‘Oh, may I?’ said the princess, and the dog lowered her shaggy head and let the princess stroke her fur and scratch behind her ears.

The princess and the soldier stayed up all night talking, and it was not until the Queen knocked on the princess’s door crying, ‘Time to get up, my darling!’ that the soldier leaped on the dog’s back and flew away -- but not before he gave the princess a kiss. ‘Come again tomorrow night!’ she whispered as she got into bed and tried to make it look as if she had been sleeping soundly. ‘Come again, and bring me on a trip!’

But although she whispered, the Queen heard the end of what the princess said. She said nothing to the princess, but that very night, she told one of the ladies in waiting to keep watch over the princess and make sure that she didn’t go out. When the dog and the soldier appeared at the window, the lady-in-waiting hid behind a curtain and watched, and ran down the stairs of the tower as fast as her legs could carry her, and followed the dog all the way to the inn. She marked the inn’s door with a cross so that the king and queen could find it in the morning, and went back to the castle and to her own bed. But the dog noticed the cross on the inn door and decided that it meant no good. So she drew crosses on all the doors of all the houses and inns and shops in town, and the next morning when the lady-in-waiting led the king and queen out into the town, there were so many crosses on so many doors that they couldn’t for the life of them work out which door was the door to the soldier’s inn.

Still, the queen was not discouraged, for the lady-in-waiting had seen with her own eyes that the princess was spending time with a common soldier. The next night, she carefully sewed a small bag full of tiny grains of buckwheat to the waist of the princess’s nightgown, and left a tiny hole in the bag, so that when the princess went out the window onto the dog’s back, she left behind a trail of buckwheat grains. The king and queen followed the trail, and quickly found the soldier, who was arrested for treason and thrown into prison.

‘What a sorry mess I’m in!’ cried the soldier from his cell that night. He was due to be hanged the next day, and he couldn’t even defend himself, because it was true that he had looked upon the princess, and more: he had spoken to her, even kissed her! And that was treason, as everyone knew. And he didn’t even have his tinderbox with him, for when he was being arrested he had left it behind in the inn.

As the sun rose, he looked out the window at the people running through the streets to the square outside the town where the hanging was to take place. One of them was a young apprentice shoemaker, who had the same kind of worn-down shoes the soldier used to wear, before he found the tinderbox and became a wealthy man. ‘So it’s true what they say,’ the soldier mused to himself, ‘about shoemaker’s children going poorly shod. Ho there!’ he cried out loud, startling the apprentice, who looked up straight away. ‘Yes, you. Would you like to earn a silver coin?’

The apprentice made one copper coin a month, which he had to spend on rent and food, and he had never seen a silver coin in his life. ‘Yes!’ he said, not even pausing to think.

‘Good!’ said the soldier. ‘Go to the finest inn in town, and when you’re there, go to the finest room, and there you will see a tinderbox. Take that tinderbox to me. If I am not here, I shall be at the scaffold, waiting to be hanged.’

‘Goodness!’ said the apprentice, for now he knew that he was working for a man condemned for treason. But he ran to the inn all the same, for a silver coin was a silver coin, and he had always wanted to see the princess himself, so he could hardly blame the soldier for doing what he did.

Soon, the soldier was tied to a cart and driven to the square outside t he town, where a scaffold was ready for him. As the hangman slipped the noose around his neck, the soldier saw the apprentice running pell-mell towards the scaffold and shaking the tinderbox in the air. ‘Wait!’ said the soldier. ‘I want to smoke one last cigarette. Will you grant me this request of a dying man?’

‘Cigarettes are bad for you,’ said the hangman.

‘At this moment, that’s the least of my worries,’ said the soldier, and the hangman had to admit he had a point. He let the apprentice hand the soldier the tinderbox, and the soldier struck the flint -- once, twice, three times, and all three dogs appeared out of nowhere and stared at the crowd and the King and Queen, with their eyes as big as saucers, as big as millstones, as big as the tower of the King’s castle.

‘They’re staring!’ said the King.

‘They’re staring at US!’ said the Queen.

‘Oh, hurray!’ said the princess. ‘It’s my old friend with the big eyes!’

‘I don’t want to be hanged!’ said the soldier. ‘Help!’

And the three dogs ripped the noose to shreds, and lifted the soldier from the scaffold, and then ripped the scaffold to shreds for good measure. The hangman ran away screaming, and the King and Queen were quite baffled.

‘What shall we do?’ said the King. ‘What shall we do?’

The crowd had gathered to watch a hanging, but the dogs had made them much happier, and now they wanted the soldier to live. ‘Pardon him, and make him king!’ they cried, and there were so many of them that the King and Queen had no choice but to do as they said.

The soldier married the princess, and they were king and queen together; and the wedding feast lasted seven days and seven nights, and the three dogs sat at the top table and made eyes at all the guests.