a song from Sorsele, from Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (1876)

A short Sámi courting song from Sorsele in Swedish Lapland. The Sámi poet Lars Fjellner dictated it to Otto Donner, who printed it in 1876; Fjellner also had it in a manuscript more than fifty years old, and Donner warns that its language is faulty and that some of its phrases could not be explained. A young man wades round forest and fell and through two waters, tells the girl that he is the only son of Maria, and says that his brooch will move on when she refuses. Four of its words could not be identified and are kept in Sámi.

Translation

Uijā, jaijā, jaijā,
Here with my šūge I am wading (? I waded)
around the forest, the fell,
with dry stocking feet.
Two aučam I shall set out to walk,
two waters I shall wade,
let us indeed cuópcat my šūga to you,
you, girl, consider:
I am that only son of Maria.
My iron rauʒen brooch shall move on
when you, girl, shall refuse this.

Colophon

Translated from the Sámi of Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1876), no. 10. Donner wrote it down from the dictation of the Sámi poet Lars Fjellner, one of six pieces (nos. 10–15) that he had from him; for this song and the next two Fjellner also had a manuscript more than fifty years old. Donner warns that the language of these pieces is faulty and that Fjellner could not always explain obscure phrases. Donner printed a Finnish translation after each song; it was not consulted. The text used is the Project Gutenberg transcription of Donner's book, with the Sámi lines proofed against the Sámi of his German edition, Lieder der Lappen, 1876.

The language is not North Sámi. It is the Sámi of Sorsele, in the Ume Sámi country of Swedish Lapland, with some northern forms, written in Donner's phonetic script, and the reading is less sure than for the northern songs. Words were checked in E. Lindahl and J. Öhrling's Lexicon Lapponicum (1780), whose language is the nearest to that of Sorsele, in I. Halász's South Sámi dictionary (Svéd-lapp nyelv IV, 1891), in K. B. Wiklund's Lule-lappisches Wörterbuch (1890), in J. A. Friis's Ordbog over det lappiske Sprog (1887) and in the library's North Sámi word list. In the title, Lúondus is read as "bride": Lindahl–Öhrling give luonto, luondo, as a person's nature and, "most often", one's lot in marriage, and also as "sponsa, brud", a bride, with luontosas, "his bride", and luontosassa, "a bride destined by fate" (s.v. Luonto, Luontosassa); vúole' is a song (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Wuöle, "cantilena, visa, sång"). Gālimen is "wading", in a form for an action going on (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Kalet, "aquam ingredi … gå i vatnet, vada", with muotekeb kalet, to wade through snow; the same -men in their wadsemen le, s.v. Wadset); Donner's queried alternative gālim is "I waded". Tān is read as "here" (Wiklund s.v. ta-, inessive tane, "hier"); read as Lindahl–Öhrling's tan, "of this", the line would be "with this my šūge". Bīra is "around" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Wadset: pira wadset, "gå omkring"); vúomem is the forest (Lindahl–Öhrling's Swedish index s.v. Skog: wuobme, wuome) and vārem the fell (s.v. Ware, "mons, berg"). Sohka juólgakī koika is read as "with dry stocking feet". Lindahl–Öhrling give kåike, "siccus, aridus, torr", with the example kåike juolki jeggit wadset, "to walk dry-shod over the bogs" (gå torrskodd öfver myrorna), and the verb kåiket, "to be dry", whose present kåika ("gramen arescit") answers to the form printed here (s.v. Kåike, Kåiket; juolke, "foot", Swedish index s.v. Fot); sohka is read as their suokko, "tibiale, strumpa", a stocking, beside the Finnish sucka (s.v. Suokko). The same page gives kåikek, "calcei Lapponibus usitati", the Sámi shoes of hairy reindeer skin, "ludna lappskor" (s.v. Kåikek), which would make the line "stocking feet in fur shoes", though koika lacks that word's final -k; the reading "dry" is taken because the dictionary itself joins kåike with juolki and with crossing wet ground. The vowel of sohka and the final -ī of juólgakī are not explained; if that -ī is the negative verb, the line would say that the stocking feet do not dry. Vāʒačit is "set out to walk" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Wadset, "ire, gå"), with the -č- that marks the start of an action; galke, galka and galk are "shall" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Kalkab, "v. auxil. futuri, jag skal", which gives the first person; the persons in lines ten and eleven are read from context); cācem is water (s.v. Tjatse). Ēčen is read as the auxiliary that Halász gives as ača-, taken with an infinitive ("auxiliare cum infinitivo = 'ut' finale"), whose forms for "we" and "we two" include ačen and ečen in Frostviken and ečin and ečien in Stensele (IV p. 4 s.v. ača-). Halász gives no example, so "let us" is a reading; "so that we two may" is the other. Guit is "indeed" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Kuit, "quidem, certe, fuller"); dudńe is "to you" (North Sámi dutnje). Šūga is taken as what is brought to the girl, although it lacks the object ending -m; it could instead be the second of the "we two" ("my šūga and I"). Uššat is read as "consider", from Halász's ussetit, ussotet, "denken, meinen, beabsichtigen", to think, mean, intend (IV s.v. ussetit); Friis's usses, "eager, desirous" (s.v. Usses), would give "you, girl, be eager". Aine pardne is "only son": Lindahl–Öhrling give the very phrase, "filius unicus … enfödder Son" (s.v. Aina), and pardne is "filius, puer, son" (s.v. Pardne). Röute is iron (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Route, "ferrum, järn"). Sōlim is read as "my brooch", from the large brooch at the neck that Friis calls solljo, soljo, "fibula magna (in collo), Sylje" (s.v. Solljo). The "my" is a reading: Halász shows -m as "my" in the Stensele ajjemą, "mein Grossvater" (IV p. 4 s.v. ajjā), but elsewhere in this song -m is the object ending (vúomem, vārem, cācem), and "my" is the word mu. Juóhti is read as "move on", from Halász's juhtet, "weiter ziehen, weiter gehen, herumgehen" (IV s.v. juhtet). Kosse is "when" (Halász IV s.v. koassie, with kossie, "wann; als"), and čiddetit is "refuse", from Lindahl–Öhrling's tjiddet, "contradicere, reniti, säga emot", which their Swedish index gives for förvägra, "to refuse" (s.v. Tjiddet, Förvägra).

Four words are left in Sámi. Šūge (here also šūgen and šūga) is the thing the singer carries and offers; no dictionary gives the word itself. Two leads are named and not adopted: Halász's šūketoma, "Krankheit", sickness, a Swedish loan from Undersåker in Jämtland, printed with the same š and ū (IV p. 157; Donner often writes g where the dictionaries write k, as galka for kalkab), which would make the singer a lovesick man; and Lindahl–Öhrling's skugge, "umbra … genius hominis, människo-vålnad eller hamn", a person's shade or spirit-double (p. 413). Their sjuokenes, "a sigh", was also considered. Aučam names the two things he must walk across; Donner's German edition gives it a footnote, which was not consulted. Cuópcat is what is to be done with the šūga towards the girl. Rauʒen is a word that goes with the iron brooch; Lindahl–Öhrling's raudn, raudna, "sorbus, rönnträd", the rowan (p. 373), and Halász's raunte, "Vogelbeerbaum" (IV p. 241), were considered and not taken. Uijā, jaijā, jaijā are joik syllables. Read from context: "I" as the one who wades and walks in lines two, five and six, where the Sámi gives no pronoun; and the last line as "when you, girl, shall refuse this", following the comma that Donner prints before it, rather than as a question.

No English translation of this song is known to us.

© 2026 Tianmu Anglican Church. This English translation is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0: you may share and adapt it for non-commercial use with credit to the Good Works Library, tianmu.org. The source text keeps its own terms. For other uses, see Rights and Reuse.

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Source Text: Lúondus vúole'

The Sámi text as printed by Donner (1876), no. 10, from the Project Gutenberg transcription, proofed against his German edition.

Uijā, jaijā, jaijā,
Tān mu šūgen gālimen (? gālim)
Bīra vúomem vārem
Sohka juólgakī koika.
Kuóktem aučam galke vāʒačit,
Kuóktem cācem galka kāli',
Ēčen guit mu šūga dudńe cuópcat,
Datne neita uššat,
Mon läm dat aine Marien pardne.
Röute rauʒen sōlim galka juóhti,
Kosse galk neite tatne tām čiddetit.

Source Colophon

Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1876), no. 10, from the dictation of Lars Fjellner, Sorsele. Public domain. The text is from the Project Gutenberg transcription of the book (PG #73262, 2024), with the Sámi lines proofed against the Sámi of Donner's German edition, Lieder der Lappen (1876; Internet Archive identifier liederderlappen00unkngoog). Where the two differ, the Source Text follows the German edition: it prints ó where the Gutenberg text has ö (juólgakī, the first Kuóktem, cuópcat, juóhti) and has the same ó in the second Kuóktem, where the Gutenberg text has a plain o; it prints Tān with a long ā for the Gutenberg Tän; and it prints rauʒen with ʒ for the Gutenberg rauǯen. The title is the same in both. The German edition also sets a footnote mark after aučam; the note is not reproduced. Donner prints no line numbers with this song. The Gutenberg file's Cyrillic ӡ is normalised to ʒ, Donner's letter for dz (in vāʒačit). The words in round brackets are Donner's own alternative and belong to his Sámi text; the question mark in it is his. Donner's phonetic letters are kept as printed, including ā, ē, ī, ō, ū, ú, ó, ä, ö, č, š, ń and ʒ.

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