Thread: Арысь - поле

Hello everybody:
I am trying to translate the folk-tale "Арысь - поле" into English.

So far I have some questions:

In the fragment:

"А ведьма еще пуще злится, зависть ей покоя не дает; улучила она время, обратила свою падчерицу зверем Арысь-поле и выгнала в дремучий лес,"

I translated this as:
But the hag grew even angrier and envy gave her no rest. She found the time to turn her stepdaughter into the beast Aris-field and expelled her into dense woods.

What is Aris-field? I googled it and There is an Aris river in Kazakhstan. Is this where this tale originates? Is Aris-field a beast that everybody knows about in the Russian mythological country?


Anyway, another line: ( which heppens to be the next one in the story):
а в падчерицыно платье нарядила свою родную дочь и подставила ее вместо стариковой дочери.

I cannot find the meaning for падчерицыно and стариковой. I know they have to do with some form of stepdaughter for the former and old man for the latter. So my attempt is:

an she dressed her own daughter in her stepdaughter's dress and passed her as the old man's daughter.

I certainly know that стариковой does not mean old cowboy. He, he!



Ay! el ruso.


Rafael

Originally Posted by Rafael

But the hag grew even angrier and envy gave her no rest. She found the time to turn her stepdaughter into the beast Aris-field and expelled her into a dense wood.

What is Aris-field? I googled it and There is an Aris river in Kazakhstan. Is this where this tale originates? Is Aris-field a beast that everybody knows about in the Russian mythological country?

No, this myth is not widely known. And I have no Idea about its origin and do not know exactly why the beast is called like "field" (I have a guess though that it is because stem of "поле" in Old Russian had some additional meanings, related to savage territory and hunting). So IMO there is no field in the beast, "Арысь-поле" is a solid proper name and should be translated something like "Arys-Polye". And I am not sure that it has any connections to Aris in Kazakhstan.

BTW рысь means lynx.

Edit: One more guess: as "поле" may refer to the savage steppe and lynx is a forest animal "Арысь-поле" may be a name of cheetah, "steppe-lynx" (I read somewhere that in old times cheetahs lived in the steppe south of Rus and when being tamed was used by Russian princes as hunting animals). So it is a werecheetah!

Originally Posted by Rafael

an she dressed her own daughter in her stepdaughter's dress and passed her as the old man's daughter.

Exactly.

Thank you very much:

it-ogo wrote:
But the hag grew even angrier and envy gave her no rest. She found the time to turn her stepdaughter into the beast Aris-field and expelled her into a dense wood.

What does the orange color scheme you placed mean?

Yeah... misterious millenary mythsfrom a time when cheetas roamed Southern Russia. mmm. It would be interesting to get that source.

Originally Posted by Rafael

What does the orange color scheme you placed mean?

It means I do not like this translation but have no Idea how to improve. In English it sounds like if she was very busy but still found some time to do it. But in Russian it means something like sneak sudden attack.

Originally Posted by Rafael

Yeah... misterious millenary mythsfrom a time when cheetas roamed Southern Russia. mmm. It would be interesting to get that source.

Maybe it was a mystification. But I did read it somewhere.

Edit: checked, no mystifications. There are some cheetahs in Iran even now but before they dwelled even more to the north. For example in Turkmenistan last savage cheetah was detected in 1960-s. So having tamed cheetahs by Russian princes is quite possible.

I think I improved on that sentence:

улучила она время, обратила свою падчерицу зверем Арысь-поле и выгнала в дремучий лес,"The new translation:

She seized a moment to turn her stepdaughter into the beast Aris-field and expelled her into dense woods.

I am tempted to translate Арысь-поле into Forest-lynx kind of like Steppenwolf in German.

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%90%D1% ... 0%BB%D0%B5