わがままな子供


The wilful child


昔、頑固で母親が望んだことをどうしてもやらない子供がいました。そのため神様はその子供を好まなくて病気にさせました。医者はだれもどうしようもなくまもなく子供は死の床につきました。子供が墓に下ろされ、土がかぶせられたとき、突然子供の腕が出てきて上に伸び、中にいれてまた新しい土をかけました。それはまったく無駄で、必ず腕はまた出てきました。それで母親自身が墓に行くしかなくなって、その腕を棒で打ちました。すると、腕は中へ引き込まれて、やっと子供は地面の下で安らかになりました。
Once upon a time there was a child who was willful, and would not dowh at her mother wished. For this reason God had no pleasure in her, and let her become ill, and no doctor could do her any good, and in a short time she lay on her death-bed. When she had been lowered into her grave, and the earth was spread over her, all at once her arm came out again, and stretched upwards, and when they had put it in and spread fresh earth over it, it was all to no purpose, for the arm always came out again. Then the mother herself was obliged to go to the grave, and strike the arm with a rod, and when she had done that, it was drawn in, and then at last the child had rest beneath the ground.