Saturday, August 15, 2009

Old tales (Gamla svansar)

This post is by request from my sister and brother... (and for Sarah too)

When I was in Sweden I found my old writing books from second grade, when I was about 8 years old, and I very much wonder what my teachers really thought about my stories. Talk about lively imagination... Unfortunately they didn't grade each essay. Here is one example:

Originalet på svenska (original in Swedish, med exakt grammatik ur skrivboken):
En aprilmorgon gick Fantomen till livsmedelsaffären för att handla påskmat till sin lata och ilskna lyxhustru, Diana. Hon hade ocksaå bett honom köpa en rulle sytråd för att laga hans strumpbyxor. Med sig hade han Devil, hans gammla sjuka jakthund. Hunden tiggde om leverpastej och nötkakor. Men kakor fick han inte, eftersom han kunde få magplågor då. När Fantomen svängde runt hörnet vid ostdisken halkade han på ett bananskal och slog huvudet i en vetemjölspåse. Han fick en stjärnsmäll. Hans lösgom for ut ur munnen och råkade ge Devil ett bett i vänsterörat. Vid åsynen av blodströmmen från såret kräktes Fantomen upp frukostgröten och svimmade bland toalettpappersrullarna.

Loose translation:
One morning in April the Phantom went to the grocery store to buy Easter food for his lazy and angry luxury wife, Diana. She had also asked him to buy a roll of thread so she could mend his tights. With him he had Devil, his old, sick hunting dog. The dog begged for liverwurst and nut cookies. But he didn't get any cookies, because then he would get stomach pains. When the Phantom turned around a corner by the cheese counter he slipped on a banana peel and hit his head on a wheat flour bag. He saw stars inside his eyes. His loose teeth flew out of his mouth and happened to give Devil a bite in his left ear. When the Phantom saw the blood streaming from the wound, he threw up his breakfast porridge and fainted among the toilet paper rolls.

Notes: The Phantom (Fantomen) is a comic hero, and the stories were translated into Swedish. The nut cookies were probably the ones my grandmother made with hazelnuts, oh, they were delicious. The rest I have no idea where it came from.

3 comments:

Chad Lebo said...

I will personally wrangle and ship all the lemurs in Madagascar to you if anywhere else in the world this combination of words have ever appeared:

"When the Phantom saw the blood streaming from the wound, he threw up his breakfast porridge and fainted among the toilet paper rolls."

Lovely story. Exquisite details. I can almost taste the liverwurst and hazelnut cookies...and for that I will never forgive you.

LS said...

Dear Mr. Lebo,
I am sorry that I have caused you such suffering :) I will immediately take that half eaten liverwurst out of our fridge and ship it to you.

Sarah said...

It's so specific! The type of cookies, the type of flour...I love the teeth flying out and biting something on their way!