IV. Дівчина в козячій шкурі
. . . .
.
! . , .
. :
— , ?
— , , , — . — , .
Ossetian tales and childhood scenes, for A1
The Magic Goat and Other Tales Чарівна Коза та інші казки
Stepan Vasylchenko
This is not Stepan Vasylchenko’s original text but MovaReader’s own retelling, in simple Ukrainian, of four short pieces from volume IV of his collected works: two Ossetian folk tales he wrote down and retold, Чарівна Коза (The Magic Goat) and Чорний Орел (The Black Eagle), and two scenes from a village childhood, Золота діжа (The Golden Kneading Trough) and Неслухняний глечик (The Naughty Jug). It is for readers who are just starting Ukrainian: about 4,000 words in 15 short chapters, told in the present tense, with 6 words per sentence on average and a lot of dialogue.
- A1
- 3 966 words
- 1 hour
Will this text hold?
A1
This text
You can manage it at A1 if you know the present tense and a few hundred everyday words: scenes repeat in threes, so when the brother is turned back by the goat for the third time, or the boy wakes for the third time to the light of the Sun’s daughter, you read it without a tap.
Check this passageA2
With room to spare
At A2 the tales read almost without translation: a quick warm-up before past-tense retellings such as Наймичка (The Servant Girl), and, much later, Vasylchenko’s own stories, which the catalogue has as complete B2 texts.
Start readingThe average sentence has 6 words (5.8 before rounding), and 162 of the 347 paragraphs are lines of dialogue. The narration stays in the present tense; past forms such as знайшла (found) or стріляв (shot) turn up only in a few lines of dialogue and thought. Words of 9 letters or more make up 2.9% of the text, below the 3.8% of Біда навчить та інші казки (Trouble Teaches and Other Tales) and the 3.1% of Котигорошко та інші казки (Kotyhoroshko and Other Tales), the catalogue’s other A1 books of tales, while A2 retellings such as Наймичка (The Servant Girl) already have 9-10 words per sentence. Vasylchenko’s own complete stories in the catalogue, Мужицька арифметика та інші оповідання (Peasant Arithmetic and Other Stories), are B2, with 12 words per sentence and 9.4% long words. The difficulty is even: chapter XII averages 5.0 words per sentence and chapter X 6.5. Hence A1. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 3 966
- words
- 6
- words in an average sentence
- 1
- hour of reading
MovaReader. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
A prince’s three sisters marry three Black Eagles and fly away, and the youngest brother sets out across seven steppes to find them. On the road a goat keeps blocking his way, and every shot he fires at her breaks his rifle and kills his horse, until one night, in a little village hut, he sees the goat take off her skin. In the second tale a poor boy saves a black eagle from his angry father and follows it to a palace behind an iron gate; later, to escape a man-eating giant, he must bring him Akulian, the daughter of the Sun, with the help of a knight who can turn into a dog, a comb or a pair of shoes. Two short scenes close the book: a grandfather who makes children see wild horses in the clouds, and a jug that gets the blame when it breaks. What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Чарівна Коза та інші казки
XII. Дочка Сонця
.
— , ! — . — . . !
. . . .
— , , ! — .
— , — . — . .
.
— , !
— , . .
, .
— , !
— , . .
Choose an underlined word.
Ви to a parent
The daughter speaks to her own mother with the plural ви: Мамо, чого ви сьогодні так мало зварили? Traditionally, Ukrainian village children addressed their parents as ви out of respect, while the mother answers with ти and the tender доню, the vocative of донька (daughter).
Light without a subject
Світає (dawn is breaking) and стає світло (it is getting light) have no subject at all, like English “it” in “it is getting light”. The joke of the scene is that the light here is not dawn but the Sun’s daughter at her window, so watch the light grow step by step: світло, ще світліше, світло, як удень.
Chapters
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
€1 a month
Reader translates the whole sentence where two short clauses carry one idea, as in the young prince’s answer to the eagle’s warning, Пустить чи не пустить, а спробувати треба, “whether she lets me through or not, I have to try”.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
All books at this level
_-_01.jpg){kind=link}
Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
An adaptation, not an original text. It is MovaReader’s own retelling in simple modern Ukrainian of four pieces by Stepan Vasylchenko (1879-1932): two Ossetian folk tales that he recorded and retold, Чарівна Коза (The Magic Goat), first printed as a small book by Krynytsia in Kyiv in 1918, and Чорний Орел (The Black Eagle), printed in his Осетинські казки (Ossetian Tales, Krynytsia, 1919); and two short sketches of a village childhood from his cycle Крилаті слова (Winged Words), Золота діжа (The Golden Kneading Trough) and Неслухняний глечик (The Naughty Jug). All four were read on Ukrainian Wikisource in volume IV of his Повна збірка творів (Complete Works, Kharkiv: State Publishing House of Ukraine, 1929, second edition), whose spelling still has older forms such as оддати and одчинити; the selection and order of the pieces are the catalogue’s own. What changed: everything is told in the present tense in short sentences, in today’s standard spelling and vocabulary; the journeys across the steppes and the knight’s tricks are shortened, the children’s riddles are mostly left out, and one line now explains what a діжа is. The plots and the characters remain. The source texts themselves are not in the catalogue.
Is there an audiobook?
No, there is no audio version on MovaReader; the text is read on screen. Tap an unfamiliar word and its translation appears: here that will often be words of the farm and the village, such as шкапа (an old nag) or лоша (a foal).
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes: whole-sentence translation comes with the Reader plan. Sentences here average 6 words, so you will need it less for their length than for jokes such as the mother’s Глечик глухий, у нього нема вух (“the jug is deaf, it has no ears”), which plays on вушко, the jug’s handle, literally “little ear”. Without the plan you can translate single words until the daily limit runs out.
How many hours does it take?
About an hour for the whole book, at the pace of someone who still translates new words, not a native speaker’s. The 15 chapters run from about 180 to 390 words: The Magic Goat fills chapters I-VII (about 1,740 words), The Black Eagle chapters VIII-XIII (about 1,650), and the two childhood scenes chapters XIV-XV (about 580), so each tale fits in one sitting.
Where does the text get easier?
The difficulty is even. Chapter XII, where the boy keeps waking at night and asking whether it is morning yet, has the shortest sentences (5.0 words on average); chapter X, with the little box, has the longest (6.5). Chapter IV has the fewest long words, 0.9%, and chapter XII the most, 6.4% against 2.9% for the whole book, because of forms such as черевиків (shoes) and прокидається (wakes up).
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. After you sign in, the reader remembers where you stopped and which words you opened. The contents on this page also open any of the 15 chapters directly, for example chapter XIV, Золота діжа.