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Illustration　柴田伸子　　サイト　昔話で販促！

A kindness of bracken

(Japanese classical stories)(Iwate city)

Translation　ちいさな翻訳屋さん

Japanese　←→　Japanese ＆ English　←→　English

　A long time ago, it was when a big snake was taking a nap,

　unfortunately a reed put out its buds from the ground and

　the tip went through the body of the snake.

　After a while, when the snake woke up,

“Ah, I had a good sleep. Well, I want to eat frogs for my lunch.”

　he said so and tired to move forward.

　However since his body was pieced by the bud, he couldn’t move forward.

“Oh? Why can’t I move?”

　Finally he looked at his body and noticed that his body was stabbed by a reed.

“Oh no! This is serious!”

　The snake thrashed his tail and wiggled his body,

　but he couldn’t pull out his body from the bud .

“What should I do? If I can’t move, I will die for hunger.”

　While he got disgusted with the situation, a tiny bracken came up under the belly of the snake.

　When the bracken saw the snake was in trouble, it said,

“Hey, my friend snake, I will try to hold your body up. Be patient a little bit more.”

 Then the bracken hold up the snake’s body steadily.

　As a result, the body of the snake could pull out from the reed.

　The snake were so happy to be free.

“Thank you, bracken. Thank you very much.”

　Since then, snakes took care of bracken.

　And when snakes attack people, if people sing

♪Snake, snake

♪ do you remember the kindness of bracken

♪ when you were taking a nap in the reed field?

♪ If you bite me, I will take all of the bracken.

　Because of the song, snakes remember the kindness of bracken and they prepare a way for people.

The end

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