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

イラスト　山下

Angel

(Andersen's Fairy Tales)

Translation　ちいさな翻訳屋さん

Japanese　←→　Japanese ＆ English　←→　English

　Once upon a time, an angel told a little girl who was going to God while spreading its white wings.

“Listen.

　An angel like me comes to pick up a dead child who is going to God.

　And the angel takes the child to their most favorite places and gathers flowers together.

　When the flowers are brought to God, they will bloom much more beautifully than they did on earth.

　Above all, if God kisses the flowers, they will get a voice and sing songs.”

　Then the angel flew with the little girl to her most favorite flower garden in her hometown.

　The angel asked, “which flowers would you like to take with you?”

　The little girl pointed out a rose tree.

　When the angel looked at it, one of the branches was broken and the swelling buds were dried up.

“Oh, poor flowers. I hope they will bloom when they come close to God.”

　The angel put on a smile and picked the buds.

　Then the two gathered a lot of beautiful flowers.


　After gathering flowers, the angel took the little girl to a town at night.

　At the side of the dark street, there was a heap of garbage.

　The angel pointed out some dried-up wild flowers in a broken flowerpot.

“Let’s take them too. I’ll tell you the reason later.”

　The two then flew to God.

　While flying, the angle said to the little girl,

“there was a sick child in the small basement in the town we passed by.

　The only thing the child could enjoy was to hold her hands against the sunlight from the window for about half an hour.

　She first got to know the forest in spring when a child in the neighborhood brought her a tree branch with green leaves on it.

　When she held the branch over her head, she felt as if she had been in the forest where a lot of birds chirped.”

　The little girl looked into the angel’s face.

　The angel smiled at her and continued,

“Then, another child in the neighborhood brought her a wild flower.

　The flower had its root with it, so the sick child planted it in a flower pot and took good care of it.

　Thanks to her, the flower grew well and bloomed every year, and it became her treasure.

　It’s because the flower bloomed beautifully and spread the scent only for her.

　The angel flew even higher.

“But the sick girl passed away while looking at the flower.

　Those flower became dried and discarded because nobody took care of it.

　And this is the flower that we were talking about.

　So that’s why this flower is more beautiful than any other beautiful flowers in gardens.”

　The girl was so curious that asked the angel,

“I see. But why do you know so much about this flower?”

　The angel put on a big smile and answered,

“because I was the sick girl.”

　Then, the two arrived at God’s world.

　God kissed the dried buds and gave a voice to them.

　God gently held the little girl in his hands and said,

“welcome. From now on, you take the dead children here.”

　“What? Me?” she said.

　Then, she found that she had white wings on her back held in God’s arms.

　In other words, the little girl turned into an angel.

The end

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