365 FAVOLE PER CHIKAIMA MAITEA E CHIMAMANDA LAVINIA DA NONNO PAOLO

Il 19 marzo 1990 ricevetti in dono da zia MariaTeresa e mio papa' un libro di favole molto speciale. Questo libro mi veniva letto da mio papa' ogni volta che dovevo addormentarmi. Ora leggo queste favole a Chikaima MAITEA e Chimamanda LAVINIA. Provo a tradurle in inglese e farne dono anche a voi lettori.

1 january - SABBIOLINO -

As everyone knows, Sabbiolino comes in the evening and sprinkles some sand in the children's eyes that will make them sleep. Then, when the children begin to feel tired, the adults say, "Sabbiolino has already come." But no one has ever seen him. Lisa and Walter therefore decided to catch him. At night they went to bed early and closed their eyes tightly. But Sabbiolino was not fooled and sprinkled an extra handful of sand on them. They awoke in fact only when the sun was shining high in the sky. On that very day a little bird wandering aimlessly understood in their room. The children wanted to keep it, so they put it in a cage and gave it millet and water. But the little bird chirped heartbreakingly, begging them. "Please let me fly away!" The children, moved, ended up opening the cage and let him fly away.

2 january - SABBIOLINO -

Before dinner the children were playing on the lawn when the little bird flew to them and chirped, "Come with me, I want to reward you for giving me back my freedom." Intrigued, Walter and Lisa followed their friend through the forest until they came to a clearing. There they saw Sabbiolino. Some gnomes were carrying sand for him. Then Walter exclaimed, "Maybe we can help them!" And since they were two good children, the gnomes took them with them all the way into the mountain. There, in a cave, piles of sand glittered like pure gold. Each child filled a sack with it, then Sable let them accompany him on his tour. They crossed roads and villages, forests and lakes. They scattered the golden sand in the eyes of little Indians, Chinese, of peoples all over the world. At the end of their journey, Lisa and Walter fell sound asleep in their cribs.

3 january - the little ray of sunshine -

The storyteller now telling wants

the short story of the sunbeam

Who snooping here and there through the world

Discovered Pierino smiling playfully

From the little door of his igloo

As the caribou passed by.

4 january - Rapetta -

A man and his wife had hoped for years and years to have a child. Finally their big dream came true. In the months leading up to the child's birth, the woman loved to pause and gaze at a beautiful garden that stretched out below her window. This garden belonged to a terrible witch. One fine day the woman discovered a wonderful field of radishes right in the middle of the haunted garden, and all of a sudden she felt an overwhelming desire to have those little roots. She therefore turned to her husband, "If I cannot have at least a couple of those beautiful radishes, I am sure I will die." And so the poor man broke into the garden at night and filled a basket with juicy radishes. But suddenly he was confronted by the witch who, in a rage, cried out to him, "Curse you!" Terrified the man stammered, "I had to do it! My wife is expecting a baby, and if I didn't bring her some radish she would die!" The witch reconsidered and concluded, "All right, take as many as you want, but in return I want the child that will be born." In terror the man agreed. A baby girl was born, and the witch presented herself to the two poor parents. The little girl was named Rapetta and was taken away by the evil fairy.