She's going to, like, seriously regret this.
The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf ("Pigen, som trådte på brødet" in the original Danish) is a Fairy Tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a girl who isn't exactly the nicest girl in the world. And one day she chooses to put a loaf of bread over a puddle to step on and ends up sucked right down to Hell.
One of Andersen's more bizarre and obscure tales to say the least.
This story provides examples of:
- Ambiguous Ending: Inger gets a second chance, having been transformed into a bird. The ending could be interpreted as her flying to Heaven. Alternatively, she may simply have flown towards the sun and out of view of the people watching her.
- And I Must Scream: The cruel, vain protagonist becomes a statue in Hell, unable to move, tormented by the feeling of slime and animals crawling over her, and able to hear everything said about her on Earth, almost all of which is nasty, until a kind woman begins to cry for her, causing her to realize how terrible a person she was and finally repent, which sets her soul free.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Inger liked to torture insects when she was little.
- Beauty Is Bad: Inger is extremely vain, and it gets her into trouble, not to mention that her guardians tend to be less strict with her because she just looks so adorable.
- Break the Haughty: Inger is a vain and stubborn person who ends up being broken down and realizing how bad she was.
- Deliverance from Damnation: Inger is saved from Hell thanks to a virtuous woman, who had pitied her since childhood, praying for her.
- Early Personality Signs: The virtuous woman who ultimately saves Inger is kind and forgiving as a child already, crying about Inger's fate and saying she'd like to give Inger her doll's house and bring her out of Hell.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After Inger spends years in Hell as a statue, a virtuous woman crying for her finally causes her to see how horrible she was and repent, which gives her a new chance as a little bird, who, however is not off the hook yet. She has to then collect crumbs for the other birds during the winter, amounting to the size of the loaf she had trodden on, before being transformed further into a tern who is last seen flying straight up into the sky. Well, it was an improvement.
- Humble Hero: On her deathbed, the virtuous woman thinks that she had been no better than Inger and that only by the grace of God she had been spared from suffering Inger's fate.
- Karmic Reform Hell: In Hell, a great deal of the souls' suffering comes from their continuing obsession with their earthly concerns and their refusal to admit their wrong. Inger is much the same, but is eventually released after about a human lifetime, once the virtuous woman's sorrow for her moves Inger to feel true contrition and sorrow for her deeds.
- Laser-Guided Karma: As part of Inger's punishment, the flies whose wings she had pulled off come and walk across her eyeballs.
- No Name Given: Only Inger is named exactly — everyone else is referred to by general descriptors, such as "Inger's mother" or "the old woman".
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: As part of Inger's punishment, during her stay as a statue in Hell, she carries over a number of the creatures from the Marsh-woman's home — a snake winds about her hair and neck, while toads lurk in the folds of her dress, producing an intensely unpleasant feeling of slimy creatures crawling over her.
- Satan: He appears directly in the story, as well as his grandmother or great-grandma, whoever that may be.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Inger. The story of the hapless girl who trod on the loaf was already known as a morality tale in Denmark, but she remained permanently in Hell before Andersen altered the ending. Andersen may have thought that even a vain girl like Inger should have a chance for salvation, and wrote a new ending into the traditional tale.
- Spell My Name With An S: Depending on the translation, the girl's name is usually either Inge or Inger.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Only one girl who later grows up feels sad for poor Inger. In the end, this proves to be the primary thing that gets her out of Hell.
- What Beautiful Eyes!: The virtuous woman's eyes are likened to two bright stars.
