It is regularly included in selected tales and collections of his work and is frequently reprinted in illustrated storybook editions for children.

Some become windowpanes, some spectacles, and some get stuck in people's hearts and eyes, giving them a cold and bitter disposition.

Years later, a little boy Kai (often spelled "Kay" or "Kaj" in translations) and a little girl Gerda live next door to each other in the garrets of buildings with adjoining roofs in a large city.

Gerda and Kai have a window box garden to play in, and they become devoted to each other as playmates, and as close as if they were siblings.

By the following spring, Gerda has learned a song that she sings to Kai: Roses flower in the vale; there we hear Child Jesus' tale!

Kai goes out with his sled to play in the snowy market square and hitches it to a sleigh driven by a mysterious robed figure.

On the third day, a small fellow with shabby clothes walked confidently into the palace and won over the princess by listening to her.

They ride together to the robbers' castle, where the girl's pet doves tell Gerda that they saw Kai when he was carried away by the Snow Queen in the direction of Lapland.

The robber girl frees Gerda and the reindeer to travel north to the Snow Queen's palace.

She prays the Lord's Prayer, which causes her breath to take the shape of angels, who resist the snowflakes and allow Gerda to enter the palace.

Gerda finds Kai alone and almost immobile on a frozen lake, which the Snow Queen calls the "Mirror of Reason", on which her throne sits.

Kai is engaged in the task that the Snow Queen gave him: he must use pieces of ice like a Chinese puzzle to form characters and words.

If he is able to form the word that the Snow Queen told him to spell, she will release him from her power and give him a pair of skates.

At the end, the grandmother reads a passage from the Bible: "Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 18:3).Andersen met Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind in 1840 and became infatuated with her, but she was not interested in him romantically (although the two became friends).

According to Carole Rosen, Andersen was inspired to model the icy-hearted Snow Queen on Lind after she rejected him as a suitor.