It's been 26 days since last update to translation when I uploaded some more late yesterday, and update before that was unannounced. Way more than I thought it was. I'm really sorry about that.
Rants here:
It was very busy month. To start things - one day when two different branches of my heating system started significantly differing in temperatures I decided it's time to add some water to it. That day I found the leak I mentioned earlier. Basically what happened was that water from installation emptied into boiler room through smoke conduit. I took all clamps off and saw that it's so corroded that it fell apart in my hands. Alright I thought, that is rather easy to replace, now to find the leak. There is a fin filled with water inside boiler that causes hot air from above burning coal to circle around it, thus heating water (some heat is also transported through sides) . I saw that it's crusted with ash mixed with water so I took screwdriver to scrape it off a bit to try and look for a hole. And my screwdriver went through fin (and I mean through - both upper and lower plate). Rather unpleasant discovery..
I bought myself new boiler, the cheapest there was to buy, and I installed it with a help of my uncle. It took me few days to learn how to operate it, because it's way stronger than I need, and I ended up boiling water inside it, then there were problems with tarry coal that caused tar to condensate and block the doors, but I managed to find proper point when there is enough air that condensation doesn't occur and my installation is not too hot. This boiler is unfortunately way smaller than my previous one so fuel lasts for up to six hours only. It's maker states four so it's not that bad, but this means that most of the time I have to restart fire in the morning.
Then there were further proceedings in inheritance, it's basically done, I'm now awaiting a paper from court confirming change in mortgage register. I owe nice amount to my brother now, but he decided to make it unofficial. Well I probably will be able to pay him off without too much effort, but it will take me four years or so. But I'm glad that was settled. Of course things can't be too easy - in mortgage register my flat belongs to certain street, while site to another. Site has proper name, while flat has previous one. In 1991 there was a huge wave of name changing due to political reasons. Somehow street name was changed in site register, but not flat register. I have to wait for ownership to show up, and then go to the Cadastre and obtain a writ stating that on street A there is a building number X and in it flat number Y. Than I will need to go to court and ask for correcting data in register. Simple, but time consuming.
Downside is that I took a closer look at chimneys, since there is a problem with new boiler - when I start fire some smoke backs up into boiler room, and into staircase. I found out that chimney is curved somewhere around ceiling of my part of the house, while my neighbor says that i's curved even more in his part, over mine. I have feeling that I will have to rebuild chimney from scratch to be able to mount proper retort boiler I want. Additional cost. Will they never end? Ventilation shaft doesn't work at all. So now I open window and there is no smoke backing into boiler room. But so far we have no winter - so this is no problem. There is even forecast stating that in middle of next week we will get +15 Celsius. I'm not worried, since this means that I can save some coal. But I'd like to take my baby girl sleighing. Maybe some other year. Happened to me too. There was only enough snow to enjoy when I was three. And then when I was twenty one and struggled to get my car running. Climate change...
To the matter at hand.
Opening sequence is from real book by Victor Pelevin, There is translation of it but I did mine before I found it, and it stuck as there were no significant differences, but I changed something a bit. Originally there was fox where I put vixen. And after this change translation is even more faithful than it was. Sapkowski did this trick too. Fox and Polish "lis" are male in gender. But Russian "лиса" (lisa) or "лисица" (lisitsa) aren't. They are feminine so they would literally translate to vixen, not a fox. Sapkowski used this to better fit quote to his story, so I went this path too.
I have no idea in hell how to convey some thing that Sapkowski did. The book is titled "Священная книга оборотня" (Svyashchennaya kniga oborotnia). And he listed this in Polish phonetics as "Swiasczennaja kniga oborotnia". This form is easy to understand to anyone knowing Russian, and Sapkowski certainly does. So do I, but people of my generation rarely do. Even if someone doesn't know Russian it's rather easy to get the rough idea. If I put translit in English this would not work for those not knowing Russian. Original title translates literary to English would be "The sacred book of changeling". I have no clue as to why it's was changed to werewolf while publishing as it doesn't even have sense. Werewolf could be considered a type of changeling technically, but it's obvious that's stretching it too far.
Fun fact: there is no good word for changeling in Polish. It would be odmieniec, but that shifted and now means roughly misfit or weirdo. In Slavic mythology this weirdness or misfitting was attributed to being replaced by a fairy in infancy - thus supernatural quality, But this eroded so much that it's just afterthought to "misfit" meaning. On the other hand shape-shifters were popular in Slavic mythology and Russians retain much more of that. Whole forefront of Christianity and eradicating pagan superstitions thing surely.
Hopefully I will be able to do more translation as care was taken of most of legal things. I will have to get new contracts for electricity, gas and waste disposal, but that's hopefully all.
Merry Christmas and a Happy new Year to all of you.
Edit:
I did some spell-checking. It was quite off. Should be better now. Just epub updated.
. Do you know when the short stories in the "Something ends, something begins" take place ?? Is it before the series novels or after ?? Thanks !!
