A Gift of Sanctuary

　　Author: Anonymous

　　A little boy, scion of a wealthy house, oncewent to the lake shore with his parents on holiday. While the elders sippedwine in a cabin with their snooty fellows, the boy was left to play in the sandand mud. He was terribly sad at being so scorned, and went searching for afriend.

　　The boy did not have to search long. He founda wonderfully chatty duck in the reeds who told him stories of places the boycould only dream of. Though he was quickly enchanted by the tales, the boybecame melancholy that he would never see such a place with his own eyes. Theduck laughed and told him that this was not so! They would build one together!

　　The boy and the duck waded out to a smallisland on the lake and together they built a tiny house of sticks and sand.This sufficed for an hour, until the duck suggested that a house was not afitting place for the boy. He deserved a palace! The mortar of mud would not beenough, but one of the adults might help.

　　The boy went back to the cabin and found anoble who had stepped outside to relieve himself, so inebriated he was. He waseasily coaxed into following the boy back to the island, where the duck leaptand tore out his throat to use blood and flesh for the mortar and bones for thebeams. The boy was delighted, but the palace had to be bigger!

　　Back he went, again and again, to collect thedrunken folk to show them the magnificent palace. Again and again the duckadded their bits to the wondrous palace, whose spires and arches dried tobecome alabaster and gold.

　　When the boy's parents came to collect him,he took them to see his magnificent palace out on the lake. They screamed andscreamed and ran, leaving the boy alone with the duck. He was not sad! Togetherthey made merry on the island until the mists closed in around it and spiritedit away to a land of cheer and mirth for all time.

　　该文本出自上古卷轴OL，一个血腥而诡异的故事。在UESP的页面上则直接写上了A twisted tale of a boy'sencounter with a duck（一个关于男孩遇见鸭子的扭曲故事）这样的副标题，因为有剧透之嫌就没放在标题处翻译。

　　关于题目的翻译，原本将A Gift of Sanctuary直译成“圣所的礼物”，但总感觉怪怪的，于是按文章内容将其转译成“鸭子的礼物”

　　本文初读给人一种《鹅妈妈童谣》里那些黑色童话的感觉，于是我便尝试着按照童话故事的风格来翻译这篇短篇小说。

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