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

A short legend of the making of the horse, told in Pite Sámi by Sámi of Arjeplog parish and taken down by Ignácz Halász at Saltdalen in Norway in 1891; it follows the legend of the wolf. The Evil One makes the horse with long teeth so that it should eat people, but cannot give it life; God gives it life and says that it is to obey and serve people.

Translation

Then the Evil One had made the horse as well, but again he could not give it life. He had made long teeth for the horse, so that it should eat people (or: stōllūt; or: bite them).

When he could not give it life, he prayed again to the Highest One that he should give life to the animal he had made. And when God gave the horse life, he said too that the horse should be obedient to people and serve them.

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. 5, p. 5, 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). Hēsta, hässta is the horse, from Swedish häst; šụ̄dńēṭem is "creation" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. SJUDNJETEM); pahā’kis is "the Evil One" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. PAHAKES, "diabolus"). Māhtē is "could" (Halász IV s.v. mähtet, "können"); hēkkap is "life" (Halász IV s.v. hiakka, "Seele, Leben"); vaddēt, vittī are "give", "gave" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. WADDET). Pǟnit are "teeth" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. PANE, "dens, tand"); porrot is "eat"; kasskēt is "bite" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. KASKET, "mordere, bita"; Wiklund p. 34, "beissen"). Ačai is the auxiliary of purpose, "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"); oivāmusau is "the Highest One", a superlative of the word for head (Wiklund p. 81 s.v. oi've-, "Kopf; Standesperson"; Lindahl–Öhrling has åiwemus Prästa, "the high priest", in an example s.v. KEIWELET); lǟkim is "made, made ready" (Halász IV pp. 252–253 s.v. léekét, "bereiten, zubereiten"); tiwrai is "to the animal", from Swedish djur; jupmēl is God (Wiklund s.v. jupmele-). Hollā is "said" (Wilbur p. 251, hållåt "say"); kullūḳasan orrūt is "be obedient" (Lindahl–Öhrling, Swedish index s.v. Lyda, "obey": kullokes orrot); svāinastėt is "serve" (Wiklund p. 134 s.v. svaiᵉnaste-, "als Knecht dienen", from svaiᵉnas, "Knecht"; Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. SWAINESTET, "famulari, tjena som dräng").

Read from context, or not settled by the dictionaries, and named here: stōllūt, the first of Halász's two printed alternatives to "eat", is in none of the dictionaries and is kept in Sámi in the English; the second, kasskēt, is "bite". Halász prints the alternatives in brackets with jäla, jälā, "or", and the English keeps them in brackets. Vit, vite is read as "again". 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.

🌲

Source Text: Hēsta šụ̄dńēṭem

The Pite Sámi text as printed by Halász (1893), no. 5, 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.

tē lī āi pahā’kis hēstap̣ tahkam, vala ī māhtē vit talle hēkkap vaddēt. kuhkēs pǟnit lī son tallë hässtai tahkam, vai kalhkai almaċīt porrot (jäla : stōllūt, jälā : kasskēt).

ku tallë ī māhtē hēkkap̣ vaddēt, tē rohkā son vite tallë taw oivāmusau, ačai hēkkap̣ vaddēt tān sū lǟkim tiwrai. ja ku’ jupmēl hēkkap̣ vittī hässtai, tē tallë hollā āi, ačai hässta orrūt almačiṭa kullūḳasan ja svāinastėt sijāb.

Source Colophon

Ignácz Halász, Svéd-lapp nyelv V: Népköltési gyűjtemény a Pite-lappmark arjepluogi egyházkerületéből (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1893), no. 5, p. 5. 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, the curly apostrophe (’), and his bracket of alternatives. His Hungarian translation and his notes are not reproduced.

🌲