a song from Sorsele, from Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (1876)
A two-line Sámi joik from Sorsele in Swedish Lapland. The Sámi poet Lars Fjellner dictated it to Otto Donner, who printed it in 1876 and names no singer. Its title names it for the squirrel, and its two lines cry woe to every girl in living and to every boy in dying.
Translation
Woe to every girl in living,
And woe to every boy in dying!
Colophon
Translated from the Sámi of Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1876), no. 15. Donner wrote it down from the dictation of the Sámi poet Lars Fjellner, as one of six pieces (nos. 10–15) that he had from him; he names no singer and no place for it beyond Sorsele, and he 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, written in Donner's phonetic script. Words were checked in E. Lindahl and J. Öhrling's Lexicon Lapponicum (1780), 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 J. Wilbur's Grammar of Pite Saami (2014). Every word of the song is found, and only two endings are uncertain. Vaiba is "woe", Lindahl–Öhrling's waiwe, "miseria, calamitas, elände", misery, beside the Finnish waiwa (s.v. Waiwe); gaihka is "every, all" (Lindahl–Öhrling's Swedish index s.v. All: kaik, kaikeh; and s.v. Jabmet, kaikeh kalkeh jabmet, "all must die"); neiŧa is the girl (s.v. Neit, neita; on its barred ŧ, see the Source Colophon) and pardne the boy (s.v. Pardne, "filius, puer, son, gosse"). Viesulīen is from the verb "to live", Lindahl–Öhrling's wiesot, as in luontoteme wiesot, "to live unmarried" (s.v. Luontoteme), and Halász's viasut, Stensele viesut, "leben" (IV s.v. viasut); jabmaličen is from "to die", Lindahl–Öhrling's jabmet, "mori, dö" (s.v. Jabmet), and Halász's jāmet, "sterben" (IV s.v. jāmet). Their endings are in no dictionary, so "in living" and "in dying" are a reading. Halász gives a Stensele gerund of the second verb, jāmmieminnie (IV p. 82 s.v. jāmet), so a verb form of that kind is known nearby, though not with this ending; the two words could also be "who lives" and "who dies". The "to" of "woe to" is supplied in the English: the Sámi sets vaiba beside "every girl" with no word or ending for "to". Vaiba could also be read as an adjective, "wretched is every girl …", beside Lindahl–Öhrling's waiwes, "miser, eländig". In the title, Orrivin is read as "the squirrel's": Friis gives the Swedish-side word for the squirrel as orre or orrev (s.v. Orre; s.v. Oarre, "Sciurus vulgaris, Ikorn, Egern"), Lindahl–Öhrling give årre and årrew, "sciurus, ekorn" (s.v. Årre, Årrew), and Halász gives oarawa, orava, "Eichhörnchen" (IV s.v. oarawa); -in is read as the genitive ending. Vúöle is a song, a joik (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. Wuöle, "cantilena, visa, sång", properly a tune or melody). Lindahl–Öhrling's årrot, "to be, to dwell" (s.v. Årrot), and the Pite årret, "to sleep" (Wilbur §3.1.1.5.4), were considered for Orrivin and not taken. The song does not say who cries woe, or why.
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: Orrivin vúöle
The Sámi text as printed by Donner (1876), no. 15, from the Project Gutenberg transcription, proofed against his German edition.
Vaiba gaihka neiŧa viesulīen,
Ja vaiba gaihka pardne jabmaličen!
Source Colophon
Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1876), no. 15, 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). In the first line the German edition prints the t of neiŧa with a second bar at the top of its stem, a barred ŧ, where the Gutenberg text has a plain t; in no. 10 both editions print the same word, neita, with a plain t. The Source Text follows the German edition. The title, Orrivin vúöle, is printed the same in both. Donner prints no line numbers with a song this short. Donner's phonetic letters are kept as printed, including ī, ú, ö, č and ŧ.
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