The Elves and the Shoemaker a personalised book with your child as the hero

Once upon a time, in a little German town, there lived a shoemaker with his wife and their child, Lena. The shoemaker was honest and hard-working, but times were hard. Winter had come early, snow lay deep in the crooked streets, and the shelves of his little shop were bare. At last there was only enough leather left for one single pair of shoes.

"Well," said the shoemaker, holding up the last piece, "we shall make the best of it."

That evening, by the light of one candle, he cut out the leather for the shoes. Lena helped him. She laid the pieces neatly on the workbench, the soles at one end and the uppers at the other, all ready to be stitched in the morning. Then the family said their prayers and went to bed, hoping for better days.

When morning came, Lena was the first one up. She ran down to the workshop in her nightgown, and there she stopped and stared. On the workbench, where the pieces of leather had been, stood a pair of shoes. They were finished, every one of their tiny stitches perfectly straight, and they shone in the grey winter light.

"Father! Mother! Come and look!"

The shoemaker picked up the shoes and turned them round and round. "I could not have made them better myself," he said. "Not a single stitch is out of place."

Soon a customer came into the shop, a gentleman in a fine coat. He tried on the shoes, and they fitted him so beautifully that he paid much more than the usual price and left a handful of gold coins on the counter. With the money, the shoemaker bought leather for two pairs of shoes. He cut them out that evening, Lena laid out the pieces, and they all went to bed.

In the morning, two pairs of shoes stood ready on the bench. They sold so well that the shoemaker could buy leather for four pairs. And the next morning, there were four pairs of shoes, as fine as any in the land. So it went on, night after night. Whatever leather the shoemaker cut out in the evening was finished by morning, and soon the shelves were full of beautiful shoes, the customers came from all over town, and the family had warm fires and good bread on the table again.

One evening, not long before Christmas, Lena sat by the fire and said, "Who do you think is helping us?"

"I have wondered that every night," said her mother.

"Then let us stay up and see," said the shoemaker.

So on Christmas Eve, after the leather was cut and laid out, they did not go to bed. They lit a candle, left it on the bench, and hid behind the curtain in the corner of the workshop. They waited, and waited, and Lena's eyes grew heavy.

Just as the church clock struck midnight, the door creaked, and two tiny men came hurrying in. They were no taller than Lena's hand, and they wore nothing but thin, ragged scraps of cloth. They climbed up onto the workbench, picked up the pieces of leather, and began to sew and hammer and stitch so quickly that Lena could hardly follow their fingers. Tap, tap, tap went their little hammers, and in no time at all the shoes were finished and standing in a row. Then the two little men jumped down and scampered out into the night.

Lena peeped out from behind the curtain. "Did you see?" she whispered. "They had no shoes at all. Their feet were bare, and they were shivering."

"They have made us rich," said her mother softly, "and they have nothing to keep them warm. That will not do. It is Christmas. Let us make them a present."

So the whole family set to work. Lena's mother sewed two tiny shirts and two pairs of little trousers. She knitted two pairs of woolly stockings, and Lena helped stitch two little waistcoats, red as holly berries. The shoemaker himself made two pairs of the smallest shoes he had ever made, so small they fitted in the palm of his hand.

The next night, instead of leather, they laid the little clothes out neatly on the workbench, with a sprig of fir beside them for Christmas. Then they hid behind the curtain once again.

At midnight the two little men came hurrying in, ready to work. But there was no leather. Instead they found the tiny shirts and trousers, the stockings, the waistcoats and the shoes. At first they looked astonished. Then their faces lit up with joy. They dressed themselves as fast as they could, smoothing their new clothes and admiring their new shoes, and they began to sing:

"Now we are boys so fine to see, Why should we longer cobblers be?"

They danced and skipped and jumped over the chairs and the bench, and at last they danced right out of the door and into the snowy night.

The little men never came back. But from that night on, everything went well for the shoemaker and his family. His shoes were the finest in the town, and he never wanted for work again. On Christmas morning they sat down together at a table full of good things, with the candles glowing and the snow falling softly outside. And every Christmas after that, Lena put a little sprig of fir on the workbench, just in case.