The subject of this work is the process of grammaticalization of the verb ville ‘to want’ in combination with bare infinitive in the Danish language of mid. 19th – mid. 20th centuries. The study is based on two literary Danish texts – “The Snow Queen”, a fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen (Danish: “Snedronningen”, 1844) and “The Ring”, a novel written by Karen Blixen (Danish: “Ringen”, 1958). These texts represent different periods of the Danish language’s history, and their comparison lays a solid foundation of a research, carried out from a diachronic perspective. Such a research enables us to reveal the differences in grammatical use of the constructions considered and discover the grammaticalization path of the verb ville, which was developing for more than a century.