Vlasta Redl Gets Lost in Translation

So I speak Slovak.

Okay, so I don't speak Slovak well. But I useta did.

Okay, so maybe I never really spoke Slovak well. But I spoke Czech, and that's almost the same thing.

I served a mission for the LDS Church in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. I spent about six months in Bratislava (still one of my favorite places in the world), where my missionary companion picked up a CD of what we thought was some traditional folk music. We were both particularly captivated by a piece called "Bol raz jeden kráľ uhorský," and one day we decided to sit down and see if we could interpret the whole thing.

Now, at the best of times, I have difficulty understanding song lyrics. When they're in another language, then it's pretty much impossible. Heck, I heard the song "Dragostea din tei" (better known as "The Numa Numa Song" in a supermarket and thought it was in English.

Anyway, going into "Bol raz jeden kráľ uhorský," we had a pretty clear idea of what the song was about. The song (we thought) was about a little girl named Anička playing with her dolls. Her father comes in and tells her it's time for bed. Anička doesn't want to go to sleep, and so she cries the whole time while her father drags her to bed. She cries for about three verses, and then eventually falls asleep while her father sings her a lullaby.

Before we really tried to interpret the song, we were able to pick out the word panenka, which means "doll." There was also a line - "Choď Anička posteľ stlati" - which sounded an awful lot like a father telling his daughter to go to bed. So we felt pretty confident in our ability to figure out the rest of the song.

And... well, we were only kinda right.

See, the very first line - "Bol raz jeden kráľ uhorský / Ten podvodníček panenský" - revealed that this story had another character:

There once was a Hungarian king
A real deceiver of women.

Hoo-boy...

We already knew we had things wrong, so we looked up the word panenka again to find out what else it could mean.

And... um... it also means "virgins."

The line about the father telling Anička to go to bed, though, we got just right. The line AFTER that - "Bude s tebou pani spati" - means, "And this lady will go to bed with you."

Here's how the whole story unfolds:

A Hungarian king is able to have his way with all the ladies except Anička, the mayor's daughter. He goes to an old witch for advice, who instructs him to dress in women's clothes and go knock at the mayor's house. The mayor takes the disguised king in and sends him to tend his daughter...

From there, things get uncomfortable. Those three verses about Anička crying suddenly got a lot more sinister.

The final verse, which sounded an awful lot like a lullaby, was exactly that, except it was Anička singing to her son - the child she had after her night with the Hungarian king.

I don't know that we ever listened to that song again.