Many fairytale readers have wept bitterly over the Hans Christian Andersen fairy-tale about “The little matchgirl” - and indeed it is a cruel story about the poor girl who barefoot and in thin clothes in the last night of the year close to desperation is trying to sell small bunches of matches struggling against the cold and the drifting snow in the narrow streets of the old Copenhagen. Believe it or not: this story was written in Graasten very close to Den gamle Kro - The old Inn. It was written under an old tree in the beautiful garden at the Royal Castle of Graasten and less than a hundred meters away from Den gamle Kro the statue of the miserable little girl today can be seen. Hans Christian Andersen simply had to have one of his most creative and easy working days when he wrote the fairy-tale, because it happened in november1845 when he spent three weeks as a guest of honour at the Duke and Duchess of Augustenborg at Graasten Castle - and as we know he was an extreme hypochondriac fearing to go out when the temperature was falling.
Hans Christian Andersen was an honoured guest at the manor-houses of Denmark. He visited Dukes and noblemen - higher or lower - and they loved him because he in an exceptional and overwhelming way could tell his new or old stories and entertain the family and its guests at the table and later on in the evening in the lounges. As a matter of fact: the most of his grown up life he never paid a penny or dime for his living -he was a lifelong guest of honour.
Maybe it was because of the short (and cold) rest under the three in the garden he imagined the story of the little matchgirl who died in the dreadful cold while she was lightening up match after match dreaming herself away to a better and warmer world? Oh no - not at all! Frankly to say: Andersen had got some drawings from the well known painter, J. Th. Lundbye, followed by an invitation here maybe to find some inspiration to some new fairy-tales, and almost by orders he followed the invitation.
“But in the very cold morning hours at the corner of the house a little girl with a smile on her face was sitting - dead! She lost her life in the bitter cold night in the last hours of the old year. New years-morning sent its light over the little corps sitting there with the matches of which a bunch was almost burned off. She has tried to keep herself warm, someone said. But nobody could know into which wonderful world she for a moment had seen and in which glory she together with her grandma went into the light of happiness”.
It is a sad but beautiful fairy-tale and it was written in the garden at the Royal Palace of Graasten.