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 a young girl'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.
In 1892, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov turned Alexandre Dumas' adaptation of the story into the ballet The Nutcracker.
The grandfather clock begins to chime, and Marie believes that she sees Drosselmeyer sitting on top of it, preventing it from striking.
The dolls in the toy cabinet come alive, the nutcracker taking command and leading them into battle after putting Marie's ribbon on.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Marie, while she recuperates from her wound, hears the Mouse King, son of the deceased Madam Mouserinks, whispering in the middle of the night, threatening to bite the nutcracker to pieces unless she gives him her sweets and dolls.
The next night, the nutcracker visits Marie's room bearing the Mouse King's seven crowns, and takes her to the doll kingdom.
[1] In 1930, a new edition of "The Nutcracker and the Mouse-King" was published by Albert Whitman and Company in Chicago in a translation by Louise F. Encking with illustrations by Emma L. Brock.
