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

A very short legend of the making of the pike, told in Pite Sámi by Sámi of Arjeplog parish and taken down by Ignácz Halász at Saltdalen in Norway in 1891; it closes the run of legends in which the Evil One makes an animal against people and God turns it to their good. The pike was to eat people on the lake; given life by the Lord, it was ordered to be their food.

Translation

The old people also used to tell that the Evil One was going to create the pike too, so that it should eat people. When they were going about on the lake and rowing back to the shore, it was to eat people (bite them). But when the Lord above himself gave it life, it was commanded that it should be food for people, and be under their hands.

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. 7, p. 6, 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). Hāuka is the pike (Wiklund p. 16 s.v. hąuɔka-, "Hecht"); šūdńēṭem is "creation" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. SJUDNJETEM); pahāhkis is "the Evil One" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. PAHAKES). Jaurēn is "on the lake", the singular inessive (Halász IV s.v. jaurie, "See"); kaddai is "to the shore" (Wiklund p. 28 s.v. kade-, "Ufer"; Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. KADDE, with the illative kaddai); viste is "back, again" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. WIST, "rursus, iterum"); suhkamen is "rowing" (Wiklund p. 132 s.v. suɔka-, "rudern"); kasskēt, Halász's bracketed alternative to porrot, "eat", is "bite" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. KASKET, "mordere, bita"). Aċai, ačai are the auxiliary of purpose, "that … should", with the infinitive (Halász IV p. 4 s.v. ača-, third person singular ača, aččij). Ēhč is "himself" (Wiklund p. 10, "selbst"); paďďē is "above" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. PAIJEL, "super"); härra is "the Lord", from Swedish herre; hēkkau is "life" (Halász IV s.v. hiakka); vittī is "gave" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. WADDET). Kohčūhtuwai is "was commanded" (Wiklund p. 47 s.v. kǫɔču-, "befehlen"); päbmun is "as food" (Wiklund p. 93 s.v. piebmu-, "Speise, Nahrung"); vûlēn (variant vûlīn) is "under" (Lindahl–Öhrling, Swedish index s.v. Under, wuole, wuolen).

Read from context, or not settled by the dictionaries, and named here: kētai, read with vûlēn as "under their hands", is taken as the word for "hand"; the phrase is rendered word for word. In the second sentence ačai stands as the only verb beside the participles and is rendered "it was to". Halász's bracketed variants are kept in the Source Text; the English gives kasskēt in brackets, because it is a different word, and gives vûlēn once. 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: Hāuka šūdńēṭem

The Pite Sámi text as printed by Halász (1893), no. 7, transcribed from the page images in his phonetic spelling. Line-end hyphens are joined.

tah tuluča āi supcastījin, āhte pahāhkis kalhkai āi hāukau šūdńēṭet, aċai almačīt porrot. ku’ sija lē jaurēn mannamen ja kaddai viste suhkamen, ačai almačīt porrot (kasskēt). vala ku ēhč paďďē härra hēkkau vittī, tē kohčūhtuwai, ačai almačiṭa päbmun orrūt ja tāi kētai vûlēn (vûlīn).

Source Colophon

Ignácz Halász, Svéd-lapp nyelv V: Népköltési gyűjtemény a Pite-lappmark arjepluogi egyházkerületéből (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1893), no. 7, p. 6. 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, the curly apostrophe (’), and his two bracketed variants. His Hungarian translation and his notes are not reproduced.

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