The Three Brothers-英语童话故事
-
The Three
Brothers-
英语童话故事
There was once upon a time
a witch, who in the shape of a
hawk
used every night to break the windows of a certain
village church. In the same village
there lived three
brothers, who were
all determined to kill the mischievous
hawk. But in vain did the two eldest
mount guard in the
church with their
guns; as soon as the bird appeared high
above their heads, sleep overpowered
them, and they only
awoke to hear the
windows crashing in.
Then the youngest brother
took his turn of guarding the
windows,
and to prevent his being overcome by sleep he
placed
a lot of thorns under his chin,
so that if he felt drowsy and
nodded
his head, they would prick him and keep him
awake.
The moon was already risen, and it was
as light as day,
when suddenly he heard
a fearful noise, and at the same time
a
terrible desire to sleep overpowered
him.
His eyelids closed, and his head sank
on his shoulders,
but the thorns ran
into him and were so painful that he awoke
at once. He saw the hawk swooping down
upon the church, and
in a moment he had
seized his gun and shot at the bird. The
hawk fell heavily under a big stone,
severely wounded in its
right wing. The
youth ran to look at it, and saw that a huge
abyss had opened below the stone. He
went at once to fetch
his brothers, and
with their help dragged a lot of pine-wood
and ropes to the spot. They fastened
some of the burning
pine-wood to the
end of the rope, and let it slowly down to
the bottom of the abyss. At first it
was quite dark, and the
flaming torch
only lit up dirty grey stone walls. But the