a tale from Burfjord in Skjervøy, from J. A. Friis, Lappiske Sprogprøver (1856)

Told in North Sámi at Burfjord, in the parish of Skjervøy in northern Norway, and printed by Jens Andreas Friis in 1856, in Sámi only, this short legend is about a priest whose young wife confesses that she kept herself from bearing children, and the oath he swears over his marble table when he puts her out.

Translation

There was once a priest who married a young woman, and the woman had no children. Then the two of them saw three little boys walking round the church and going up to the church door, as though they were trying to get in. The priest took counsel with his wife about what this could be. Then the wife said that the fault was perhaps hers, for she had used evil means so that she should not have children.

The priest said to his wife: "You have committed a great sin. God created children for you, but with your evil means you have brought it about that you have had none; and perhaps it is so with those three boys who walk round the church, that God created them for you, but you have not been able to bear them." Now the priest had a table of marble stone, and the priest pointed to his table and said to his wife: "As impossible as it is for grass to grow on this table, just so impossible is it that you can be saved!" Then the priest put his wife away from him as an outcast of the shores, and the wife had to go; and for some years she went about in misery, a wanderer of the shores.

At last she came back again to her husband's farm, and went into the servants' house, and died the same night that she came there. When the priest woke up in the morning, he saw that grass had grown on the marble table. The priest was frightened and began to wonder what this could be. Then he came to hear that a woman had come into the servants' house in the evening and had died in the morning. The priest went there, and he knew that it was his wife, whom he had sent away to wander the shores.

Colophon

Translated from the North Sámi of Lappiske Sprogprøver: en Samling af lappiske Eventyr, Ordsprog og Gaader, edited by J. A. Friis (Christiania: J. W. Cappelen, 1856), pp. 86–87, the first tale of the group told at Skærva (Skjervøy), printed under the place heading Burvuodna, which Friis's glossary gives as "Burfjord i Skjærvø Sogn". Friis printed it in Sámi only. The text was transcribed from the page images of the New York Public Library copy; Friis's list of misprints has no correction for these pages. Words were checked in the Sámi–Norwegian glossary that Friis printed at the back of the same book, and in his larger Ordbog over det lappiske Sprog (1887). In the title, guöftes is "two, or a group of two", and akaš is akka "wife" with the ending that the 1887 dictionary says marks a related pair (its examples include akaš itself, and the glossary's boadnjaš is "man and wife"), so Bappa guöftes akaš is the priest and his wife together; the 1887 dictionary itself renders bapa guövtes akaines "the priest and his wife". Bahha rađit are evil means (rađđe, "counsel, means"); dajdet is "perhaps", and vægjet is used in the same sense; luoppat is to create; sattet is to be able, and riegadattet to give birth; mađotæbme is "impossible"; audogas is "blessed", so audogassan bæssat is to come to salvation. Sudto, a spelling neither dictionary has, is read as suddo "sin" (1887: suddo dakkat, to commit a sin), not sutto "anger". Gadde-jalde and gadde-vaʒʒe stand together in the glossary as "one who runs along the shore, an exile", so the wife is put out "as an outcast of the shores" and goes about "a wanderer of the shores"; hæjovuođast is from hægjo "weak, wretched"; a balvalegje is a servant and a viste a dwelling. In the priest's words over the table, both of the Sámi clauses also carry a "cannot" (that grass "cannot" grow, that she "cannot" be saved); the English reads each "cannot" as repeating the "impossible", as the end of the tale shows, and gives the comparison without the doubled negative. Aldes is read as "from him" (ald, alde, "on, from"), and damditti atte as purpose, "so that".

No complete English translation of Friis's collection is known to us.

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Source Text: Bappa guöftes akaš

North Sámi text as printed by Friis (1856), pp. 86–87, in his orthography; line-end hyphens are joined. Friis's single paragraph is divided here at the same places as the English.

De læi okta bappa, mi najtali ovta nuorra nissonin, ige nisso oǯǯom manaid. De vojniga, go golbma ucces bardnača vaʒʒe birra gjirko ja manne gjirko uvsa oudi ja læ' dego viggame sisa. De arvala bappa akainës, mi dat galga lædët. De dagja akka, atte sun sivva dat dajda lædët, go son læ bahha rađit annam, damditti atte son manaid i galga oaǯǯot.

Dagja bappa akainës: „Don læk dakkam stuorra sudto, ibmel læ luopam dunji manaid, mutto don bahha rađidet gujm læk dakkam dam, atte manaid ik læk oǯǯom; ja vægje dak golbma bardne, mak gjirko birra vaʒʒe, lædët nuft, atte ibmel læ dunji daid luopam, mutto don ik læk daid sattam riegadattët.“ De læi bapast marmor-gæđge-borde, de čajeti bappa dam bordasis ja dajai akainës: „Nu mađotæbme go dat læ, atte dam bordai æi sate rasek šaddat, nu mađotæbme matta dat lædët, atte don audogassan ik sate bæssat!“ De bijai bappa akas erit aldes gadde-jaldën, ja de akka ferti vuölget ja manai hæjovuođast moadde jage gadde-vaʒʒën.

De vimak bođi son fastajn boanjas dalloi ja manai balvalegjid vissui ja jami sæmma ija, go dasa bođi. Go bappa goccai iđđedëst bajas, de vojni, atte marmor-bordai rasek lëgje šaddam. De bappa suorgani ja imaštallašgođi, mi dat galga lædët. De oaǯoi gullat, atte okta nisso læi boattam balvalegjid vissui ækkedëst ja iđđedëst læi jammam. De bappa manai dokko ja dovdai dam, atte sun akka dat læ, gæn son gadde-vaʒʒën læi bigjam.

Source Colophon

J. A. Friis (ed.), Lappiske Sprogprøver (Christiania: J. W. Cappelen, 1856), pp. 86–87; Friis's list of misprints has no correction for these pages. Public domain. Transcribed from the page images of the New York Public Library copy, digitized by Google (Internet Archive identifier lappiskesprogpr00friigoog); a former owner's handwritten marks in that copy are not part of the text. Friis's letters are kept as printed, including ö, ë, č, đ, š, and both ʒ and ǯ, which he distinguishes.

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