She is beautiful, that's for sure. Steely blue eyes, sweeping lashes, a heart-shaped face framed by sparkling white fur. She's also strong, beguiling anyone who falls in her path, mesmerizing them, hypnotizing them. And she is mysterious.

She lives all alone in a palace made entirely of ice perched atop a frozen tundrum.

Does it suit her? Well, of course it does. Because, as you must already suspect, the cold never bothers her at all.

If she sounds familiar, it's because she is.

She is the one who started it all.

The original, the very first, snow queen.

I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Season 4 of Morrison Mysteries.

Here now, with the translation by Mrs. H.B. Paul,

is Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen.

So now we begin.

Take close attention to the start of our story, for we'll know much more by the end about

a very wicked hobgoblin.

He was one of the very worst, for he was a real demon.

One day when he was in a merry mood, he made a looking glass, which had the power of making

everything good or beautiful

that was reflected in a shrink to almost nothing.

Well, everything that was worthless and bad appeared magnified and worse than ever.

The most lovely landscapes appeared like boiled spinach, and the people became hideous and looked as if they

had stood on their heads and had no bodies. Their expressions were so distorted that no one

could recognize them, and even one freckle on the face appeared to spread over the whole

of the nose and mouth. The demon hog goblin thought this was very amusing.

When a good or pious thought passed through the mind of anyone, it was completely twisted

...