Interesting Note

I came across this the other day and was reminded of the perks of reading something in the original language. I have heard a lot about how reading stories in the original give an added dimension to that is lost in translations. Here is a practical example

In one Irish faerie tale, a son asks his father if he can have a certain castle for a day and a night. In the original language of the story, nouns worked something like they do in Greek, where there is no 'a' article. Instead, all nouns have the article 'the' attached to them when you are talking about a specific one. 'I see the sea' would have an article in front, while 'I see a sea' and 'I see sea' would look the same.

The father grants the son his wish and give him the castle for day and night. When the king comes to take possession of the castle the next morning, the son replies that it is his forever, for all of time is divided into day and night.

Unless you know original languages, you miss humorous things like this. Smart kid eh?

Don't feel to badly for the dad though, He was one of the faerie kings and owned more castles than his son had retainers.