Reported Forms in Folk Tales

1. Why tales use reported forms. Bulgarian verbs can show how the speaker knows about an event (see witnessed, reported and inferred forms). Nobody telling a folk tale saw what happened in it, so the narrator passes the story on in reported forms from the first line to the last:

• Имало едно време един беден човек. (Once upon a time there was a poor man.)
• Той имал трима сина. (He had three sons.)
• И живели дълго и щастливо. (And they lived long and happily.)

2. What the forms look like. In the third person the reported form is the л-participle alone, with no е or са (see reported forms in the third person). It agrees with the subject: царят рекъл, царицата рекла, детето рекло, синовете рекли.

3. Events and background. A tale needs both, just as an ordinary story needs the aorist and the imperfect:

• Events that move the story forward use the reported aorist, built on the ordinary л-participle: Момъкът тръгнал, вървял три дни и стигнал до един замък. (The young man set off, walked for three days and reached a castle.)
• Background, states and repeated actions use the reported imperfect, built on the imperfect л-participle: Всеки ден пасял овцете и свирел на кавал. (Every day he grazed the sheep and played the shepherd's flute.)

For many verbs the two participles are the same (имал, чакал). Verbs such as чета (чел / четял) and ходя (ходил / ходел) show the difference.

4. Plans and earlier events inside a tale. What someone was going to do takes щял да: Змеят щял да изяде девойката. (The dragon was going to eat the maiden.) Something that had already happened takes бил: Когато се върнал, птицата била отлетяла. (When he came back, the bird had flown away.)

5. Verbs after да usually do not change. As a rule, a verb after да keeps its ordinary present form: Хукнал да бяга. (He started to run.) Решил да се ожени. (He decided to get married.) One exception: after когато и да, където и да and similar words (whenever, wherever), the verb is reported too: Където и да отидел, все го познавали. (Wherever he went, people recognized him.)

6. Characters' own words stay ordinary. What a character says in quotation marks or after a dialogue dash is normal speech: „Кой си ти?“ – попитал царят. (“Who are you?” asked the king.) Only the narrator's lines use reported forms.

7. Jokes and legends. Bulgarian jokes are told the same way: Отишъл Иванчо на училище и учителката го попитала... (Ivancho went to school and the teacher asked him...) So are legends: Според легендата тук живял змей. (According to legend, a dragon lived here.) Well-known history, by contrast, is usually told with the ordinary past tenses, because it is presented as established fact: През 681 година хан Аспарух основа българската държава.

Some literary retellings by individual writers use the ordinary aorist instead, so you may meet both. Traditional tales, as people tell them, keep to reported forms.