検索キーワード： 著者 "Christian Andersen" すべてのカテゴリー

On the hill there stood a windmill stately to look at and very proud of itself. "But I'm not proud at all," it said, "though I'm much enlightened, outside and inside. On the outside I have the sun and moon, and for inward use, too; and I also have wax candles, oil lamps, and tallow candles. Yes, I daresay I'm enlightened. I'm a thinking individual and so well built that I'm a pleasure to look at. I have a good windpipe in my chest, and I have four wings placed upon my head, just under my hat.

There was a man who once had known a great many new fairy tales, but he had forgotten them, he said. The fairy tale that used to come to visit him of its own accord no longer came and knocked at his door; and why didn't it come any more? It's true that for a year and a day the man hadn't thought of it, hadn't really expected it to come and knock; and it certainly wouldn't have come anyway, for outside there was war and, inside, the misery and sorrow that war brings with it.

Es war so schön draußen auf dem Land, es war Sommer – die Weizenfelder waren golden, der Hafer war grün, und unten zwischen den grünen Wiesen stand das Heu aufgestapelt. Dort schritt der Storch auf seinen roten Beinen umher und klapperte auf Ägyptisch, was die Sprache war, die seine Mutter ihn gelehrt hatte. Rund um die Felder und Wiesenländer erhoben sich riesige Wälder, in denen verborgene tiefe Seen lagen. Ja, es war in der Tat wunderschön dort draußen auf dem Land.

There was once a young man who studied to become a poet. He wanted to be a poet by next Easter, so that he could marry and earn his living from poetry, which he knew was just a matter of making things up. But he had no imagination. He firmly believed he had been born too late. Every subject had been used up before he had a chance at it, and there was nothing in the world left to write about.

The country around the town of Kjöge is very bare. The town itself lies by the seashore, which is always beautiful, although it might be more beautiful than it is, because all around are flat fields, and a forest a long way off. But one always finds something beautiful in the spot that is one's own home, something for which one longs, even when one is in the most wonderful spot in the world.

A couple of large ships were sent up toward the North Pole to discover the boundaries of land and sea and how far it would be possible for the human race to penetrate in that direction.

Poor John was greatly troubled, because his father was very ill and could not recover. Except for these two, there was no one in their small room. The lamp on the table had almost burned out, for it was quite late at night.

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.

Yes, in a thousand years people will fly on the wings of steam through the air, over the ocean! The young inhabitants of America will become visitors of old Europe. They will come over to see the monuments and the great cities, which will then be in ruins, just as we in our time make pilgrimages to the tottering splendors of Southern Asia. In a thousand years they will come!

It is autumn. We stand on the ramparts, and look out over the sea. We look at the numerous ships, and at the Swedish coast on the opposite side of the sound, rising far above the surface of the waters which mirror the glow of the evening sky.

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 mother sat by her little child. She was so sad, so afraid he would die. The child's face was pallid. His little eyes were shut. His breath came faintly now, and then heavily as if he were sighing, and the mother looked more sadly at the dear little soul.

There came a soldier marching down the high road-one, two! one, two! He had his knapsack on his back and his sword at his side as he came home from the wars. On the road he met a witch, an ugly old witch, a witch whose lower lip dangled right down on her chest.

Have you ever seen "a maiden"? I am referring to what road pavers call a "maiden," a thing used for ramming down the paving stones. "She" is made entirely of wood, broad at the bottom, with iron hoops around it, and a stick run through it at the upper, narrower end, which gives the maiden arms.

"I'm going to be something!" said the eldest of five brothers. "I'm going to be useful in the world, however humble a position I hold; if that which I'm doing is useful, that will be Something. I'll make bricks; people can't do without bricks, so at least I'll do Something."

We had such an excellent dinner yesterday," said an old mouse of the female sex to another who had not been present at the feast. "I sat number twenty-one below the mouse-king, which was not a bad place. Shall I tell you what we had? Everything was first rate.

A top and a ball were lying together in a drawer among a lot of other toys. The top said to the ball, "Since we live in the same drawer, we ought to be sweethearts."

A prize was offered - or rather two prizes, a large one and a small one - for the greatest speed shown, not in just one race, but by one who had been racing for the whole year.

The General's family lived on the first floor, and the Porter's family lived in the cellar. There was a vast distance between them - the whole first floor, as well as all the grades of society; but both families lived under the same roof, and their windows looked out in the same street and the same garden.

On board the steamer was an elderly man with such a joyful face that if it didn't belie him he must have been the happiest person on earth. In fact, he said he was the happiest; I heard it from his own mouth. He was a Dane, a countryman of mine, and a traveling theatrical producer. His whole company was with him and lay in a large box, for he was the proprietor of a puppet show. He said that his natural cheerfulness had been enlightened by a Polytechnic student, and the experiment had left him completely happy.