Imageryin Translation. on the Hill inland from Newcastle upon Tyne, though in the fairy­tale it acquires a magic function of a haunted place

on the Hill inland from Newcastle upon Tyne, though in the fairy­tale it acquires a magic function of a haunted place. If we imitate the semantics of the name in Russian, it will come out something like Корова из Хедли, which is not quite comprehensible for a cow is only one of the possible shapes of the boggle in the story. The translator found an intermediary way by adding the idea of bogy to the name: Коровий Оборотень. Transformation takes place in the tale, and there is something of a cow in it. Yet the local touch of Hedley, the imitation of reality, is lost with such a name in Russian.

Symbols of the sacred. A symbol is an important part of the mnemonic techniques in a folklore text, and it varies from nation to nation. The translation problem may not be the symbol itself but the symbolic function as such. One and the same word may play a symbolic role in one culture and lack a symbolic pow­er in another. Unlike such simple symbols as a ring, a flower, a tree, a mountain, and so on, there exist symbols that are known to the source culture and sound meaningless or strange to the target one, like the Russian «избушка на курьих ножках», the abode of Baba-Yaga, indeed any abode in the dark magic forest, and a symbol of supernatural, evil forces. In Russian, it is a mnemonic formula, readily recognisable as referring to the world of dark forest power, a passage to the realm of the dead. Nobody really recognises such a dread symbol in the "hut on chicken legs," which seems so very strange in English that many translators try to use something different, like "a cabin on rooster legs" or "a small hut on hen's legs," etc. It is not without reason that in English editi­ons of Russian fairy tales one can find many strange pictures of the "hut on chicken's legs" that differ greatly from this symbol in the perception of a Russian. Thus, a Russian symbol of the gate­way to the other world becomes enigmatic in English, while it loses its powerfal symbolic function; actually, it is mainly per­ceived as a "gateway to the Russian fairy tale;" In attempts to convert the Russian formula of Baba Yaga's abode into a Europe­an symbol, "the chicken legs" usually disappear and give way to

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just "a strange little hut." The word "strange" plays the role of a symbol in this formula. But then the Russian tale is inevitably replaced by an English fairy story.

One of the most frequent sacral features in folklore is that of ugliness: monsters, dwarves, cripples and hunchbacks, crea­tures with lame legs, crooked nails, hooked noses, etc. Such a creature is not necessarily evil, on the contrary, it may be rather useful and benevolent to people, but in this or that way it belongs to the world of sacral magic or is related to it. Ugliness may fulfil different functions, such as referringto or penetrating into other world, or being evil by nature, or passing through a test of initia­tion to be reborn, etc. In fairy tales, many heroes are transformed into some ugly disguise, such as a frog, a monster, a snake, or a fearsome animal, to be restored to a better and more handsome image in the end. This transfiguration from the ugly into the beau­tiful is one of the most wide spread motifs in many folklore tradi­tions around the world.

Folklore logic and ethic formulas. A mythical or fairy­tale text often includes some particular mnemonic formulas that help to identify the story as belonging wholly or partly to the other world, with its special logic, ethics, morals and reasoring. These are such words and phrases as«грянул он оземь и тутже обернулся серымволком,» in which we can immediately find some contradictory logic, that of a "shape-shifter." A being that changes its shape is admittedly mythical or magic.

Another kind of a mythic logical formula is found in fairy­tale instructions like "you will go there four times four days"or «пойди туда, не знаю куда, принеси то, не знаю что». Such formulas may represent an illogical taboo, or an order, or a spell, and in the source culture they are familiar, easily identified and used in many other contexts to impart some mythical allusion to an ordinary situation. When translated into the target language, such formulas undergo serious or subtle transformations, which influence their mnemonic status. The number of "four" is sacred among the Native Americans, and when such a formula is used, it

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