Щелкунчик и мышиный король | Nuknacker und Mauseknig | The Nutcracker and the Mouse King

“The Nutcracker and the Mouse King“ (German: Nussknacker und Mausekönig) is a novella-fairy tale written in 1816 by Prussian author E. T. A. Hoffmann, in which young Marie Stahlbaum’s favorite Christmas toy, the Nutcracker, comes alive and, after defeating the evil Mouse King in battle, whisks her away to a magical kingdom populated by dolls. The story was originally published in Berlin in German as part of the collection Kinder-Märchen, Children’s Stories, by In der Realschulbuchhandlung. In 1892, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov turned Alexandre Dumas’ adaptation of the story into the ballet The Nutcracker. Summary On Christmas Eve, at the Stahlbaum house, Marie and her siblings receive several gifts. Their godfather Drosselmeyer, a clockmaker and inventor, gifts them a clockwork castle with mechanical people moving around inside. However, the children quickly tire of it. Marie notices a nutcracker, and asks who he belongs to. Her father says that he belongs to all of them, but since Marie is so fond of him, she will be his special caretaker. The siblings pass him amongst themselves, cracking nuts, until Marie’s brother Fritz tries to crack one that is too big and hard, and the nutcracker’s jaw breaks. Marie, upset, bandages him with a ribbon from her dress. When it is time for bed, the children put their Christmas gifts away in the cabinet where they keep their toys. Marie begs to stay with the nutcracker a while longer and is allowed to do so. She tells him that Drosselmeyer will fix his jaw. At this, his face seems to come alive, and she is frightened, but decides it was her imagination. The grandfather clock begins to chime, and Marie believes that she sees Drosselmeyer sitting on top of it, preventing it from striking. Mice begin to come out from beneath the floorboards, including the seven-headed Mouse King. The dolls in the toy cabinet come alive, the nutcracker taking command and leading them into battle after putting Marie’s ribbon on. The dolls are overwhelmed by the mice. Marie, seeing the nutcracker about to be taken prisoner, throws her slipper at the Mouse King. She then faints into the toy cabinet’s glass door, cutting her arm badly. Marie wakes up in her bed the next morning with her arm bandaged and tries to tell her parents what happened the previous night, but they do not believe her. Days later, Drosselmeyer arrives with the nutcracker, whose jaw has been fixed, and tells Marie the story of Princess Pirlipat and Madam Mouserinks, known as the Queen of the Mice, which explains how nutcrackers came to be and why they look the way they do. Madam Mouserinks tricked Pirlipat’s mother into allowing her and her children to gobble up the lard that was supposed to go into the sausage that the King was to eat at dinner. The King, enraged at Madam Mouserinks for spoiling his supper and upsetting his wife, had his court inventor, Drosselmeyer, create traps for the Mouse Queen and her children. Madam Mouserinks, angered at the death of her children, swore that she would take revenge on Pirlipat. Pirlipat’s mother surrounded her with cats which were supposed to be kept awake by being constantly stroked. The nurses who did so fell asleep, however, and Madam Mouserinks magically turned Pirlipat ugly, giving her a huge head, a wide grinning mouth, and a cottony beard like a nutcracker. The King blamed Drosselmeyer and gave him four weeks to find a cure. He went to his friend, the court astrologer. They read Pirlipat’s horoscope and told the King the only way to cure her was to have her eat the nut Crackatook (Krakatuk), which must be cracked and handed to her by a man who had never been shaved nor worn boots since birth. He must, without opening his eyes, hand her the kernel and take seven steps backwards without stumbling. The King sent Drosselmeyer and the astrologer out to look for both. The two men journeyed for years without finding either the nut or the man. They then returned home to Nuremberg and found the nut with Drosselmeyer’s cousin, a puppet-maker. His son turned out to be the young man needed to crack the Crackatook. The King promised Pirlipat’s hand to whoever could crack the nut. Many men broke their teeth on it before Drosselmeyer’s nephew cracked it easily and handed it to Pirlipat, who swallowed it and became beautiful again. But Drosselmeyer’s nephew, on his seventh backward step, stepped on Madam Mouserinks and stumbled. The curse fell on him, making him a nutcracker. Pirlipat, seeing how ugly he had become, refused to marry him and banished him from the castle.