a Pite Sámi legend from Arjeplog, from Ignácz Halász, Svéd-lapp nyelv V (1893)

A short legend of the making of the wolf, told in Pite Sámi by Sámi of Arjeplog parish and taken down by Ignácz Halász at Saltdalen in Norway in 1891. The Evil One makes the wolf without a tail but cannot give it life; at his prayer God gives the wolf life, and a pine-top thrown after the running animal becomes its long tail. An old Sámi dictionary records "long tail" as a name for the wolf.

Translation

The old people also used to tell that the Evil One was going to create the wolf. He did indeed create the wolf, but he could not give it life. He had not fitted the wolf with a tail at all, and for this reason: so that it should be kilūs, and so that no one should overtake it.

But when he could not give it life, the Evil One prayed that God himself should give the wolf life. Then God gave the wolf life. And then he too took a pine-top in his hand and threw it after the wolf as the wolf was running, and that became a long and heavy tail.

Colophon

Translated from the Pite Sámi of Ignácz Halász, Svéd-lapp nyelv V: Népköltési gyűjtemény a Pite-lappmark arjepluogi egyházkerületéből (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1893), no. 4, p. 4, in the section of primeval legends. Halász took these texts down in 1891 at Saltdalen from Sámi of Arjeplog parish, and printed a Hungarian translation after each, which was not consulted: it was masked out of the page images before translation.

The words that decide the reading were checked in K. B. Wiklund's Lule-lappisches Wörterbuch (1890), in Lindahl and Öhrling's Lexicon Lapponicum (1780), in Halász's South Sámi dictionary (Svéd-lapp nyelv IV, 1891) and in Joshua Wilbur's A Grammar of Pite Saami (2014). Kumpē is the wolf (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. KUMPE, "lupus, varg"; Wiklund p. 48, kumpeḳe-, "Wolf"); šụ̄dńēṭem is "creation" and šụ̄dńēṭet "to create" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. SJUDNJETEM, "creatio", and SJUDNJETEJE, "creator"); paha’kis, pahāhkis is "the Evil One" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. PAHAKES, "diabolus, den onde"); jupmēl is God (Wiklund s.v. jupmele-; Halász IV s.v. jupmele). Tuluča is "the people of old" (from toluč, "ancient"); supčastillin is "used to tell" (Halász IV s.v. supcstallet). Māhtē is "could" (Halász IV s.v. mähtet, "können"); hēkkau, hēkkap̣ is "life" (Halász IV s.v. hiakka, "Seele, Leben"); vaddēt and vittī are "to give" and "gave" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. WADDET, "dare"); iččī is "did not" (Wilbur §8.2.3, ittji-). Sēipiu, säʼipē is "tail" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. SEIPE, "cauda, svans", with Kukkes seipe, "long tail", given there as a name for the wolf; Wiklund s.v. sei'pe-, "Schweif, Schwanz"); lǟkėm is "fitted, made ready" (Halász IV pp. 252–253 s.v. léekét, "bereiten, zubereiten, anrichten, zurüsten"); joksot is "overtake" (Halász IV s.v. jaksát, "erreichen, einholen"). Ača and aċai are the auxiliary of purpose, "so that … should", with the infinitive (Halász IV p. 4 s.v. ača-, third person singular ača, aččij). Rohkā is "prayed" (Wiklund p. 107 s.v. roɔkole-, "beten, bitten"). Pēhcē-kirraḳau is "a pine-top" (Wiklund p. 92 s.v. peɔce-, "Föhre"; Halász IV s.v. kiäraka, "Wipfel, Spitze"); palhkēstī is "threw" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. PALKESTET, "jacere, kasta"); maññai is "after" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. MANGA, "post, efter"); kûhcalēmēn is "running" (Wiklund p. 51 s.v. kuəɔca-, "laufen (von Tieren)"); vallṭam is "taken" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. WALDET).

Read from context, or not settled by the dictionaries, and named here: kilūs, the quality the tailless wolf was to have, is in none of the dictionaries and is kept in Sámi in the English. Obonės is read as "at all", with the negative. Tan tihta is read as "for this reason". Lussės is read as "heavy", from the word that Halász IV gives as losse, "schwer"; the identification is by form only. Kalhkai … vallṭam, the past of the verb "shall" with the perfect participle of "take", is a construction the grammar does not describe; it is rendered as a plain past, "took". Who "he too" is, God or the Evil One, the text does not say. Pite Sámi is close to Lule and South Sámi; where no dictionary of those languages decides a word, the reading is named here.

No English translation of this text 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: Kumpē šụ̄dńēṭem

The Pite Sámi text as printed by Halász (1893), no. 4, transcribed from the page images in his phonetic spelling. Line-end hyphens are joined; Halász's single paragraph is divided here at the same place as the English.

tah tuluča āi supčastillin, āhte paha’kis kalhkai kumpiu šụ̄dńēṭet. šụ̄dńēṭi kalle son kumpėu, vala iččī māhtē hēkkau vaddēt. ī lam son obonės sēipiu lǟkėm kumpī tan tihta, aċai kilūs orrut ja āhte ē kalhkam aktak joksot sū.

vala ku talle ī māhtē hēkkap̣ vaddēt, rohkā pahāhkis, ača ēč jupmēl vaddēt hēkkap̣ kumpī. tē vittī talle jupmēl hēkkap̣ kumpī. ja tē kalhkai āi son tall vallṭam pēhcē-kirraḳau kēhtai ja palhkēstī tāp̣ kumpē maññai, ku kumpē lī kûhcalēmēn, ja tē šattai tat kuhkēs ja lussės säʼipē.

Source Colophon

Ignácz Halász, Svéd-lapp nyelv V: Népköltési gyűjtemény a Pite-lappmark arjepluogi egyházkerületéből (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1893), no. 4, p. 4. Public domain. Transcribed from the page images of the scan of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (REAL-EOD 4154). Halász's spelling is kept letter for letter, with his length marks, dots above and below, ǟ, ñ, the raised stroke of the checked syllable (written here ʼ) and the curly apostrophe (’). His Hungarian translation and his notes are not reproduced.

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