検索キーワード： ナレーター "Sam Kusi" すべてのカテゴリー

Once upon a time there was a darning needle who imagined she was so fine that she really was a sewing needle. "Be careful and hold me tightly!" she warned the fingers that picked her up. "Don't drop me! If I fall on the floor you may never find me again; that's how fine I am!" "That's what you think!" replied the fingers, and squeezed her around the waist.

Once there were two cocks, one on a dunghill and one on the roof, both of them conceited; but which of the two did the most? Tell us what you think - we'll keep our own opinion, anyway. The chicken yard was separated by a board fence from another yard, where there lay a manure heap, and on this grew a great cucumber, which was fully aware of being a forcing-bed plant.

There was an old mansion surrounded by a marshy ditch with a drawbridge which was but seldom let down: not all guests are good people. Under the roof were loopholes to shoot through, and to pour down boiling water or even molten lead on the enemy, should he approach. Inside the house the rooms were very high and had ceilings of beams, and that was very useful considering the great deal of smoke which rose up from the chimney fire where the large, damp logs of wood smoldered.

A Cheerful Temper is a story by Hans Christian Andersen, a legendary Danish writer and "children's author" well-known mostly for his fairytales. The story is narrated by a man who is deeply convinced that having a good temper is one of the top priorities in life for any decent person. And, of course, he has an example to prove his point.

This story with a sad ending tells of a young buckwheat growing in a field that became too proud of its own beauty. The buckwheat, blinded by its pride, did not even listen to the advice of the old willow and refused to bow its head even before the dangerous storm.

The Butterfly (Danish: "Sommerfulgen") is a short fantasy story for children by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. It was first published in 1861.
The story's title character and protagonist is a butterfly who wishes to marry a flower. Unfortunately for him, the expectations which he has of his future wife are very high. He decides that none of the flowers that he sees are worthy of being his bride. Consequently, he never marries and ends his days as an old bachelor.

In the narrow, crooked street, among several shabby dwellings, stood a very tall and very narrow house, the framework of which had given so that it was out of joint in every direction. Only poor people lived here, and poorest of all were those who lived in the attic. Outside the small attic window an old, bent bird cage hung in the sunshine; it didn't even have a real bird glass, but had only a bottle neck, upside down, with a cork in its mouth, and filled with water.

By the high road in the forest lay a lonely peasant's hut; the path to it led right through the farmyard. The sun shone, and all the windows were open, and in the house there seemed a great bustle and movement; but in the garden, in an arbor formed of blooming elder-branches, stood an open coffin. A dead man had been carried out, who on this morning was to be buried. Nobody stood by the coffin looking sorrowfully at the dead; no one shed a tear over him.

Of course, you must know what a microscope is, that round magnifying glass which makes everything look hundreds of times larger than it really is. If you take it and hold it close to your eye and look at a single drop of ditchwater, you'll see thousands of strange little creatures, such as you couldn't imagine living in a drop of water. But they are really there. They look almost like a plateful of shrimp, all jumping and crowding against each other, and they are so ferocious they tear off each other's arm and legs; yet in their own way they are happy and merry.

In the midst of a garden there grew a rose bush, quite covered with roses, and in the most beautiful of them all there lived an elf—an elf so tiny that no mortal eye could see him. But he was as well made and as perfect as any child could be, and he had wings reaching from his shoulders to his feet. Behind each petal of the rose he had a tiny bedroom. Oh, how fragrant his rooms were, and how bright and transparent the walls, for they were the beautiful pale pink petals of the rose!

There was a large party for children at the house of the merchant; rich people's children and important people's children were all there. Their host, the merchant, was a learned man; his father had insisted that he have a college education. You see, his father had been only a cattle dealer, but he had always been honest and thrifty. This business had brought him a fortune, and his son, the merchant, had later managed to increase this fortune. Clever as he was, he also had a kind heart, but there was less talk about his heart than about his money.

Yes, that was little Tuck. As a matter of fact, his name wasn't really Tuck, but before he could speak plainly he called himself Tuck. That was supposed to mean "Carl," but "Tuck" does just as well if one only knows it.

This is a story of the sand dunes of Jutland, but it doesn't begin there; no, it begins far away to the south, in Spain. The ocean is the highway between the two countries. So now let your thoughts journey to Spain!

It is in the hot countries that the sun burns down in earnest, turning the people there a deep mahogany-brown. In the hottest countries of all they are seared into negroes, but it was not quite that hot in this country to which a man of learning had come from the colder north. He expected to go about there just as he had at home, but he soon discovered that this was a mistake. He and other sensible souls had to stay inside. The shutters were drawn and the doors were closed all day long. It looked just as if everyone were asleep or away from home.

Far away in the land to which the swallows fly when it is winter, dwelt a king who had eleven sons, and one daughter, named Eliza. The eleven brothers were princes, and each went to school with a star on his breast, and a sword by his side.

It was in the latter part of January, and a heavy snowfall was driving down. It whirled through the streets and the lanes, and the outsides of the windowpanes seemed plastered with snow. It fell down in masses from the roofs of the houses. A sudden panic seized the people. They ran, they flew, and they fell into each other's arms and felt that at least for that little moment they had a foothold. The coaches and horses seemed covered with sugar frosting, and the footmen stood with their backs to the carriages, to protect their faces from the wind.

The well was deep, and therefore the rope was long; the wheel went around with difficulty when the waterfilled bucket had to be pulled up over the side of the well. The sun could never mirror itself down in the water, no matter how brightly it shone; but as far down as its rays penetrated, green weeds were growing from between the stones.

There were once five-and-twenty tin soldiers. They were all brothers, born of the same old tin spoon. They shouldered their muskets and looked straight ahead of them, splendid in their uniforms, all red and blue.

On one of the Danish islands, where old thingsteads, the judgment seats of our forefathers, loom up in the cornfields, and mighty trees raise their heads above the beech forests, there lies a little town of low houses with red roofs. In one of these houses strange things were being prepared on the open stove, over the coals and embers. There was boiling in test tubes, mixing and distilling, and pounding of drugs in mortars. An elderly man was in charge of everything.

A Kansas farm girl named Dorothy ends up in the magical Land of Oz after she and her pet dog Toto are swept away from their home by a cyclone. Upon her arrival in the magical world of Oz, she learns she cannot return home until she has destroyed the Wicked Witch of the West.