Thread: Fairy tales questions

I'm translating the Adam Gibbs poem and there are lines:
"I no longer believe in transmogrifying frogs
or that princes can only exist in threes."
Does he mean that in English fairy tales every king has three sons?

Also I'm interested is there any traditioanl translation for Russian folk tales characters names, such as Баба-Яга, Кощей Бессмертный, etc.
What about Змей Горыныч? Should I just transliterate it? Or use "Snake something"? Or just call him a dragon (but the problem is he is not exactly a dragon...)

I wouldn't say that all English fairy-tales have three-sonned kings in them, but they probably do have three sons in stories more than people do in real life.

Presumably, yes, he means that the sons come in sets of 3. But I don't really know what he's talking about -- off the top of my head I'm not thinking of any? And I think it's simply "Baba Yaga" in English; the others, no idea!

Take a look at the translations of the Russian folk tales here
(BTW, the very first match of Google):
http://russian-crafts.com/tales.html

You can take advantage of this discussion:
http://info.study.ru/index.cgi?open=1045834858_30132

Hooray to our beloved Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorynich

I'd say that single-sex collections of children are unrealistically common in fairy-tales, guys and gals alike.

Originally Posted by gRomoZeka

I'm translating the Adam Gibbs poem and there are lines:
"I no longer believe in transmogrifying frogs
or that princes can only exist in threes."
Does he mean that in English fairy tales every king has three sons?

Yes, that's what he means.

Thanks all of you and thanks to Rtyom for links. It helped.

Yes, in "English" fairytales there aren't really that many recurring people as you see in Russian fairytales ("English", because many famous fairytales in English originated in another European country (take Grimm brothers, Hansel and Gretel as examples...) So while Baba-Yaga occurs all over the place in Russia, the Wicked Witch of the East only appears once, etc.

In Norwegian (ho-hum) fairytales we have recurring personas, sunch as (for Norse mythology) an evil snake, an evil god (Loke), a wise god (Odin) , (or more tradional fairytales) a oppressed but smart son of three (Askeladden), trolls etc...

Originally Posted by Seventh-Monkey

I'd say that single-sex collections of children are unrealistically common in fairy-tales, guys and gals alike.

Lol, and fairy tales are realistic anyway?

Originally Posted by kalinka_vinnie

Yes, in "English" fairytales...

Thanks, kalinka_vinnie. And I know, "English fairytales" sounds lamely. I just couldn't find a proper word.

Originally Posted by basurero

Originally Posted by Seventh-Monkey

I'd say that single-sex collections of children are unrealistically common in fairy-tales, guys and gals alike.

Lol, and fairy tales are realistic anyway?

Yeah, but, that bit is inaccurate although vaguely realistic, unlike talking snakes and witches.

I know a guy who has 4 sons, and he does not live in a fairytale, let me tell you.