It was night on New Year’s Eve, and a poor, little match girl was out on the streets selling matches. Although she was cold and hungry, with neither hat nor shoes, she was afraid to go home as her father would surely beat her when he found out she did not sell any matches that day.

In a nook between two buildings, she wanted to warm herself by lighting matches. In the light of the first match she saw a hot iron stove, but the fire was soon blown out by the howling wind. She lit a second match and saw a fully laden dinner table with delicious foods and a roasted goose that came slowly toward her. It too disappeared as the match went out. By the light of the third match she saw a beautiful Christmas tree lit with a million candles. The candle lights went higher and higher until they became stars. One became a shooting star and she remembered her grandmother telling her that a shooting star means a person has passed away and gone to heaven.

Upon lighting the fourth match she saw her smiling grandmother, the only person who ever loved her. This filled her with so much joy she quickly lit the next match and the next so that her grandmother never fades. Finally, the grandmother took the happy girl in her arms and they flew higher and higher to a place where there's no cold, no hunger, no fear.

The next morning, the little girl was found dead in the snow with a smile upon her lips. “She wanted to warm herself!” people exclaimed as they noticed the burned out matches littered around her body. However, no one knew what beauty she had seen or with what glory she had gone with her grandmother into a joyous new year.


Hans Christian Andersen