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. People catch a bear that has done them harm and mean to burn it whole; eight men cannot move it, but when a ninth comes the bear gives way, and it is burned with its skin, flesh and bones.

Translation

Then, when at one time they had caught a bear — the bear had done harm then: it had spihkum their little calves — and when the people had caught it, then they were going to drag the bear whole into the fire and burn it. They had then made a great fire. Eight men then pulled at it, but could not bring the bear anywhere. But when a ninth man came to the village to help, then the bear gave way, and then those nine dragged the bear into the fire and burned the bear whole, just as it was, with its skin and its flesh and its bones.

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. 18, p. 18, 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). Pērhtna, pērhtnau, pärᵉdne, pärᵉdna are forms of "bear" (Wiklund s.v. piena, "bär", which refers to pær'na-); mēsīt are reindeer calves (Wiklund s.v. kalpe-, "kalb; renntierkalb: mese"); kēssēt, kēssin are "to drag", "dragged" (Halász IV s.v. kiesi', "ziehen"); pœlltēm, pœlltēt, pulltin are "burning", "to burn", "burned" (Wiklund s.v. polte-, "brennen, verbrennen, trans."); fāhtāṭam, fāhtāṭijin are "caught" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. FATTATET, "prensare, comprehendere, få fatt"); skēhtau is "harm" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. SKADA, "damnum, noxa, skada"); smawwa is "little" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. SMAW, smawa, "parvi, exigui, små"; Halász IV s.v. smäwo, "klein"); nakā is "could" (Wiklund s.v. naɔka-, "vermögen"); pᵘœktēt is "to bring" (Halász IV s.v. puoktet, "bringen"); siďďī is taken as "to the village" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. SID, sida, "pagus, by"), as in no. 15; vähhkēn is "as a help" (Halász IV s.v. viehkietet, "helfen"); kakce is "eight", ōkcāt "the ninth" and okcēs "the nine (of them)" (Halász IV s.v. okcs, "neune zusammen"); nǟhkina, pērhkuin are "with its skin", "with its flesh", and täkti kum "with its bones": täkti is "bone" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. TAKTE, "os, ben") with the postposition kum, "with" (Lindahl–Öhrling s.v. KUM, "prep. cum, med", as in mo-kum, "with me").

Read from context, or not settled by the dictionaries, and named here: pīriw and pēriw, Halász's other word for the bear, are read as "the bear" from the bracket and the story (perhaps from Scandinavian björn); spihkum, what the bear had done to the calves, is in no dictionary consulted and is kept in Sámi (the story implies that it killed them); vässū, "whole", is read from context; kihci suina, "pulled at it", is read from context: suina is "with it" (Wilbur Table 6.1, sujna), but kihci is not found (Halász IV s.v. kihčet gives "fragen", "dingen" and "arbeit verlangen", none of which fits); kosōk, "anywhere", as in no. 13; vālāt, "gave way", is read from context; sījān, "their", has the form of the inessive ("among them", Wilbur Table 6.1, siján) and is read as "their" from the sentence. Halász's bracketed variants (pīriw, pᵘœlltēt) are kept in the Source Text; the English gives each word 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.

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Source Text: Pērhtna pœlltēm

The Pite Sámi text as printed by Halász (1893), no. 18, transcribed from the page images in his phonetic spelling. Line-end hyphens are joined.

tē kossə aktan āiḳēn lījėn pērhtnau (pīriw) fāhtāṭam, — pärᵉdne se lī talle skēhtau tahkam, sījān smawwa mēsīt sa lī talle pärᵉdna spihkum, — ja kossə almača tē fāhtāṭijin, tē kalhkē talle kēssēt pēriw vässū tolloi ja pœlltēt (pᵘœlltēt) sū. stûrra tolōu lījėn sija talle tahkam. kakce olᵒbma talle kihci suina, vala ē kosōk nakā pᵘœktēt pēriw. vala ku’ ōkcāt olmaj pōhtā siďďī vähhkēn, te talle vālāt pärᵉdna ja tē kēssin tā okcēs pērhtnau tolloi ja pulltin pēriw vässū kokte lī, nǟhkina ja pērhkuin ja täkti kum.

Source Colophon

Ignácz Halász, Svéd-lapp nyelv V: Népköltési gyűjtemény a Pite-lappmark arjepluogi egyházkerületéből (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1893), no. 18, p. 18. 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, raised vowels, ə, œ, ǟ, and his bracketed variants. His Hungarian translation and his notes are not reproduced.

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