Kay and Gerda’s return home completes the journey that began with separation: rescued from the Palace of the Snow Queen, they pass from an icy realm into spring, reunite with those they encountered along the way, and find their old home waiting. Their return is both a physical arrival and a transformation in time. The familiar room and childhood chairs remain, but the children who sit there have grown up; their enduring childlike faith joins the ending’s domestic reunion to its spiritual promise.

The road out of the ice

After Kay is freed, the children leave the Palace of the Snow Queen hand in hand. As they speak of Grandmother and the roses on the roof, the winds fall still and the sun appears. Their first meeting on the journey is with the Reindeer at the bush with red berries, where Gerda had been left before entering the ice-bound country. The Reindeer has brought another young Reindeer, whose full udders provide warm milk for the children. The reunion answers the earlier image of Gerda alone and exposed to the cold: now she and Kay travel together, and animal help sustains them on the way back.

They go first to the Finland woman, warm themselves in her hot room, and receive directions for their journey. At the Lapland woman’s home, they are given new clothes and have their sleighs put in order. The two Reindeer accompany them as far as the country’s boundary, where the first green leaves are budding. There the children and their helpers say farewell. This passage makes the change of season visible in the landscape: the warmth and practical preparations of the northern women lead the travelers out of the wintry country, while new leaves mark the approach of a different world.

The return also reverses the dangers of Gerda’s approach to the Palace of the Snow Queen. She had arrived in Finland without shoes or gloves and faced living snowflakes shaped like porcupines, serpents, and bristling bears. Her prayer had called forth Angels who drove the guards apart and made a safe path. On the homeward road, the winds are at rest, the sun has come out, and she is no longer alone. The movement from danger to safe passage gives the return its own course of release, rather than making it merely a journey retraced in reverse.

Encounters on the way

As the children continue through the green forest, a beautiful horse appears. Gerda recognizes it as one that had drawn the Golden Carriage of the Prince and Princess. Riding it is the Robber-girl, now wearing a shining red cap and carrying pistols in her belt. Tired of staying at home, she has set out first for the north, intending to try another part of the world if it does not suit her. Her independent journey brings her back into Gerda’s path just as Gerda and Kay are returning to theirs.

The Robber-girl recognizes Gerda, and their meeting is joyful, though her welcome to Kay is pointed. She teases him for wandering about and questions whether he deserves to have someone travel to the end of the world to find him. Gerda responds by patting the Robber-girl’s cheeks and asking after the Prince and Princess. The exchange restores their earlier familiarity while registering what has changed: Kay is back, Gerda’s long search can now be told as a completed undertaking, and the Robber-girl has begun a journey of her own.

When Gerda asks about the crow, the Robber-girl reports that he is dead and that his tame sweetheart is a widow. She describes the widow’s mourning, then asks the children how Kay was recovered. Gerda and Kay tell her the whole story. In this brief exchange, the reunion gathers earlier episodes into the account of a finished adventure, but it also acknowledges a loss along the way. The Robber-girl takes both their hands and promises to visit if she ever passes through their town; then she rides away into the wide world, while the children continue home together.

The familiar room, changed by time

The signs of home emerge gradually. The spring landscape becomes greener and more flower-filled; the children recognize their large town and the tall church steeples, with bells ringing as they enter. They find their way to Grandmother’s door and climb to the little room. Inside, the old clock still goes tick, tick, and its hands continue to mark the time of day. The roses outside are again in full bloom and look in through the window. These familiar details make the return concrete: the house has not been replaced by another wonder, and the ordinary objects of their childhood have remained in place.

Yet the children have not returned unchanged. Passing through the doorway, they perceive that they have grown into a man and a woman. The small chairs are still there, and each sits in the chair that was once their own; holding hands, they find that the cold, empty grandeur of the Palace of the Snow Queen fades from memory like a painful dream. The ending places physical growth beside emotional continuity. Their childhood room is not a denial of the years that have passed, but the setting in which they can recognize both their changed bodies and the bond they have carried home.

Childlike faith and the final season

Grandmother sits in the bright sunshine reading from the Bible: “Except ye become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of God.” Kay and Gerda look into each other’s eyes and understand the words of the old song: “Roses bloom and cease to be, / But we shall the Christ-child see.” The remembered song gives the returning children a language for the contrast between passing earthly beauty and religious hope. The roses bloom again, but the final emphasis is not on their permanence; it is on what the children, grown yet still children at heart, have come to understand.

The seasonal movement completes the return’s pattern. At the boundary, the first green leaves had only begun to bud; by the time Kay and Gerda reach home, spring has become summer, warm and beautiful. The ending therefore resolves the journey in both space and time: the travelers reach the room from which their story began, and the changing landscape carries them from the cold ordeal into summer. Their homecoming restores companionship and domestic familiarity without erasing what happened. It closes on the children seated together, hands joined, with the roses at the window and Grandmother’s reading giving their return its final spiritual meaning.