In the fairy-tale world, a single trap lies in wait. A mirror that shows you everything you desire. Do you lack love? The mirror shows love. Do you lack a kind word? The mirror speaks. Do you want money? The mirror gives you the feeling of being wealthy. Whoever sits before the mirror is imprisoned and cannot walk away from it. The mirror consumes time. It is like a hard drug—a drug that destroys you. This mirror gives people a false sense of happiness.
Kari sits in a crumbling cottage, the mirror in her hand, staring. She has been staring for a day, for two. The family calls, but she does not hear. “Go to work, Kari, we need to repair the house!” But Kari has no time. The mirror gives her happiness. She lies on the sofa in the crumbling cottage. And outside, the sun is shining and the mountains are beautiful. Fishermen rise early for the sea. And Kari sits through the night, staring fixedly into her mirror.
“Buy me a house like the one the mirror shows! I want a new and better house.”
“Give me a man like the one the mirror shows, mine bores me now.”
Kari is growing fat and does not take care of herself at all. She does not hear when her husband calls to her. When her husband speaks words of love, she is deaf. When the children gently call “Mom!”, she is like one without a soul. Staring into the mirror, utterly blind to her own family. And Kari is not alone in this. The mirror has ensnared most of the world. People live, yet it is as if they do not live—they are partially dead.
Who cursed this world? A powerful sorcerer, a maker of mirrors. And the mirror is not free. You pay for it every day, and the sorcerer grows rich. You sit in a broken cottage, Kari, and the sorcerer and his helpers grow rich. They have a happy family and a wealthy life, because they do not sit in the mirror and the mirror is not allowed in their home. That happy life, which you too can have, if you throw the mirror away.
An old Viking told me how he sailed several seas and saw poor people sitting before the mirror, growing poorer and poorer. He saw families that had completely fallen apart because of the mirror. Friends in the pub at the harbor, sitting silently, staring into their mirrors. And lovers who, because of the mirror, no longer have any time at all for love.
Do not wait for a prince to rescue you, Kari. They are caught in mirrors too. Rescue yourself and throw away the mirror!