Hukumusume fairy tale collection > Foreign language (English) > Classical stories of the world

イラスト　「荒駒るみ」　　運営サイト　Ｒｕｍｉの作品置き場　ｅＲｕ★Ａｒｔ<

Ugly Duck

(Andersen's Fairy Tales)

Translation　ちいさな翻訳屋さん

おりがみをつくろう ( おりがみくらぶ より) あひるのかお はくちょう

Japanese　←→　Japanese ＆ English　←→　English

　Once upon a time, there was an old residence surrounded by moats.

　In the bush at the moats, a female duck was sit on eggs in the nest.

　Later on, when the eggs broke, pretty yellow baby ducks came out of them.

　However, the biggest egg out of all of them didn’t break.

　After a while, it was a big ugly baby duck that finally came out of the egg.

　The ugly duck was always picked on, pecked, and talked behind his back.

　His mother was trying to cover him at first, but she sighed,

“You’re really ugly. I wish you were gone somewhere far,”

　she came to say so.

　When the ugly duck heard that, he couldn’t stand it and ran away from his family.

　He didn’t know where to go, but wherever it was, he was hated.

　He found a deserted place to sleep and as soon as he woke up, he started running trying not to be seen.

　Time had passed and autumn came.

　One day, the ugly duck saw something beautiful that he had ever seen before.

　It was a flock of swans.

　They were stretching their flexible long necks and spreading their pure white wings,

　and they were about to fly away to somewhere warm.

　The duck was taken aback and he was seeing them flying away to the far sky.

“If I became one of them, I don’t know how happy I would be.

　Well, it’s no use thinking about it because I can’t even join a flock of ducks.



　Then winter came and the pond started to ice up.

　The ugly duck stayed still in the bush of reeds to protect himself against the extreme cold.

　Gradually, the sunlight was getting warmer and warmer and larks began singing in a beautiful voice.

　Finally, spring came.

　The ugly duck felt so excited that he spread his wings.

　Surprisingly, he flew.

“Wow, I’m flying. I can finally fly!”

　After enjoying flying, he landed on the moat.

　Then a flock of swans staying on the moat approached him.

“Oh, they are coming to kill me. I’m going to be killed.

　But I don’t care.

　I’d rather be killed by those beautiful birds than picked on others.

　Now, kill me!”

　The duck was waiting to be killed.

　But he wasn’t killed.

　Instead, the swans surrounded the suck and stroked him gently with their bills.

　And one of the swans said to the duck,

“Nice to meet you, cute rookie.”

“Rookie? Cute? Me?”

　The duck was surprised and looked down on the surface of water.

　He didn’t see himself as an ugly duck anymore.

　In fact, he saw himself as a pure white swam.

　His feather was molted during the winter and he transformed into a beautiful swam.

“That new comer is the most beautiful,”

　the duck heard everybody saying that.

The end

(Click here to return)