The emperor’s favourite horse was shod with gold. It had a golden shoe
on each of its feet.

And why was this?

He was a beautiful creature, with delicate legs, bright intelligent eyes, and a mane that hung down over his neck like a veil. He had carried his master through the fire and smoke of battle, and heard the bullets whistling around him, had kicked, bitten, and taken part in the fight when the enemy advanced, and had sprung with his master on his back over the fallen foe, and had saved the crown of red gold, and the life of the emperor, which was more valuable than the red gold; and that is why the emperor’s horse had golden shoes.

And a beetle came crawling forward.

“First the great ones,” said he, “and then the little ones; but
greatness is not the only thing that does it.” And so saying, he
stretched out his thin legs.

“And what do you want?” asked the smith.

“Golden shoes, to be sure,” replied the beetle.

“Why, you must be out of your senses,” cried the smith. “Do you want
to have golden shoes too?”

“Golden shoes? certainly,” replied the beetle. “Am I not as good
as that big creature over there, that is waited on, and brushed, and has
meat and drink put before him? Don’t I belong to the royal stable?”

“But why does the horse have golden shoes? Don’t you understand?” asked the smith.

“Understand? I understand that it is a personal insult to me,” cried the beetle. “It is done to annoy me, and so I am going into the world to seek my fortune.”

“Go along!” said the smith.

“You’re a rude fellow!” cried the beetle; and then he went out of the
stable, flew a little way, and soon afterwards found himself in a
beautiful flower garden, all fragrant with roses and lavender.

“Is it not beautiful here?” asked one of the little lady-birds that
flew about, with their delicate wings and their red-and-black shields
on their backs. “How sweet it is here–how beautiful it is!”

“I’m comfortable with better things,” said the beetle. “Do you call
this beautiful? Why, there isn’t even a dung-heap.”

Then he went on, under the shadow of a great stack, and found a
caterpillar crawling along.

“How beautiful the world is!” said the caterpillar: “the sun is so
warm, and everything so enjoyable! And when I go to sleep, and die, as
they call it, I will wake up as a butterfly, with beautiful wings to
fly with.”

“How conceited you are!” exclaimed the stag-beetle. “Fly about as a
butterfly, indeed! I’ve come out of the stable of the emperor, and no
one there, not even the emperor’s favourite horse–that by the way
wears my cast-off golden shoes–has any such idea. To have wings to
fly! why, we can fly now;” and he spread his wings and flew away. “I
don’t want to be annoyed, and yet I am annoyed,” he said, as he flew
off.

Soon after he fell down upon a great lawn. For a short time he lay
there and pretended to be asleep; at last he fell asleep for real.

Suddenly a heavy shower of rain came falling from the clouds. The
beetle woke up at the noise, and wanted to escape into the earth, but
could not. He was tumbled over and over; sometimes he was swimming on
his stomach, sometimes on his back, and as for flying, that was out of
the question; he doubted whether he should escape from the place with
his life. He therefore remained lying where he was.

When the weather had decreased a little, and the beetle had rubbed the
water out of his eyes, he saw something shining. It was linen that
had been placed there to bleach. He managed to make his way up to it,
and crept into a fold of the damp linen. Certainly the place was not
as comfortable to lie in as the warm stable; but there was no better
to be had, and therefore he remained lying there for a whole day and a
whole night, and the rain kept on during all the time. Towards morning
he crept forth: he was very much cross about the climate.

Two frogs were sitting on the linen. Their bright eyes shined with pleasure.

“Wonderful weather this!” one of them cried. “How refreshing! And the
linen keeps the water together so beautifully. My hind legs seem to
shake as if I were going to swim.”

“I should like to know,” said the second, “if the swallow, who flies
so far round, in her trips journeys in foreign lands ever sees a
better climate than this. What delicious dampness! It is really as if
one were lying in a wet ditch. Whoever does not rejoice in this,
certainly does not love his fatherland.”

“Have you been in the emperor’s stable?” asked the beetle: “there the
dampness is warm and refreshing. That’s the climate for me; but I
cannot take it with me on my journey. Is there never a dung-heap, here
in the garden, where an important person, like myself, can feel himself
at home, and take up his quarters?”

But the frogs either did not or would not understand him.

“I never ask a question twice!” said the beetle, after he had already
asked this one three times without receiving any answer.

Then he went a little farther, and stumbled against a fragment of
pottery, that certainly ought not to have been lying there; but as it
was there, it gave a good shelter against wind and weather. Here
dwelt several families of earwigs; and these did not require much,
only socialization. The female members of the community were all full of pure maternal affection, and each one considered her own
child the most beautiful and cleverest of all.

“Our son has engaged himself,” said one mother. “Dear, innocent boy!
His greatest hope is that he may creep one day into a priest’s ear.
It’s very plain that; and being engaged will keep him
steady. What joy for a mother!”

“Our son,” said another mother, “had scarcely crept out of the egg,
when he was already off on his travels. He’s all life and spirits;
he’ll run his horns off! What joy that is for a mother! Is it not so,
Mr. Beetle?” for she recognized the stranger by his horny coat.

“You are both quite right,” said he; so they begged him to walk in;
that is to say, to come as far as he could under the bit of pottery.

“Now, you also see my little earwig,” observed a third mother and a
fourth; “they are lovely little things, and highly amusing. They are
never ill-behaved, except when they are uncomfortable in their inside;
but, unfortunately, one is very subject to that at their age.”

Then each mother spoke of her baby; and the babies talked among
themselves, and made use of the little nippers they have in their
tails to nip the beard of the beetle.

“Yes, they are always busy about something, the little rogues!” said
the mothers; and they quite beamed with maternal pride; but the beetle
felt bored by that, and therefore he inquired how far it was to the
nearest muck-heap.

“That is quite out in the big world, on the other side of the ditch,”
answered an earwig. “I hope none of my children will go so far, for it
would be the death of me.”

“But I will try to get as far,” said the beetle; and he went off
without taking formal leave; for that is considered the polite thing
to do. And by the ditch he met several friends; beetles, all of them.

“Here we live,” they said. “We are very comfortable here. Might we ask
you to step down into this rich mud? You must be tired after your
journey.”

“Certainly,” replied the beetle. “I have been exposed to the rain, and
have had to lie upon linen, and being clean is a thing that greatly
exhausts me. I have also pains in one of my wings, from standing in a
draught under a fragment of pottery. It is really quite refreshing to
be among one’s companions once more.”

“Perhaps you come from some muck-heap?” said the oldest of them.

“Indeed, I come from a much higher place,” replied the beetle. “I came
from the emperor’s stable, where I was born with golden shoes on my
feet. I am travelling on a secret mission. You must not ask me any
questions as or I can’t betray my secret.”

With this the beetle stepped down into the rich mud. There sat three
young maiden beetles; and they giggled, because they did not know
what to say.

“Not one of them is engaged yet,” said their mother; and the beetle
maidens giggled again, this time from embarrassment.

“I have never seen greater beauties in the royal stables,” exclaimed
the beetle, who was now resting himself.

“Don’t spoil my girls,” said the mother; “and don’t talk to them,
please, unless you have serious intentions. But of course your
intentions are serious, and therefore I give you my blessing.”

“Hurrah!” cried all the other beetles together; and our friend was
engaged. Immediately after the engagement came the marriage, for there
was no reason for delay.

The next day passed very pleasantly, and the next in tolerable
comfort; but on the third it was time to think of food for the wife,
and perhaps also for children.

“I have allowed myself to be taken in,” said our beetle to himself.
“And now there’s nothing for it but to take them in, in turn.”

So said, so done. Away he went, and he stayed away all day, and stayed
away all night; and his wife sat there, a forsaken widow.

“Oh,” said the other beetles, “this fellow we received into our
family is nothing more than a thorough wander. He has gone away, and
has left his wife as our burden.”

“Well, then, she shall be unmarried again, and sit here among my
daughters,” said the mother. “Fie on the villain who forsook her!”

In the meantime the beetle had been journeying on, and had sailed
across the ditch on a cabbage leaf. In the morning two persons came to
the ditch. When they saw him, they took him up, and turned him over
and over, and looked very learned, especially one of them–a boy.

“Allah sees the black beetle in the black stone and in the black rock.
Is not that written in the Koran?” Then he translated the beetle’s
name into Latin, and spoke about the creature’s nature and history.
The second person, an older scholar, voted for carrying him home. He
said they wanted just such good specimens; and this seemed an uncivil
speech to our beetle, and as a result he flew suddenly out of the
speaker’s hand. As he had now dry wings, he flew a manageable distance,
and reached a hot-bed, where a sash of the glass roof was partly open,
so he quietly slipped in and buried himself in the warm earth.

“Very comfortable it is here,” said he.

Soon after he went to sleep, and dreamed that the emperor’s favourite
horse had fallen, and had given him his golden shoes, with the promise
that he should have two more.

That was all very charming. When the beetle woke up, he crept forth
and looked around him. What splendour was in the hothouse! In the
background great palm trees growing up on high; the sun made them look
transparent; and beneath them what a luxuriance of green, and of
beaming flowers, red as fire, yellow as amber, or white as
fresh-fallen snow.

“This is an incomparable amount of plants” cried the beetle. “How
good they will taste when they are rotted! A capital store-room this!
There must certainly be relations of mine living here. I will just see
if I can find anyone with whom I may connect. I’m proud, certainly,
and I’m proud of being so.” And so he prowled about in the earth, and
thought what a pleasant dream that was about the dying horse, and the
golden shoes he had received.

Suddenly a hand seized the beetle, and pressed him, and turned him
round and round.

The gardener’s little son and a companion had come to the hot-bed, had
spotted the beetle, and wanted to have their fun with him. First he was
wrapped in a vine leaf, and then put into a warm trouser pocket. He
scrambled and scraped about there with all his might; but he got a
good pressing from the boy’s hand for this, which served as a hint to
him to stay quiet. Then the boy went quickly towards the great lake
at the end of the garden. Here the beetle was put in an old
broken wooden shoe, on which a little stick was placed upright for a
mast, and to this mast the beetle was bound with a wool thread. Now
he was a sailor, and had to sail away.

The lake was not very large, but to the beetle it seemed an ocean; and
he was so astonished at its extent, that he fell over on his back and
kicked out with his legs.

The little ship sailed away. The current of the water seized it; but
whenever it went too far from the shore, one of the boys turned up
his trousers and went in after it, and brought it back to the land.
But at length, just as it went merrily out again, the two boys were
called away very harshly, so that they hurried to obey, ran away from the lake, and left the little ship to its fate. It drove away from the shore, farther and farther into the open sea: it was terrible work for the beetle, for he could not get away away as he was bound to the mast.

Then a fly came and paid him a visit.

“What beautiful weather!” said the fly. “I’ll rest here, and sun
myself. You have an agreeable time of it.”

“You speak without knowing the facts,” replied the beetle. “Don’t you
see that I’m a prisoner?”

“Ah! but I’m not a prisoner,” observed the fly; and he flew away.

“Well, now I know the world,” said the beetle to himself. “It is an
terrible world. I’m the only honest person in it. First, they refuse
me my golden shoes; then I have to lie on wet linen, and to stand in
the draught; and, to top all, they fasten a wife upon me. Then, when
I’ve taken a quick step out into the world, and found out how one can
have it there, and how I wished to have it, one of those human boys
comes and ties me up, and leaves me to the mercy of the wild waves,
while the emperor’s favourite horse prances about proudly in golden
shoes. That is what annoys me more than all. But one must not look for
sympathy in this world! My career has been very interesting; but
what’s the use of that, if nobody knows it? The world does not deserve
to be made acquainted with my history, for it ought to have given me
golden shoes, when the emperor’s horse was shod, and I stretched out
my feet to be shod too. If I had received golden shoes, I should have
become an ornament to the stable. Now the stable has lost me, and the
world has lost me. It is all over!”

But all was not over yet. A boat, in which there were a few young
girls, came rowing up.

“Look, yonder is an old wooden shoe sailing along,” said one of the
girls.

“There’s a little creature bound fast to it,” said another.

The boat came quite close to our beetle’s ship, and the young girls
fished him out of the water. One of them drew a small pair of scissors
from her pocket, and cut the thread, without hurting the
beetle; and when she stepped on shore, she put him down on the grass.

“Creep, creep–fly, fly–if you can,” she said. “Liberty is a
splendid thing.”

And the beetle flew up, and straight through the open window of a
great building; there he sank down, tired and exhausted, exactly on
the mane of the emperor’s favourite horse, who stood in the stable
when he was at home, and the beetle also. The beetle clung fast to the
mane, and sat there a short time to recover himself.

“Here I’m sitting on the emperor’s favourite horse–sitting on him
just like the emperor himself!” he cried. “But what was I saying? Yes,
now I remember. That’s a good thought, and quite correct. The smith
asked me why the golden shoes were given to the horse. Now I’m quite
clear about the answer. They were given to the horse on my account.”

And now the beetle was in a good temper again.

“Travelling expands the mind rarely,” said he.

The sun’s rays came streaming into the stable, and shone upon him, and
made the place lively and bright.

“The world is not so bad, upon the whole,” said the beetle; “but one
must know how to take things as they come.”