a song from Utsjoki, from Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (1876)
The noaidi was the sorcerer of the old Sámi faith, and his drum was the instrument of his craft. This short rhymed song in North Sámi was written down at Utsjoki, in the far north of Finland, by A. Helander, the schoolteacher there and himself a Sámi, from a folk tale, and Otto Donner printed it in 1876. It remembers how the old men drew the wild reindeer to them by magic, and the shooting, the boiling of fat and the making of sausages that followed.
Translation
That they would have šuongatam,
When they have charmed the wild reindeer in,
The elders of old,
The grandfathers rich in herds.
Then from far away the wild reindeer
They lured to that fell,
And the white ones came,
Even the coal-black ones.
There they would have made them grunt
And kiđđutam the wild reindeer,
The people mielkastallam,
The gun's voice cracking.
There they shot the big ones
And the fat barren does,
There they boiled the fat as well
And made sausages too.
Colophon
Translated from the North Sámi of Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1876), no. 31, Noaidi kovdas, which was written down at Utsjoki from a folk tale by A. Helander, the schoolteacher there, himself a Sámi. 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. Donner prints the song as a single stanza of sixteen lines; here it is divided into four parts of four lines, and the Sámi is divided at the same places.
Words were checked in the Sámi–Norwegian glossary of J. A. Friis's Lappiske Sprogprøver (1856) and in his Ordbog over det lappiske Sprog (1887). In the title, noaidi is Friis's noaidde, "magus, Troldmand", and kovdas is his govdes, the drum the Sámi once used, "Runebomme, Spaatromme". Kottīt are godde, wild reindeer. Júovsatam is from juovsatet, which Friis defines as bringing it about by magic arts that a thief returns what he stole, or that wild reindeer come to the hunter; the English says "charmed ... in". Leǯǯik is the potential mood of "to be", "they may have", given here as "would have"; läk is "they have". Vuorrasak are elders (vuoras, "Olding, Ældste"); ādjak are grandfathers, old men (aggja). Omikasak is in neither dictionary; it is read from oabme, "livestock, property" (Friis's oabmai, "rich in livestock"), as "rich in herds". Friis also has a second oabme, "oldness", beside oames, "old, worn", and from that root the word could instead mean "aged", like the elders of the line before. Kukkin is gukken, "far off, from far away"; keäsūtäddji is gæsotet, "to draw, to lure to oneself"; kaisai is gaissa, a steep fell or fell-top. Čǟskukak and čāppukak are read as "the white ones" and "the black ones", from čæskad, "snow-white", and čappok, "a black animal" (in the 1856 glossary, "a black fox"); the song does not say which animals they are, and neither does the English. Spirtta is spirtte, "coal-black". Ruoukatam is ruovgatet, "to make grunt", from ruovggat, the grunting of a reindeer doe calling her calf. Kiđđutam is in neither dictionary. It is printed with the stroked đđ of Friis's giđđa, "spring", not the plain dd of his gidda, "fast", so its sense is not known, and it is left in Sámi. Pissū jiedne is bisso, "gun", and jiedna, "voice"; paukkam is bavkket, "to crack, to bang". Pǟčči is bæččet, "to shoot"; stuorakīt are stuorak, "a big one"; ronuit are rodno, barren does ("a doe that calves only in some years"); puoitakīt are buoidak, "a fat animal". Puitīd are fats (buoidde), boiled (vuoššat); mārfit are sausages (marffe). The past verbs pōtti, pǟčči, vušši and täkki are taken as plural, "they": their strong consonants (tt, čč, šš, kk) are those of the plural in Friis's past tense (botte, "they came"; lokke, "they read"), not of the singular (bodi, "he came"; dagai, "he made"), and they end in -i as the plural keäsūtäddji does; the ending alone would also allow "he". Three words, šuongatam in the first line, kiđđutam in the tenth and mielkastallam in the eleventh, are found in neither dictionary and are left in Sámi.
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: Noaidi kovdas
The Sámi text as printed by Donner (1876), no. 31, from the Project Gutenberg transcription, proofed against his German edition.
Tām leǯǯik šuongatam,
Ko kottīt júovsatam läk,
Toluš vuorrasak,
Ādjak omikasak.
Tē kukkin kottīt sī
Tām kaisai keäsūtäddji
Ja pōtti čǟskukak,
Vel spirtta čāppukak.
Tast leǯǯik ruoukatam
Ja kottīt kiđđutam,
Olbmak mielkastallam,
Pissū jiedne paukkam.
Tast pǟčči stuorakīt
Ja ronuit puoitakīt,
Tast puitīd vušši nai
Ja mārfit täkki mait.
Source Colophon
Otto Donner, Lappalaisia lauluja (Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 1876), no. 31, Noaidi kovdas, in North Sámi of Utsjoki in Donner's phonetic spelling. Public domain. Text from the Project Gutenberg transcription of the book (PG #73262, 2024), with the Sámi lines proofed against Donner's German edition of the same year, Lieder der Lappen (Internet Archive identifier liederderlappen00unkngoog). Donner's line numbers are not printed here. Donner's letters are kept as printed. The single stanza is divided into four parts at the same places as the English.
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