Little Claus and Big Claus

When crossing a bridge, Little Claus pretends that he plans to throw the chest into the river, but the sexton convinces him not to and offers him money.

Greedy, Big Claus kills and skins his own horses and tries to sell them, but as he demands two bushels filled with money for it, the tanners do not buy them and beat him instead.

When he halts at an inn, he tells the innkeeper, who has a bad temper, that his grandmother was relaxing and that he should bring her a glass of wine, but he should shout as she was deaf.

Little Claus rushes outside and claims that the innkeeper killed his grandmother, showing him the hole in her head that was actually caused by the axe from the night before.

Believing him again, Big Claus kills his own grandmother and asks the local chemist if he wants to buy a corpse.

The chemist tells him what a terrible crime this is, resulting in Big Claus fleeing from the scene.

Angry at his neighbour, Big Claus puts him in a sack and carries him away to drown him in a river.

Hearing Little Claus whining that he is not meant to die while being so young, the old man comments that he is so old and still cannot go to heaven.

When going homewards, he meets Little Claus with the cattle, who claims that he got it from a mermaid at the bottom of the river and that he was promised another herd at the other end.

The first review, which was published anonymously in Denmark in the newspaper Dannor in 1836, is not very positive:No one can reasonably claim that the respect of life among children is encouraged by the reading of episodes such as Big Claus killing his grandmother and Little Claus killing him.

[1]Furthermore, in Dansk Litteraturtidende, another anonymous reviewer reproached Andersen for not having a sufficiently literary style, making a comparison to the writings of the Danish poet Christian Frederik Molbech, who, unlike Andersen, exposes a lesson in his stories.