Once upon a time there was a boy called Heinrich, who lived in a cottage with his mother in a small village at the bottom of a deep valley surrounded by mountains.
Heinrich loved the freshness of spring, the warmth of summer and the colours of autumn, but his favourite season came at the end of the year. He adored winter. When the weather turned cold, he would stay up late, his face pressed against the steamed-up glass of his bedroom window and his eyes on the sky, watching for signs of the powdery flecks that would blanket the ground with white. If there was a snowfall, he would be beside himself with excitement.
When morning came, he would race from bed, after having barely slept, wanting more than anything to be outside. On every occasion he was met by a force more powerful and unforgiving than nature: his mother.
‘Are you wrapped up?’ she would ask, crouched down and blocking the front door like a football goalkeeper.
‘Mama,’ he would say, ‘I am warm enough.’
‘You could catch a cold,’ she would say. She might also add, with a shiver, ‘You could freeze to death.’ She had been this way since Heinrich’s father had left the valley to find work.
Heinrich would be forced to submit as he was wrapped in soft layers like a parcel being sent to a far-off land. Only once his scarf, gloves and woollen hat were in place would his mother allow him out.
All the best snow would have been taken by then, the pathways stitched with boot prints, a host of snow angels touching fingertips in the park and exploded snowballs everywhere. The rest of the village children would already be returning home to their breakfasts, laughing and singing, while Heinrich had to make do with slush to build his snowman. It was a tradition.
Every year he built a snowman, just like the one he had made that last winter his father had been home. They had formed it together and when the snowman was finished, his father, a man with kind eyes and a bushy moustache, had knelt down and said to Heinrich, ‘Now we have to destroy it.’
‘Why, papa?’ his younger self had asked.
‘If you don’t destroy what you create, it might return to haunt you.’ There had been sadness in his voice.
Heinrich had been so young then that his own voice was barely a peep. ‘But I don’t want to kill the snowman.’
Their creation had sticks for hands and a smile made of pebbles. It didn’t resist as they kicked it to the ground.
‘Tomorrow,’ his father had said, ‘we can build another snowman.’
But his father never came back and it was left for Heinrich to carry on the tradition. True to his father’s philosophy, he made sure not to leave any traces of his own snowmen behind.
On one frosty evening, it began to snow while Heinrich was sitting at his bedroom window. This time, when he looked at the flecks dropping from the sky, he felt disappointment. He would never get outside in time to build a decent snowman, not if his mother had anything to do with it. That’s when Heinrich formed a plan.
He would travel out of the village, to the other side of the valley, to find a deep fall of untouched snow.
All night he stayed up, imagining the majestic snowman that he would build. In the morning, he didn’t complain while his mother swaddled him in warm clothes.
‘Don’t go too far,’ she said, wagging her finger.
‘Don’t worry, mama, I won’t,’ Heinrich promised.
Before placing the hat on his head, Heinrich’s mother ruffled his hair. ‘You are a good boy.’
Heinrich ran out into the dazzling wonderland of snow. And he kept running.
Leaving the village behind him for the first time in his young life, he took a path through the valley and straight up the tallest of the surrounding mountains. He was waist-deep in snow on a steep slope far away from the world he knew, when he stopped. All around, as far as he could see, were crags and forests dusted with white. It felt as if his was the only soul in the universe.
Heinrich began to build. He rolled snow down the bank until he had body the size of a barrel and a smaller ball as big as a barkeeper’s belly. Standing on tip-toes, he attached the head. For arms he used twigs; for eyes, stones that he had found on the way there. After attaching the carrot that he had stolen from his mother’s larder, Heinrich stepped back to admire his handiwork.
The snowman was perfect. Heinrich added a half-circle of pebbles to the snowman’s face and now it was even smiling at him. He smiled back.
If only papa could see this, he thought.
Remember his father, Heinrich was about to destroy the snowman, but then two things happened at once. First, a powdery flake floated down and landed on his shoulder.
Second, as if she could sense the start of a snowstorm, Heinrich’s mother called out, her voice echoing up the valley, ‘Heinrich!’
This was enough to send Heinrich pushing back through the heavy snow drift, while white flakes multiplied in the air around him. The snowman was somewhere behind him, but he couldn’t destroy it now, even if he wanted to. He was lost in a blizzard.
‘Heinrich!’ his mother’s voice carried to him on a gust of wind. ‘Heinrich!’
‘Coming, mama!’ he called back.
Heinrich’s mother kept calling out to him and it was this that he used to find his way back. The moment he set foot inside the village, the blizzard stopped. By the time he reached his mother, who was waiting beside the village shop, the skies were clear and bright.
His mother was holding a newspaper rolled up in her hand like a baton. ‘Where were you? I was so worried.’
‘I was lost, mama.’
‘You left the village, didn’t you?’
‘How did you know?’
His mother shook her head, and for a second Heinrich thought that she was going to rap him on the head with her newspaper, but then she spoke softly. ‘Please, never leave the village again. Bad things happen out there.’
‘Like what, mama?’
‘You’re still a boy, Heinrich. You will find out one day.’
‘When I am a man?’
‘Yes, when you are a man. Until then, I want you to promise me that you will never leave the village again.’
‘I promise, mama.’
Unbeknownst to Heinrich and his mother, the wind changed direction on the slope where Heinrich had left his snowman. The recent snowfall had made the snowman not only bigger, but also unbalanced. All it took was one sudden gust and the snowman toppled over.
It fell sideways and began to roll.
As the snowman rolled through the darkness, it gathered snow, growing its head and body. By the time the snowman crashed into the forest below, it was a giant. Nothing could stop it. On the other side of the forest it appeared, now with whole trees for arms. For eyes it had two dark boulders and for a mouth it had a row of river stones. It was no longer smiling.
Only its nose was the same. The little carrot poked out of its giant face as it continued to roll down the valley and towards the village.
Heinrich was sitting at his bedroom window, wondering how to spend the rest of the morning, when the entire village darkened, as if the sun had grown lazy and gone back to bed.
Thinking it was another snowstorm, Heinrich searched for clouds. The sky, however, was clear.
A group of villagers ran past his window, screaming. While they screamed, they pointed upwards, at something Heinrich couldn’t see.
Like all boys of his age, he was curious. This was something he couldn’t miss.
Rushing out of his bedroom, Heinrich expected to be stopped by his mother, but she didn’t look up from where she sat beside the fireplace reading her newspaper. He shrugged and opened the door to go outside.
‘What’s going on?’ Heinrich asked his neighbour, the half-deaf Mr Wilhelm.
‘What?’ Mr Wilhelm asked, cupping his hand to his ear.
‘What’s happening?’ Heinrich shouted. ‘Why is everyone panicking?’
Mr Wilhelm pointed his walking stick and shouted, ‘We are all going to die!’
Heinrich nearly started screaming himself at the sight of the monster that loomed above the village. Then, he recognised the carrot.
Blocking the valley was a giant snowman, with entire trees for arms, and on its face was a single tiny carrot, so small that you wouldn’t notice unless you were looking for it.
‘That’s my snowman,’ Heinrich whispered to himself. ‘I wonder what he wants?’
It didn’t take long to find out.
The snowman laughed, the terrible noise booming through the valley, and roared, ‘FEED ME ONE OF YOUR JUICY HUMAN CHILDREN!’
‘What?’ Mr Wilhelm had his hand cupped to his ear. ‘What did it say?’
Heinrich turned to his neighbour and shouted, ‘He says there’s nothing to worry about, Mr Wilhelm. He just came to say hello.’
‘Oh, good. I think I’ll make a cup of tea.’ Supported by his walking stick, Heinrich’s neighbour hobbled back to his cottage.
Pandemonium had erupted in the village, with almost everyone screaming at the tops of their voices and running off in different directions. There was no way out of the village except up through the valley. And the valley was blocked by the giant, hungry snowman.
Heinrich felt terribly guilty, because it was his fault that his village was in trouble. He should have destroyed the snowman. Perhaps, he thought, it isn’t too late.
Returning to his cottage, Heinrich resolved to find a way out of this mess.
His mother was still by the fire, engrossed in her newspaper.
‘Mama?’ Heinrich said. ‘How old do I have to be to become a man?’
She ignored him.
‘Mama?’ Heinrich said, louder. Perhaps she was losing her hearing like Mr Wilhelm.
Heinrich’s mother closed her newspaper and seemed to notice him for the first time. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were wet from tears.
‘What’s wrong, mama?’ Heinrich asked.
She shook her head.
‘Is it the snowman?’ Heinrich was terrified that his mother was angry with him for building that monstrous snowman. ‘I have a plan, mama. I’ll need warm clothes though, the warmest you have.’
Heinrich’s mother said nothing as she put the newspaper down the table and hurried off to her bedroom.
While Heinrich waited, he glanced at the newspaper. His mind may have been on the snowman, but still he couldn’t help recognising a familiar face on the front page. The picture was of a kind-eyed man with a bushy moustache and written above it were the words ‘Executed for Treason’.
Heinrich didn’t have time to pick up the paper and find out more, before his mother came back. At least now, she was speaking to him.
‘I brought blankets too,’ she said. ‘It’s cold out there beyond the village. A very cold place to live.’
‘I’m not going for good,’ Heinrich said, to reassure her. ‘I have to take care of something, something that I created.’
‘Take the blankets,’ Heinrich’s mother snapped. Despite the tears, she sounded angry. ‘I should have seen this day coming.’
‘I’ll come home, mama. I promise.’
‘Just leave.’ She kissed him on the cheek and pushed him in the direction of the door.
And so Heinrich left his cottage swaddled in warm clothing and with his outstretched arms weighed down by his mother’s blankets.
‘I AM HUNGRY!’ the snowman boomed.
Heinrich stomped through the village until he came to the square, where a frightened crowd had gathered, their boots wiping away all traces of the snow angels below.
‘I’ll go,’ Heinrich boldly proclaimed.
There were surprisingly few complaints.
Even the captain of the guard, whose duty it was to protect the villagers, could only mumble, ‘Good luck, son.’
Striding out of the village for the second time in his life, Heinrich was struck by just how large his snowman had become. It looked even bigger close up, a towering monstrosity capable of crushing the village if it so chose.
‘ARE YOU MY MEAL?’ the snowman boomed down at him.
‘I am,’ Heinrich said.
The snowman sniffed. ‘NOT MUCH MEAT ON YOU.’
‘I can go home if you like.’
‘NO, STAY.’ The snowman was silent for a while, during which only the rush of the wind could be heard. Then, he said, ‘I AM SO HUNGRY THAT I WILL EAT ANYTHING.’
This was Heinrich’s chance to bring his plan into action. His heart beating furiously from fear, he said, ‘It’s the cold. When you shiver, you become hungry.’
‘YES, NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT,’ the snowman said, ‘I AM FREEZING.’
Heinrich held out his pile of blankets. ‘Before you dine on me, perhaps you would like to warm up?’
‘WHY, THAT IS VERY THOUGHTFUL OF YOU.’ One of the snowman’s tree arms swooped down.
For a terrifying moment, Heinrich believed that he would be plucked from the ground and devoured, but then the branches of the tree opened up like fingers to gently lift the blankets from his arms.
‘Put one over your head,’ Heinrich suggested, ‘and one over your back.’
The snowman did as it was told until it was draped with the heavy woollen blankets.
‘Would you like me to light a fire?’ Heinrich asked.
‘YOU ARE TOO KIND,’ the snowman said.
Heinrich cleared a patch of snow with his boot. He took off his hat and gloves and placed them on the ground. ‘Snowman,’ he said, ‘I need you to give me a hand.’
‘TAKE THIS.’ The snowman reached down and let Heinrich snap branches from its tree fingers.
Carefully, Heinrich laid out the firewood over his hat and gloves. From his pocket he drew a tinderbox that his father had left behind and he sparked up an ember. The ember he placed inside his hat and he breathed on it until a small flame appeared. That flame turned into a fire engulfing all the branches.
‘I’ll need more fuel,’ Heinrich said.
Accompanied by the creaking of timbers, the snowman reached down.
Heinrich tore off branches and added them to his blaze until flames licked up at great white sphere of the snowman’s body.
‘AH,’ the snowman said, ‘THAT’S BETTER.’
When the first droplet fell from above, Heinrich knew that his plan was working.
‘YOU ARE A VERY CONSIDERATE BOY,’ the melting snowman said. ‘PERHAPS I WON’T EAT YOU.’
‘Thank you,’ Heinrich said.
‘YES, AND PERHAPS WE COULD BE FRIENDS.’
‘I would like that.’ Even as Heinrich said this, he knew that it was never going to happen. Before his eyes the snowman shrank from an imposing giant to a shrivelled monk cloaked in blankets, its watery remains washing over the fire and splashing against Heinrich’s boots.
The snowman’s last words, before it collapsed altogether, were, ‘YOU REMIND ME OF SOMEONE.’
And so the village was safe. But for how long? Heinrich didn’t know enough about the outside world to answer that question.
He stepped into the slush and retrieved his carrot. He would need it for the journey ahead. His clothing was warm enough. His heart was strong. Mouthing a silent apology to his mother, he walked on, towards the other end of the valley.
The End
