Once upon a time there was an evil troll who is actually the Devil. He creates a special mirror in which all the good and beautiful aspects of people and things are shrunk down to nothing in the mirror's reflection, while all the bad and ugly aspects are magnified so that they look even worse than they really are. He teaches a “devil school” where he and his students take the mirror throughout the world to wreak havoc on everyone and everything. They try and take the mirror to Heaven to make fools of the Angels and God, but the higher they try and lift the mirror, the more it shakes. It eventually slips from their grasp and falls back to earth where it shatters into “millions of billions of pieces”. These pieces are blown around and end up in people’s eyes and hearts, making them only see the bad and ugly in things and people and making their hearts frozen like a block of ice.
Many years later, there is a little girl, Gerda, and a little boy named Kai, who live next door to each other. Their homes have adjoining roofs and they can easily get to each other’s house by simply stepping over the gutters of each building. The houses each have a window box placed on the gutter containing herbs and roses. The children become best friends and sit out there and play. Kai’s grandmother loves to tell the children stories and explains to them of a woman known as the Snow Queen, who is the ruler over the snowflakes. One winter day, Kai sees the Snow Queen out of his frosted window. She motions for him to come with her, but he quickly jumps off the chair he was on because he is frightened.
Then during one summer day, while Kai and Gerda were looking at a picture book, one of the shards from the mirror stabs Kai’s heart and eyes. Kai becomes completely different and rude to everybody, including Gerda because of the effects of the Devil’s special mirror. The only thing