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

This short legend stands among the primeval legends that open Halász's collection. It was told in Pite Sámi by Sámi of Arjeplog parish and taken down by Ignácz Halász at Saltdalen in Norway in 1891. Two reindeer tied up on a bare mountain talk about their masters: one, hungry and beaten, runs away; the other, whose master moves it from fresh ground to fresh ground, stays.

Translation

Then once, when the people of old had tied up reindeer on some mountain, and those reindeer could not get loose anywhere, because they had been tied to great stones — there is not even a single tree there on the cliff-mountain — then one reindeer would say: "My master is shiftless and is not inclined to move me; I am hungry: I might go off." Then the other reindeer says: "I shall certainly not go; I have a good master, he is diligent, and he moves me from fresh ground to fresh ground; I shall certainly not go."

Then that other reindeer said: "I shall go all the same; my master is shiftless and beats me as well; I might go off! You come too!" Then the other said again: "I shall certainly not go!" And it went off indeed, as it had said. And from this one shall know that shiftless people have no reindeer herds, but diligent people do have herds.

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. 13, pp. 13–14, 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). Kēnēs, plural kētnāsa, is "shiftless, good-for-nothing" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. KENES, "inutilis, ignavus, ineptus": "Kenes almats, homo nullius frugis, en odugelig menniska", and s.v. KEDNES, "ineptus, vilis", with the plural kednaseh); pōcuj-ēluit are "reindeer herds" (Wiklund p. 9, "herde"); čatnam and čanahtuwum are "tied up", "had been tied" (Wiklund s.v. čatna-, "binden"); kēϑkīṭa are stones; paktē-vārēn is "on the cliff-mountain" (Wiklund s.v. paɔkte-, "felsen, steiler bergabschuss"); sirĕṭalėt and sirĕṭal are "to move", "moves" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. SIRTEM, "transportatio, migratio, flyttning", and SIRTETET, "låta flyttas"); vaššal and vaššelės are "diligent" (Wiklund s.v. višale-, "fleissig"; Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. WASSJEL, wassjeles, "sedulus, laboriosus, flitig, idog"), and ī vašā is "is not inclined" (Wiklund s.v. vaša-, "Lust haben, mögen, geneigt sein"); monno is "I" (Wilbur Table 6.1, månnå), with the first-person verbs nēlhkūw, "I am hungry" (Wiklund s.v. nęl'kur, nęl'ke-, "hungern"), and vūlhkau, "I go", and the negative verb iw, "I do not" (Wilbur Table 8.26, iv); mūsne is "with me" (Wilbur Table 6.1, muvne); totno, "you", is the singular (Wilbur Table 6.1, dånnå); kalhka with the infinitive is the future, "will, shall" (Wilbur §8.2.1, galgat); kuit, kuiht is "though, all the same", after a negative "certainly" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. KUIT, "quidem, certe, saltem … tamen, dock"); uihtos is "indeed" (Halász IV s.v. oihte, uihte, "in der tat, wirklich, fürwahr"); varrasist is "from fresh (ground)" (Wiklund s.v. varase-, "frisch"); slovvā is "beats" (Halász IV s.v. slöwui, "schlagen, erschlagen — Lul. slövvet"); tolēn, the root of toluča, "the people of old", is "in the old days" (Wiklund s.v. tole-); punnde, punnṭe is "master", the householder (Wiklund s.v. pon'ṭi-, "hausherr", from Norse bóndi).

Read from context, or not settled by the dictionaries, and named here: kosok, "anywhere", is read from context (compare Wiklund s.v. koso(s), "wo immer"); in ällam käč aktak mûra, "not even a single tree", aktak in a negated clause is "not a single" (Wilbur p. 141) and mûra is "tree", but ällam käč is not found; tahta, "know", in tastē kalhka tahta, "from this one shall know", is read from context (compare Wilbur's dåbdåt and Wiklund s.v. tob°to-, "kennen"); ē … anē and itni, "do not have", "do have", are forms of "to have"; vūlhkiča, "I might go off", is read as the potential mood (Wilbur §8.1.3.2), its person ending not decided. The second reindeer's first speech is printed without an opening quotation mark; the English gives it the usual marks. 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: Kokte ē kēnēs almača pōcuj-ēluit anē?

The Pite Sámi text as printed by Halász (1893), no. 13, transcribed from the page images in his phonetic spelling. Line-end hyphens are joined; Halász's paragraph is divided here at the same place as the English.

tē āi aktan pālēn, kossə tā toluča lījėn čatnam pọ̄hcuit sōmēs vārē nalā ja tā pọ̄hcu ē kosok pēsa, jute čanahtuwum lījėn sija stûrra kēϑkīṭa, — ällam käč aktak mûra tatne paktē-vārēn, — tē kalhka talle akta pōcuj jahhtēt: «mū punnde lē kēnēs ja ī vašā mū sirĕṭalėt, monno nēlhkūw: vūlhkiča ma monno.» tē mubbē pōcuj jahhtā: iw kuit monno vūlhkē; pûrak punnde lē mūsne, vaššal lē son ja sirĕṭal mū varrasist, varrasist, iw kuiht monno vūlhkē.»

tē jahhtā tut mubbē pōcuj: «vūlhkau kuiht monno, mū punnṭe lē kēnēs ja ville slovvā mū ; vūlhkiča ma monno! pōtē āi totno!» tē mubbē vit jahhtā: «iw kuiht monno vūlhkē!» ja vūlhkī sa uihtos kokte lī hōllom. ja tē tastē kalhka tahta, āhte ē kētnāsa anē pōcuj-ēluit, vala vaššelės almača tē itni ēluit.

Source Colophon

Ignácz Halász, Svéd-lapp nyelv V: Népköltési gyűjtemény a Pite-lappmark arjepluogi egyházkerületéből (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1893), no. 13, pp. 13–14. 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, breves, ə, ϑ, and his punctuation, including the missing opening quotation mark of the second reindeer's first speech. His Hungarian translation and his notes are not reproduced.

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