One day, there was a little girl and she lived with her parents in the city. They were getting tired of the busy city life, so they decided that they would go far away from the city, and far away from all the busy people. They decided to go to a lake. This lake was far away and it was surrounded by forest. Next to the lake was a red house made of wood.
The little girl and her parents arrived at the red house after a long journey.
They went inside and they placed their bags in the kitchen and looked around.
They looked in the fridge and it was full of food.
They went into the living room and there was already a warm fire burning in the fireplace.
Dad said, ‘Why don’t we go down to the lake?’
So they walked down to the lake.
It was already autumn, so many of the trees had golden yellow leaves. But it was starting to get cold. Today was a grey and cloudy day. It started to rain, and on the lake you could see rain droplets everywhere – pitter-patter, pitter patter.
Dad said, ‘Why don’t we go into the forest – it might be drier there and maybe we will see a deer’.
The little girl was very happy. They walked into the forest. It was quiet in the forest and there were no rain drops under the tree leaves. It was also a very thick forest, full of moss and branches everywhere. It was difficult to walk, and they had to climb over many branches.
The little girl asked why we hadn’t seen any deer yet.
Dad said that deers have good noses and good ears. ‘They have probably already smelt us and they have definitely heard us!’.
Then they found a small thin path. It was smaller than usual paths, but they decided to follow it anyway.
On the side of a path they saw a large red mushroom with white spots on top.
They walked a bit further and then they saw another one.
‘That’s funny,’ said the girl, and she asked why there were mushrooms here.
Dad said that there are dwarfs living underground who are digging for gold. These mushrooms are used to send messages to each other. Just like our red post boxes that we use to send letters.
They walked along the path a bit more and then saw a third red mushroom with white spots.
Then they spotted a golden light coming from a stone. It looked like there was a small door open and the light was coming from a small room inside the stone. The girl and Dad looked at eachother, and just then the door closed. The girl said she thought she saw somebody running inside.
They walked closer. They couldn’t see a door anymore, only stone.
‘Maybe we scared them. Why don’t we leave them some bread to show that we are friends,’ said Dad and he got a slice of bread out of his bag, gave it to the girl, and she placed it next to the big stone.
They carried on walking, and when they looked back, the bread was gone.
‘That’s funny’, said the girl.
‘This place is magical. What else can we find,’ asked Dad.
They carried on walking but soon they were out of the forest and they could see a road back to the red house and the lake.
Next to the road was a small stream and the little girl said that she wanted to take some pebbles back with her. They went to the stream, and picked up some pebbles from the clear cold water. Dad picked up a round pebble and held it to the sky and the light shone on the wet pebble. He said ‘This is a nice one’. Then the girl held up a pebble to the sky too. As she was putting it back, she noticed a small golden ball in the stream which lay under where her pebble was.
She picked up the golden ball and asked if she could keep it.
Dad said, ‘If you found it, yes, you can keep it.’
She put the golden ball into her little pocket.
They went back to the red house and went upstairs to the bedroom. In the bedroom was a large wardrobe and inside the wardrobe was a little bed.
‘That’s funny,’ said the girl.
Dad said that in this area, it’s sometimes so cold that people put their beds into these large wardrobes with curtains, to keep them warm at night.
Under the pillow in the wardrobe, they placed the golden ball.
Dad said, ‘This will give you nice dreams.’
They went back downstairs and had a dinner of fried herring fish, creamy mashed potatoes and red berries.
When they were full, they went to the living room and sat on the sofa watching the fire.
They soon got tired and went upstairs to bed.
The little girl slipped into her bed and was so comfortable. She soon fell asleep. She dreamt of deers running through the forest.
The next morning it was a beautiful clear day. They went to the lake and it was flat. It was still – no noise and no wind. The lake was like a mirror.
Afterwards, they went back to the red house to have breakfast of dark bread with cream and jam and hot coffee.
After breakfast, the little girl went upstairs to get the golden ball from under the pillow. When she looked under the pillow, it was gone. They looked everywhere in the house, but couldn’t find it and the girl was so upset and started crying.
The girl and her parents stayed in the house for a few more days. They had a lot of fun, but they couldn’t find the golden ball again.
Then it was time for the little girl and her parents to go back to their house in the city.
When they were back, the girl went to school every day, and soon forgot about the golden ball.
Then one rainy day, the little girl and Dad were making candles made of beeswax. They melted the beeswax and poured it into a glass jar. When the candle was dry, they took the candle out of the glass jar. The little girl lifted the candle up to the sky, and there, stuck to the bottom of the candle, was the golden ball from the stream next to the forest.
The girl was so happy to find the golden ball again.
They took the candle with the golden ball, and placed it next to her bed.
When it was time for bed, they lit the candle together. Then Dad turned the lights off so that they could see the golden candle flame.
The girl looked at the candle, and she knew that she was going to have beautiful dreams that night.