a song from Vilhelmina in Swedish Lapland, from Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (1876)

Vilhelmina lies in the South Sámi country of Swedish Lapland. In the late 1840s a Stockholm councillor named Grönlund wrote this song down there from a fifteen-year-old Sámi girl, in a Swedish-style spelling and in a Sámi already mixed with Swedish words, and Otto Donner printed it in his book of Sámi songs in 1876. The singer mourns a reindeer cow that the household may no longer milk or run after, and asks whether they must now live on the milk of a long-tailed reindeer cow.

Translation

I mourn that lively reindeer cow gåsjab.
Stand now, listen with the ear in that cold hut.

My feet may no more run so fine and well,
nor chase those white-spotted (smareib) reindeer.

How then shall we two lament now,
since we may no longer milk our own reindeer cow?
And shall we live out our own days on the milk of that long-tailed reindeer cow?

Well! If it is so ordained, then I too must be content,
I who can no longer run after that lively reindeer cow.

Colophon

Translated from the Sámi of Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1876), no. 17. Donner had the song from Councillor Grönlund of Stockholm, who wrote it down in the late 1840s from the recitation of a fifteen-year-old Sámi girl in Vilhelmina Lapland; Donner kept Grönlund's Swedish-style spelling. 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 the South Sámi of Vilhelmina, written much like the old Sámi book language of the Swedish Lapp districts, with Swedish words in it. The Swedish words are words of the song and are translated as such: nåh is Swedish nå "well", and surjatjab "I mourn" is Swedish sörja with a Sámi ending. Words were checked in E. Lindahl and J. Öhrling, Lexicon Lapponicum (Stockholm 1780), whose spelling is nearest to this text, and in I. Halász, Déli-lapp szótár (Budapest 1891), which marks each South Sámi form with the district it was heard in; Stensele and Frostviken, his nearest districts, lie on either side of Vilhelmina. Lindahl gives surgo "sorrow" and surgot "to mourn"; aldo is a reindeer cow (Halász alta); tjuosse, tjuosek is white-spotted, and tjuosek påtso a white-spotted reindeer; puttjet is to milk (Halász puhcet, Stensele and Frostviken); warret is to run and warretet to run about (both also in Halász for Stensele and Frostviken), and mingesne is behind, after (Halász minnesne, where he compares Lindahl's mangesne). Seipe is a tail, so kukke seibe-aldon is "of the long-tailed reindeer cow", aldo being a reindeer cow here as everywhere in the song. Lindahl gives kukkes seipe, "long tail", as a byname for the wolf, but here the hyphen ties seibe to aldon. The song does not say what long-tailed reindeer cow is meant; it may be the singer's way of naming a cattle cow, set against the household's own reindeer cow, but that is a guess, and the English renders only the words. Muonet is to name, and also to ordain: muonetum is "fated", so jus le nimte muonetam is "if it is so ordained" (nimte is Halász's nimtie, namtie "so"). Nan in the same line is read as Lindahl's nau "so", which with ai "also" (Lindahl nau aj, "so also") gives the English "I too". Tuddet is to be content. Test and tiste are read as Lindahl's tast, tist "further, more", and ebtest, ebtesti as the negative verb joined to the same word, so "no longer".

Most readings are secure; these are less so. Jellekes is read as "lively", from jelet "to live". Viklatit is read as "chase", from Lindahl's wiåkatet "to run, run after" and wiåkelet "to run". Muorritit is read as "lament", from Lindahl's morret "to murmur, growl" and Halász's ümorriedijit "to be sad" (Undersåker). Puorrin puorrist, from puore "good" and puorest "well", is rendered "so fine and well". Tjuodtjote and kuldeht, "stand" and "listen", end like the plural commands in Lindahl's grammar (orrote, leket, "be!"), and the English takes them as commands; whom they address, and so the person, is uncertain. Ih, which opens the second stanza, is the negative verb's second person singular, "you do not"; the English, which makes "my feet" the subject, is a reading of a loosely built line. The ebt- of ebtesti and ebtest is nearest Lindahl's plural negative forms epe, epet, not his first person singular ib, so the "we" of "since we may no longer milk" and the "I" of the last line are read from the context, not from the verb. Two words are left in Sámi because no dictionary consulted explains them: gåsjab at the end of the first line, and smareib, which Donner prints in parentheses as a variant for tjuossis "white-spotted".

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: Surgo-vvuolle

The Sámi text as printed by Donner (1876), no. 17, from the Project Gutenberg transcription, proofed against his German edition.

Surjatjab mon tab jellekes aldon gåsjab
Tjuodtjote talle, kuldeht peljen tan tjåsko kåten sis.

Ih mo juolkin test ådtjo varret puorrin puorrist
Jah viklatit tab tjuossis (smareib) påtsoit.

Kokte kalka tel te monno muorritit,
jutte ebtesti vele åtdjo tab etjen aldo tiste puttjet?
Ja kalka tan kukke seibe-aldon melken naln jelet etjen peiveh?

Nåh! jus le nimte muonetam, te ådtjob nan ai tuddet,
Juhko ebtest veleh vejet varretit tan jellekes aldon mingesne.

Source Colophon

Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1876), no. 17, in the spelling of Grönlund's manuscript. Public domain. Text from the Project Gutenberg transcription of Donner's book (PG #73262, 2024), proofed against the Sámi lines of his German edition, Lieder der Lappen (1876; Internet Archive identifier liederderlappen00unkngoog). One letter is corrected from the German edition: kuldeht in the first stanza, where the Gutenberg text has kuldebt. The title is kept as the Gutenberg text gives it, Surgo-vvuolle, where vv stands for w (wuolle, "song"); the German edition prints Surgo-wuoile. The Gutenberg text and the German edition both have nan in the last stanza, and it is kept. The list of corrections at the end of the German edition changes nan to nau on its p. 128; that page could not be matched to this text, and the correction has not been applied. Donner's verse numbers, which mark every tenth verse in his longest songs, do not occur in this one. The word in parentheses in the second stanza is a variant that Donner prints inside the line.

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