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Lyr Add: Long-Legged Stork (Hans C Andersen)

21 May 07 - 07:09 AM (#2057512)
Subject: Lyr Add: Long Legged Stork - by Andersen
From: GUEST,.gargoyle

"Below in the street a whole crowd of children were playing; and when they caught sight of the Storks, on of the boldest of the boys, and afterwards all of them, sang the old verse about the Storks. But they only sang it just as he could remember it: ="

Stork, stork, fly away,
Stand not on one leg, I pray,
See your wife is in her nest,
With her little ones at rest.
They will hang one,
And fry another;
They will shoot a third,
And roast his brother.

From Folk-Lore and Fable AEsop - Grim - Andersen, The Harvard Classics, Eliot, Charles W. Editor, Collier and Son, New York, 1937, pp310-311.

This story was First Published in 1838 - there is an entertaining and informative collection of his life found at: http://hca.gilead.org.il

Hans Christian Anderson Organization

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

23 May 07 - 11:43 PM (#2059524)
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Long Legged Stork - by Andersen
From: Jim Dixon

Hans Christian Andersen wrote in Danish; there must be more than one translation into English. I found this with Google Book Search. It comes from a Wordsworth Edition of Andersen's "The Complete Fairy Tales." No translator's name is given. The story is called THE STORKS:
    Below in the street a whole crowd of children were playing; and when they caught sight of the Storks, one of the boldest of the boys, and afterwards all of them, sang the old verse about the Storks. But they only sang it just as he could remember it:

      Stork, stork, fly away;
      Go and stay at home to-day.
      Your wife is lying in the nest,
      With four young beneath her breast.

      The first he will be hanged,
      The second will be banged,
      The third he will be burned,
      And the fourth one will be turned
      Outside in!