The Little Match Girl [AUDIOBOOK] read by Ewan McGregor - GivingTales

Once upon a time, in the bitter cold of the last night of the year, a wee girl walked through the darkening streets. She was all alone. Snow whirled all about, falling on her bare head, chilling her beneath her thin, ragged clothes. The girl had worn her mother's shoes when she had left the house, but now her feet were bare. The shoes were too big and had fallen off as she ran across the road, when two carriages rattled by dreadfully fast. A boy ran off with one shoe, and the other she could not find. So she wandered on her weary way, her tiny feet frozen by the cold cobblestones. She carried matches for sale in her apron, and held a box of them in her hand, but no one had bought any all day long, or given her a single penny. The girl shivered with cold and hunger, as she walked past houses where other children were safe and warm in bed. Fires burned brightly for Hogmanay, and there was a wonderful smell of roast goose. Soon she could go on no longer. She was so tired. She grew colder and colder, but couldn't return home with nothing for her parents. They had no fire, and no food. The wind whistled through their leaky roof, and their blankets were damp and threadbare. The wee maid came to a narrow alleyway between two houses, where there was a shelter from the biting wind. She sat down, huddled into a shivering ball. Her hands were numb with cold. She rubbed them to try and get some feeling back, then wondered if the light of a match might warm them. She took one from her bundle, and struck it. It burst into a tiny bright flame, like a little candle. She warmed her hands over it. All at once it seemed as though she was sitting before a big fireplace filled with crackling logs. The smell of juniper and pine smoke curled through the air. For a moment she felt warmth and comfort. And then the match died, and the fireplace faded away. She struck another. It flared up, and when its light fell upon the wall, it became transparent like a window. She could see inside the house. On the table a snow-white cloth was spread, with silver dishes and crystal glasses. A roast goose sat in the middle, stuffed with apples and dried plums. To her astonishment, the goose jumped down from the dish and waddled over towards her. But just as it reached her, the match went out, and the wonderful room vanished. The girl lit a third match. Suddenly she was sitting under a glittering Christmas tree, the most beautiful she had ever seen. Thousands of candles burned on its branches, and gold and silver baubles shone there like jewels. She reached out her hands towards them, but the match flame flickered out, and the tree lights rose up into the air, becoming stars. One shot across the sky in a long trail of fire. Someone is dying, thought the wee girl. Her old grandmother had once told her that when a star fell down to earth, a soul rose to heaven. She struck a fourth match, and in its glow, her grandmother appeared, clear and shining. She had died years ago, but in the magic light she stood there, as kind and lovely as the girl remembered. Oh, grandmother, please take me with you, she cried. I know you will disappear when this match burns out, just like the fireplace and the roast goose and the Christmas tree. Quickly she struck the whole bundle of matches to try and keep her grandmother with her. The light was so brilliant it seemed brighter than the sun. Her grandmother reached out to her. She took the wee maid by the hand. They flew together up into the sky, into the stars, where she was no longer cold and no longer hungry. The next day, at the cold hour of dawn, passersby found the poor girl in the alleyway. At first they thought she was asleep, for there was a rosy glow in her cheeks and she seemed to be smiling, but they could not wake her. She was stiff and cold, frozen to death in the winter's night. She still held her matches, of which one bundle was all burned up. The New Year's morning sun shone on her wee face. She only wanted to warm herself, the people said. If only we had shown her some kindness and welcomed her into our homes, or bought her matches. No one would ever know the beautiful things she had seen, or that her grandmother had come to lead her away from the dark and the cold, or that the wee match girl was the first that New Year to cross the threshold to a warmer and happier place, a land of stars and everlasting joy.