The Wise Jeweler
(a 1928 translation of Czech and Slovak national fairy tales into English)

Hana Babincová

Many books for children are being translated from English into Czech nowadays. But are there, or were there, any books being translated from Czech into English as well? Apparently there are such books. The Wise Jeweler, a translation of a book of fairy tales which I will analyze in this essay, is one of them.
The Wise Jeweler was published in 1928. It is a collection of selected Czech and Slovak national fairy tales, which were translated into English by Mrs. Marie Čapková. Why were these fairy tales translated into English? And who read them? I will try to answer these questions in the first part of this essay. Its second part is devoted to the translation analysis. 

The Translator and the Book

Mr. Norbert Čapek was an editor of Czech and Slovak magazines in America. He helped to create Czechoslovak Alliance and Slovak League in the state of New Jersey, and he was also a correspondent of Anglo-American magazines. Madame Čapek accompanied her husband to the U.S.A. She worked in New York as a librarian and she also worked in children’s and women’s clubs. In America, Mr. and Mrs. Čapek tried to win support for the establishment of an independent Czechoslovak state. 
For whom did she translate the fairy tales? She wanted children of Czech and Slovak emigrants to know Czech and Slovak national fairy tales, but she wanted English-speaking children to enjoy them as well. She also wanted the children to learn something about the country the fairy tales came from. The book in English begins with A Letter from the Translator, in which she mentions some basic facts about Czechoslovakia. Madame Čapek was very well aware of the fact that certain aspects of the fairy tales may not be easy to understand for a foreign reader. She tried to explain such issues in the appendix, which contains information important for understanding of the context.
Thus, for example, in her commentary to Salt above Gold fairy tale she explained that it is an old Slavonic custom to welcome visitors by bread and salt, and that was why the king in this tale, who did not have even a pinch of salt, was not able to welcome any guests in his castle. It is also explained in the appendix that names under the titles of the fairy tales are not names of the authors, but of the writers who gathered the folk tales and prepared them for print.
And why did she translate fairy tales? In A Letter from the Translator, she wrote: “The stories in this book have been told again and again to Czech children of New York, who simply loved them” (The Wise Jeweler, A Letter from the Translator, 6). This inspired her to translate the fairy tales into English.
There are selected fairy tales by four Czech and Slovak writers and fairy tale collectors in the book: Božena Němcová, K. J. Erben, M. Mikšíček and B. M. Kulda. I decided to analyze the translation of those collected by Božena Němcová. I chose the following five fairy tales: The Wise Jeweler (Moudrý zlatník), Káča and the Devil (Čert a Káča), The Clever Mountain Lass (Chytrá horákyně), The Twelve Moons (Dvanáct měsíčků) and Salt above Gold (Sůl nad zlato). 

The Translation 

Fairy-tales appear to be a peculiar genre for translation. The problems translators encounter while translating fairy tales are common translation difficulties in the first place, and problems connected with cultural differences in the second. As fairy tales were originally passed on verbally, the language as such is not particularly difficult. While reading the original fairy tales and analyzing their translation, I came across the following problems:

1. translation of the titles of fairy-tales, 
2. translation of the names of the characters
3. and translation of culturally-specific terms.

Names of the Fairy-Tales
The translation of the titles of fairy-tales is very important, but it is sometimes difficult to translate the title precisely. The names of the stories The Wise Jeweler, The Twelve Moons and Salt above Gold enabled the translator to use word-for-word method of translation. In the title of Káča and the Devil, the translator changed the word order, probably because she decided to retain the Czech name Káča - and the title might sound clumsy in the target language the other way round. In the title of The Clever Mountain Lass, the Czech word “horákyně” had to be replaced by two English expressions. 
In the title of The Twelve Moons there are, however, two problems: in English, there are two different lexical items for what there is only one in Czech - “moon” and “month” for “měsíc”. The translator chose the “moon”, the more concrete of the two. It is true, however, that later in the fairy-tale the translator also uses the word “months”, so maybe the personification of the word “moons” was used above all for the title. The translator also omitted the diminutive in the title of the fairy tale - she translated “Dvanáct měsíčků” as “The Twelve Moons”. 

Characters’ Names  
Whether it is better to retain the names of the characters in the original language or to translate them into target language is not a problem typical of fairy-tales only. In a translation of national fairy tales, the translators have to decide whether to keep the names in Czech, trying to highlight the foreign background, or whether to Anglicize them in hope that readers will then find the text more natural and easier for them to read.  
Madame Čapek chose the first method and she kept the names of all the characters in Czech: Káča from Káča and the Devil, Liběna and Radoš from The Wise Jeweler, Maruška and Holena from The Twelve Moons, Manka from The Clever Mountain Lass and Maruška from Salt above Gold. 
There is, however, a problem with different versions of the names. In Káča and the Devil, the name of the main character is kept Káča, but sometimes she is called “Kačenka”, and this diminutive is omitted in the translation. In The Twelve Moons and Salt above Gold, the names of the main characters, “Maruška”, are diminutives, and those are kept in the translation. Evil Holena sometimes calls Maruška “Maruša”, which is not omitted. 

Culturally Specific Issues
Certain areas of a vocabulary of a language are often culturally specific. These are then difficult to translate. Translators have to choose whether to use “cultural translation” and replace such expressions by their equivalents in the target language, or whether to choose “linguistic translation” and include certain explanatory notes into the translation.  
One of the specific issues concerning the translation is the titles of the people who administer a country or a town. In Káča and the Devil, the word “rychtář” is translated as “Justice of the Peace”, the word “správce” is translated as “minister”, and the word “kníže” is translated as “prince” and “lord”. Another issue concerns translations of various types of money. Czech word “peníze” is translated as “dollars”. Czech expression “dukát” is translated as “ducat” and “tolar” again as “dollar”, maybe because it is “big money” compared to “krejcar” and “groš”, which were both translated as “penny”. 
All of these translations were adapted to a foreign cultural reality. In both of the issues, the translator could have used expression that would be linguistically more precise, but she probably preferred the “cultural translation”, considering the age of the potential readers.  
I found it very difficult to translate the names by which Holena from The Twelve Moons addresses her sister Maruška: “švandro, gryňo”. These expressions are from a dialect and it is difficult to translate them and retain the atmosphere. These expression are repeated three times - each time Maruška is being sent out to the woods - and the translator chose three different translations: “you impudent thing”, “you insolent thing” and “you impudent creature”.
Another possible solution of a cultural difference appears in Salt above Gold: the word “babička” is kept in Czech. There is an explanation that “babička” means “Granny” in Czech in the appendix. “Babička” is the wise woman who helped Maruška when her Father banished her from the palace. The translator may have decided to retain the word in Czech because the word “babička” does not mean only “Granny” in Czech. It can also mean “a kind elderly lady”, and it is very often used in fairy tales right in this meaning, while the English word “Granny” can suggest the atmosphere, but its usage is more or less limited to family members.      

On the whole, two approaches are joined in Madame Čapek’s translation. She did not try to suppress foreign cultural reality of the fairy tales, but, on the other hand, substituted certain expressions by their cultural equivalents, and thus enabled young readers to perceive the tales more easily. 
Madame Čapek translated the fairy tales in hope that she will offer something new to English-speaking children. She hoped, above all, that they will enjoy them. Information from A Letter from the Translator and the appendix support the idea that the purpose of the translation of these fairy tales was not only to offer entertainment to children, but also to acquaint them a little with the environment of the country the fairy tales come from.    

Bibliography:
Komenského slovník naučný, svazek II. Nakladatelství a vydavatelství Komenského slovníku naučného, Prague 1937   
Němcová, Božena. Pohádky. Praha, 1957. 
The Wise Jeweler and Other Tales from Czechoslovakia. Praha: Orbis, 1928