Teffi -Tikhaya zavod' - name days

[William Ryan]

1. Yes – Dal’ gives sdvurodnyi as a Novgorodian variant of dvoiurodnyi.

2/3. Simply a non-standard variant of pozdravliat’sia.

The translation is a bit awkward with regard to equivalent idion. 
“pozdravliaiu s dnem rozhdeniia” is literally “I congratulate you on 
your birthday” (which we would not say), i.e. =  “Happy birthday”. While 
we may say Happy Christmas or Happy Easter, or ‘happy holiday!’ I can’t 
really imagine anyone saying “Happy St Florus and Laurus Day”.

Celebrating a “name day” is not common practice in England, nor I think 
in America, although the equivalent is common in many parts of Europe.

The day on which a saint is celebrated is normally called the feastday 
of the saint in English. Since none of the animals here has a name 
anyway I would suggest that some workaround is called for. So:

Именины — святой день. На Зосиму-Савватия пчела именинница. Пчела — 
простая тварь, а и то в свой день не жужжит, не жалит: на цветочек 
сядет, — про свово ангела думает. would be:

“A feastday is a holy day. The feastday for bees is Zosimus and 
Sabbatius day. The bee is a simple creature, but even so it doesn’t buzz 
or sting on its saint’s feastday. It settles on a flower and thinks 
about its patron saint”.


“Лошадь на Фрола и Лавра проздравляется” : “To a horse you have to say 
‘Happy Florus and Laurus day’ .” (Frol is a corruption of Flor)


3. "So when is the cow's patron saint day? You only have to forget, and 
when you forget - you upset her; you tell her off - and its a sin. She 
can't tell you,  she'll just keep quiet. And there, up above, her patron 
saint will start crying.


How you can make these ancient saints’ names sound folksy is beyond me – 
perhaps not worth trying.

Will Ryan


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