The Flying Trunk
The enchanted wooden trunk of Andersen's tale, given to a spendthrift merchant's son by his father and used by its owner to fly through the air to the land of the Turks and court a princess in her tower. When he squanders his remaining coins on fireworks to amuse the court, a spark sets the trunk alight, and it burns to ash, leaving him wandering the world with a story no one believes. The tale plays the magic object as both luck and ruin, and the trunk itself is one of Andersen's most famous flying vehicles, built on older folk motifs of the magical vehicle.