ABSTRACT
The terms, folk tales and fairy tales, are often used interchangeably, but they have different origins. This chapter is concerned with the issues and preoccupations involved in translations, retellings and adaptations for child audience, which means that there is a strong overlap between the translation of folk and fairy tales and translating for children. The focus is on the historical trajectories of folk and fairy tales in translation and on the chief characteristics and challenges for translation practice, using European and South African traditions as examples. Despite the ongoing debate about the definitions of translation and adaptation, there is little doubt that translation is often, certainly in the case of folk and fairy tales, a form of adaptation which goes beyond the conversion from one medium to another. Gillian Lathey observes that "folk tales have only survived thanks to successive and interlingual as well as intralingual retellings and that relay translation is merely the written equivalent of this transmission process".
