Skazki: Platonov, Zelenin, Balashov

[Robert Chandler]

THANK YOU  to everyone who replied to my questions about the Platonov and Zelenin skazki!

Here is what we have ended up with for the Platonov sentence.  As several people have said, it is important to keep the casual, "taken-for-granted" tone of all this, so it seems best not to use the word "shame", which is rather different from 'sovestno.

For nearly five years the husband and wife lived in harmony in every way, but they had no children and one can’t live without children, a life without children is no life at all.
Всем жили ладно муж с женой и прожили лет пять без малого, да не было у них детей, а без детей жить нельзя, без детей совестно.
					*

There is a striking skazka from a collection by Balashov.  A young lad who pinches a girl's breast in the bathhouse.  She tells him to come round in the evening.  Then she turns him into a stallion..  She rides him all night; 40 other girls are doing something similar to other lads.  The next night (following advice from his stepmother) he manages to outwit her and turn her into a horse.  He rides her.  Then they argue about who has been riding whom!

It is included by Haney in his COMPLETE RUSSIAN FOLKTALE, But there are some sentences I  still cannot make sense of.  This is from near the beginning. The girl tells the young lad to call round.  
	Попил, поел, нарядился.  Вот подходит, а там уже на конях сидят.  Она его из бани плеткой ударила:
	- Был молодец, стань жеребец!
	Села и поехала.  Сорок их на поле съехалось, девиц этих на таких жеребцах.  И скачут, колько какая может какого ударить, какой бойчее всех.

1. из бани: Is it SHE who comes out of the bathhouse?  Or is it more that she taken the whip from there?
2. More importantly, the last sentence entirely defeats me.  I cannot fit together the  какая ... какого ...какой 

All the best,

Robert

Robert Chandler, 42 Milson Road, London, W14 OLD

tel. +44 207 603 3862




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