Week 6: 小川未明童話集 - Ogawa Mimei’s Collection of Children’s Stories

[WeebPotato]

@omk3

I have a few questions from the first part of 大きなかに :

雪が霰が降ってきそうに、日の光も当たらずに、寒うございました。

First of all, this きそう. I understand it’s くる and そう, but does it mean that it looked like it might snow? Or that it seemed that it had been snowing? Or is it unclear?
Also, 雪が霰が. Is this snow and hail?* Snow in large snowflakes ? Snow or hail?
And this に at the end of both clauses, is it to give a reason for why it was cold?
so many questions for one little sentence…

Here is how I would break it down

雪が霰が降ってきそうに、
I’m not sure why it’s a double が here (could be because 雪 is the subject and が marks 雪 and the later 霰が降ってきそう is just a feature of the snow?), but I would translate it as “it seemed snow was coming down like hail” (resembling hail?). Not quite sure how to put it into proper English .

日の光も当たらずに、
here the に is a part of the 〜ず（に） grammar point which works similar to the 〜ないで grammar point.
So 日の光も当たらずに、 I would translate as “the Sun wasn’t shining either” or “without the Sun shining either”

The full breakdown might make more sense from the end, I guess?
寒うございました。it was/became cold
雪が霰が降ってきそうに、With the snow coming down like hail
日の光も当たらずに、and without the Sun shining either

@omk3

きつねにでもつれられて、どこへかゆきなされたのではないかしらん？

I’m not sure how to break down the first part. Is it でも and つれられて? (he was lured by foxes? so what is でも doing?)
Or is it で and もつれられて (もつれる apparently means to get entangled, but this makes less sense. And what about that で? I don’t think so.)

I think it was explained here when @2OC3aOdKgwSGlxfz had the same question a while back: Help understanding this phrase from the short story 大きなかに

@omk3

その夜にかぎって、太郎は、床の中へ入って眠ろうとはせずに、いつまでも、ランプの下にすわって起きていたのでした。

This is probably a very basic question, but that’s what I get from not learning grammar in any kind of structured way I guess. 床の中へ 入って . This te form connects this getting into bed with what comes next, but in what way? Does it mean “he got into bed without sleeping”? Or does it mean “without getting to bed and sleeping?”. The next part would suggest the latter, but is it obvious to anyone with more solid grammar understanding than me?

Here is how I would look at it

In the case of 床の中へ 入って I think it’s just a regular “and” clause bridging to connect to the thing after, but without emphasizing these two things are strongly linked. That’s how I would interpret it.

Here the connection is a little more apparent:
ランプの下にすわって起きていたのでした。
Sitting under the lamp & being awake