Eighteen tales from J. Qvigstad's Lappiske eventyr og sagn (Sami Tales and Legends, 1929), Volume II — the Troms and Finnmark tradition, drawn from a different coastal world than the Varanger tales of Volume I. These eighteen span the full range of Sami oral narrative: sacred and secular, brief and elaborately plotted, archaic and modern in the same breath.
Tales 46 and 47 open with the shamanic world. Tale 46 turns the luck-tale cycle inside out: the poor Lazarus-boy who has become a noaide-king uses directed thought — noai'dot*, glossed by the narrator as* jur'dilet*, "to think" — not to harm his murderous father-in-law but to expose and then spare him. This narrator's own gloss, embedded in the Sami text, is rare documentation from within the tradition: shamanic faculty understood as directed thought, not drum, not soul-flight. Tale 47 records the confrontation between noaide practice and Christianity without nostalgia — the pagan king's noaidis cannot remove the serpent, the captain's Virgin Mary kerchief succeeds, the king kills his noaidis and converts, all presented as matter-of-fact.*
Tales 48 and 49 are miniatures. The Seven Sleepers of Kautokeino: seven girls who sewed on the Sabbath night still sleep under a cloak that is always moving, and will sleep until the world ends. The Eternal Wanderer: the Wandering Jew legend transplanted into a Sami laborer's landscape, where the sea's waves become "tussocks" to his endlessly walking feet, and he has been walking since the day Jesus was nailed to the cross. Tales 50 through 52 are Märchen: the fool-boy who wins the sharp-tongued princess by countering her every figurative barb with a literal object from his pocket; the man who marries a near-menopausal woman to avoid children and finds himself father to seven; the merchant's wager about his wife's fidelity, which she survives and unmasks in disguise.
Tale 53 is the longest in the volume: the Danish prince who learns clockmaking as a disguise, uses three exquisite watches to test three court women of ascending rank, brings the proud English princess to poverty and labor in his own father's kingdom, and finally reveals himself. Tale 54 is the fated-child cycle — Anders Buhara (Tree-Fork), prophesied to become king, surviving every murder attempt, reaching hell and back, and trapping the murderous king in the ferryman's boat for eternity. Tale 55 is a brief riddle-tale: the clever boy who meets the king's impossible conditions with characteristic Sami literalism and then explains his four riddling answers.
Tales 56 through 60 close the first fifteen: a soldier who slays two bands of six robbers by the same method, wins a soldier's discharge and a princess by his oblivious loyalty; a blind old man's trough-test that distributes family wealth for generations; the lovers whose birch trees twine over the church roof; two reindeer-herding women and a son stolen and recovered; and the trickster servant whose master cannot say "I'm dissatisfied" until his wife's leg is already broken.
Tales 61 through 63 open the Stallo cycle. Tale 61 is a classic "clever boy outfoxes the giant" — the boy squeezes cheese curd in his fist and the giant thinks he's pressing water from stone; the boy's half-burned bed and his answer ("felt like the wind blew") complete the portrait of invulnerability the tale requires. Tale 62 presents two Stallo-and-dreng tales from Lenvik in parallel: in the first, the dreng's final act is to flood the gamme by digging a channel from the river; in the second, the boy escapes on Stallo's own boat while Stallo strips naked to swim after him and freezes. Tale 63 is the only non-Stallo tale of the three — the cobbler about to hang himself who talks the small devils into a competition and destroys them with an axe and a rotted club. No public-domain English translation of Qvigstad Volumes II–IV is known to exist. These are first English translations.
46. THE NOAIDE BOY AND THE KING'S DAUGHTER
There was a poor boy, a Lazarus-sort, herding two goats outside the king's city. The king's daughter wanted to buy one of his goats. He would not sell. The princess lifted her skirts at him and said: "Look at me!" The boy said: "Hold yourself less cheaply — you will get a child." After a short time, the king's daughter had a child.
She could name no one who had done it. The king fell into great difficulty because his daughter could not say who the father was. He had sixteen northmen brought into the hall and the infant carried past them all to see whom it smiled at; but the baby did not smile at any of them. Then through a window it caught sight of the poor boy, and it smiled at him. The king said: "That is the father," and asked his daughter: "Did he do it?" She said no. She told how she had lifted her skirts at him, and he had said she would get a child. The king grew angry. He had a barrel made with three compartments, put all three inside — the daughter, the child, and the boy — and pushed them out to sea.
They were drifting on the sea. The daughter wondered why things were rattling in the end of the barrel where the boy was. She called to him: "Why is it rattling in there? Do you have food?" "Yes." "Give me some." The boy said: "If you will marry me." She said: "Yes — but how will you get the partition between us out of the way?" "No trouble; I will manage that." He asked her again if she would take him as husband. She said yes. "But I am a poor man for a king's daughter," he said. "You are not poor," she said. "Only make food appear from time to time — by noaiding, by thinking." And the boy thought the partition away, and they came together.
They drifted a great distance and came to a certain haunted city. No living person was anywhere to be seen — just the city standing there, and food, and everything in it. They went into a hall where sea-spirits came at midday to eat. The boy climbed to the loft with three small stones and made holes in the floor so that a stone would drop onto the middle of the table when the sea-spirits arrived for their meal. He let one stone drop, and the sea-spirits fled to the sea. He ran after one of them and threatened to kill him unless he gave up the city. The sea-spirit had to surrender it. The boy got the city and became a merchant, and became king of that region.
He wrote a letter to his father-in-law, the old king, saying he was alive and his daughter was alive and he was king now. The old king did not believe it. The boy wrote again: he was alive — "even though you set me to sea to perish, me and your daughter, and now you shall come and visit." The old king wrote back that he still did not believe it. The young king wrote: "Come as a guest; I will not be angry, though you put us out to sea." The father-in-law king gathered his army and came. When he saw his son-in-law's city from a distance, he raised the mercy flag. The son-in-law king also raised the mercy flag: "Come; there is peace." He came, and they sat down to drink and eat.
He was a noaide, that son-in-law king. He could do evil by thought alone.
Without warning the old king's drinking glass vanished from the table, gone before he had time to notice. The old king searched every person in the city and pronounced sentence: "Whoever it is found with shall be killed." The son-in-law king said: "Come and search me too." He searched. He found nothing. The son-in-law king said: "Now search in your own pockets." And there it was. The father-in-law king was frightened: "Now I will be killed — I passed that sentence myself." But the son-in-law king was so merciful that he did not kill him.
(Recorded by Anders Larsen, 1900, from a mountain Sami man from Karasjok.)
47. THE SHIP CAPTAIN AND THE PAGAN KING
There was a pagan king. When a ship came into that city, he would not let it depart unless he had first deliberated with his counselors about three questions — and every captain was required to answer all three. If the captain could not answer them, he was not released.
A captain came ashore to the gamme of an old woman on the edge of the city. She told him: "You are stranded foreigners now; you will not get away from here." The captain said: "Why won't we get away? What is the danger?" The old woman told him: "The king puts three questions to every captain when a ship comes, and if the captain cannot answer them, he is kept." The captain asked her for advice: "Do you not know a way for me to get home?" She said: "From where would I know?" — then: "Do you have a chest big enough to hold yourself inside?" "Yes." "Then quickly — go and get the chest ashore."
The captain locked himself into the chest. The old woman ran to the king and asked to have the chest placed in his house; she hired two men to carry it there, and asked that it be set down in the council chamber where the king held his deliberations. Then she figured: he has heard everything now; the session is done. She had the chest fetched back to her gamme, unlocked it, and sent word to the ship — figuring that the king would soon send for the captain to put the three questions.
It was not long before the king sent for him. The king asked the first question. The captain thought, remembered it well enough — but did not want to answer too quickly. He answered the first. The king asked the second; he answered that one more readily. The king asked the third; he answered it almost at once. The king was astonished and said he had no more power to hold him. He spoke kindly with the captain and offered him great goods if he would stay.
Then the king took counsel with him. There had grown a serpent on his son's shoulder — from behind the shoulder blade up to the cheek — and when the boy ate, every other bite went into the serpent's mouth. He had wanted noaidis to remove it, since he was a pagan king. But now he consulted with the captain: "Do you not know a way to be rid of it?" The captain said he did not know. "There is a cloth aboard his ship with a woman's picture on it; perhaps that could remove it?" They fetched the cloth from the ship and held it by its four corners over the prince's head. The serpent fell. The captain ordered them to take it with tongs and cast it into the fire. The king was struck with wonder at the captain and wanted to give him half his lands if he would stay. And he killed those noaidis with whom he had previously kept company, and was converted.
The cloth with the woman's picture that the captain had — that was a kerchief with the likeness of the Virgin Mary, the cloth she had wiped her sweat with when she lay in childbed.
(Balke, Karasjok.)
48. THE SEVEN SLEEPERS
There were seven girls who played every weekday. Then one Saturday evening they remembered that the next day was holy, and they began to sew clothes; they sewed through the night and then lay down to sleep. And they sleep as long as the world stands. There is a cloak laid over them, and that cloak is always moving. When the cloak goes off them, that will be the world's end — then they will hear, and be freed.
(Elen Ucce, 1926, Kautokeino.)
49. THE ETERNAL WANDERER
There was a man working out in a field in America. A figure came toward him whose clothes and head and shoes were entirely moss-covered on the outside, and the pack on his back had rotted through.
The man said: "Where do you come from?" He answered that he had always been walking and would keep walking. "Are you not tired?" "The great tussocks — those are the hardest to cross." He pointed toward the sea, and the sea's waves he called tussocks.
The man asked: "How far are you going?" He was always walking; he had set out the day Jesus was nailed to the cross, and he would walk until Jesus came to judge. He was the shoemaker of Jerusalem; he was forty years old when Jesus was nailed to the cross.
(Elen Ucce, 1926, Kautokeino.)
50. THE BOY WHO SILENCED THE KING'S DAUGHTER
An old man had three sons; one of them was a bit of a fool. There was a king's daughter so clever and sharp-tongued that no one could hold their own against her in words; she was so twisting in her speech that many wise men and those who thought themselves clever had tried, but none had matched her. The king had promised her in marriage to whoever silenced her in words.
The three brothers set out; the eldest went first and accomplished nothing. The middle one went next — he accomplished nothing either. When the youngest heard about it, he set out too, and people called out wherever they met him: "Well, where are you going, poor wretch?" He told them: "I am going to silence the king's daughter in words." They laughed at him. But he paid them no mind and walked on.
He found on the road a dead loon and put it in his pocket. He walked a little further and found a half-plate, and put that in his pocket. He found a piece of an old willow-band and pocketed it; a goat's horn, and pocketed it; another goat's horn, and pocketed that too; and finally an old worn-out shoe, which he put in his pocket as well. Each time he said to himself: "I am pocketing everything I find on the road — who knows when I might need it."
Then he went and came to the king's daughter's room. She had a very good fire in the stove and the room was very hot. The boy came in and said: "Ho, ho — old woman's room is warm." The king's daughter said: "Behind me it is even warmer." The boy said: "Is it so warm that I could roast a bird?" She wanted him to show the bird, and he showed it. She said: "The fat will run off it when you start to roast it." He said: "I have a plate — I will catch the fat in that." She said: "Well, the bird will split open while you are roasting it." He said: "I have a willow-band; I will bind it together so it does not split." She wanted him to show it, and he did. She said: "You talk walking-away talk." He pulled the old worn-out shoe from his pocket and said: "I have not walked away — but this man has walked away." She said: "Your words are crooked." He pulled one goat's horn from his pocket and said: "I am not crooked — but here is a man who is crooked," and pulled out the other goat's horn: "And here is another such."
So he got the king's daughter as his wife, because he was clever enough to have gathered and hidden those things in his pocket. She had to take the foolish-seeming boy as her husband, and they fared well once married, and people said he was the wisest man of all, since he had silenced the king's daughter.
(Isak Eira, 1921, Kautokeino.)
51. THE MAN WHO MARRIED THINKING HIS WIFE WOULD BE CHILDLESS
There was a man who wanted to marry, but he wanted to marry a woman who would bear him no children. He worked out the age at which women could no longer conceive and married one close to fifty years old. But he did not dare lie with his wife until seven years had passed. When at last he began to lie with her, she became pregnant and gave birth to seven children — as small as mice, but all alive. The man ordered them carried to the river and drowned, and he warned his serving-girl: "Tell no one, and if you do, nothing good will come to you."
The girl was carrying the children to the river when a man came toward her on the road and asked: "What are you carrying in your arms?" "It is not worth telling," she answered. "Let me see," he said. "No," she replied. "If you do not let me see, I will kill you. I could take it by force, but you should willingly let me see," said the man. The girl was troubled, wondering whether to show him or not. But the man kept pressing her, and at last she said: "If you will tell no one, I will show you." "I will not tell," he answered. She opened her arms, and when the man looked and saw the children, he asked in wonder: "What is this?" "These are the children my mistress bore today." "Where are you taking them?" "My master ordered me to cast them in the river." "You must not take their lives — give them to me and I will raise them," the man said. "You shall have them if you will keep silent." "That I will," he said, and took the children.
He raised them until they were fully grown. Then he held a great feast and invited the parents. While they were eating and drinking, he asked them: "Do you recognize these people?" "No," they answered. "Do you want to know who they are?" "Yes, of course." "These are your seven children, whom you wanted to drown." When the father heard this, he fell down dead. The mother went mad and died a few days later.
(Aikio, recorded 1893, Upper Tana.)
52. THE WAGER ABOUT THE WIFE'S FAITHFULNESS
In a certain city there were two rich merchants; one of them had a very fine and faithful wife. The two made a wager: the one with the fine wife bet that the other could not lead her into adultery, and the other bet that he could. Between husband and wife there was a gold cross she wore about her neck — their token of love for each other. The second merchant bet he would succeed. The first said: "I will not believe it until you produce the gold cross from her neck. If you cannot get it, you have not succeeded. But if you do get it, take it as proof. If you fail, you must go from your home as a wanderer; if you succeed, I will go as a wanderer."
So the husband sailed away on his trading ship and was gone a very long time. Once he had left port, the second merchant began his attempts on the fine wife in every possible way, but could not lead her into sin however he tried, and the time drew near for her husband to come home. At last the merchant became desperately troubled, knowing he would have to leave his goods and go as a wanderer.
He went walking along the shore, and as he walked there, an old woman came toward him and asked why he was so sorrowful. He told her the whole story: the wager, the attempts, the failure, the forfeit. "That need not worry you," said the old woman; "I will get you the gold cross she wears about her neck." "That would be very welcome," he said. And they parted.
The old woman went to the fine wife and asked to pick through her hair. The wife let her do it. But while the old woman was doing this, the wife fell asleep in her lap. Then the old woman quietly slipped the gold cross from her neck and went and gave it to the troubled merchant, who became glad.
After a long time the fine wife's husband came home and sailed into the harbor. The merchant in the city went to meet him on the pier and showed him the gold cross. When the man still aboard saw it, he recognized it at once as his wife's. He ordered his sailors to go ashore, seize his wife, cut her heart from her body while she still lived, and bring it to him, so he could pierce it through for her faithlessness. But the sailors did not go to his wife — they went and cut the heart from a pig and brought it to him on the ship. He pierced it through and through, at once sailed out to sea, and went abroad. There he spent all his wealth, and when everything was gone, he came to ruin.
The wife, whom he believed dead, at once dressed in men's clothing. No one recognized her anymore, for word had spread that her husband had ordered her heart cut out. Everyone believed she was dead. But she began to trade, and she prospered. After some time she learned where her husband was and what his condition had become. She wrote him a letter asking him to come to her as a servant, and when the wretched man received the letter, he came to her as a hired hand and was there for some time.
His mistress then held a great feast and invited many guests. When the guests had gathered in the largest room — and beside it was a small chamber where she kept her servants — and when the guests had grown lively, they began telling stories. The hired hand began to tell about how he and another man had once made a wager, and he told the whole story from beginning to end: a man had made this bet — "you cannot lead my wife into sin" — and I bet that I could; whoever lost was to leave his home as a wanderer; that man's wife had a gold cross about her neck, and I was to get it as proof that I had succeeded; but I could not get her to sin, even though I kept on trying.
When he had finished telling the story, his mistress opened the door of the small chamber, called her husband out from it, and said: "Now you have heard for yourself whether it was my fault that our love ended and that you, my dear husband, have come to such a bad state." The one who had destroyed their love and their peaceable life together was seized with terrible fear. The wife changed back into women's clothing, and they lived in love with each other for the rest of their lives.
(Holm, Polmak.)
53. THE DANISH PRINCE AND THE ENGLISH PRINCESS
In old times there was a Danish prince who wrote a letter to the proud English king's daughter, saying that he wished to court her, if only she would give him her word. He received a reply of the most haughty kind, and among the words she sent was a sting: that in her father's realm there were many soldiers every bit as good as the Danish prince. These words went to his heart. He thought: the English princess holds me no better than a common soldier in the English army. He thought: he will not be a prince for nothing — he will try to humble that pride of hers a little. He turned the problem over in his mind.
He told his father what had happened. His father counseled him, equipped him with money, and bade him go learn clockmaking from a Jewish craftsman — for that man was at the time reckoned the best and most skilled clockmaker in the world. The prince went and spent a year with him, and bought from him the three most beautiful pocket watches that were anywhere to be found, and he thought: from these I shall draw good use in time. Then he traveled home and came to his father. His father asked whether he had learned the clockmaker's art. He said yes, and showed his father the master's certificate. His father was glad of it; for he had the same intention as his son — to try to humble the proud girl, if it were possible.
His father then equipped a ship with cargo and crew, and the prince sailed to the harbor of the English king's city. When he arrived they anchored the ship securely, and he told his sailors: "Keep good watch over the ship so it takes no harm, until I am done. If there is work for me to get in the city, we will stay perhaps a year; but you will have better word about that later." Then he went up and let it be known that he was a clockmaker. All the great men of the city were pleased with this, for there had been no clockmaker in the city. The king also came to hear that there was a skilled clockmaker in the city; he sent for him. The prince went to speak with the English king — but he let no one know what kind of man he was. The king offered him work, and he agreed to do it, and showed him proof that he was a clockmaker. The king made a house ready for him where he could work and live.
When he had begun to work, he hung the three watches he had bought from the Jew on a nail — and there were none like them in all the English realm. The first morning, when the court ladies brought coffee to the clockmaker, the one who carried the tray caught sight of those fine watches on the nail. She barely had time to set down what she was carrying before she asked: "Are those beautiful watches yours?" "Yes indeed," said the clockmaker. She was seized with great desire to buy one and asked: "Will you sell me one?" The clockmaker answered: "They are not for sale; but I give them to whoever I choose." The woman thought in her embarrassment how she might get the watch, since he would not sell, and doubted she was the one he would give it to. She pleaded: "Please, sell me one — for it would mean so much to me to have such a watch as cannot be found in all of England. You may set whatever price you like." The clockmaker said with an even firmer voice: "Believe what I said. They are not for sale for money; but if you are willing, I will tell you a way." "Please do," said the court lady. The clockmaker told her what he knew: "If you will come to me at ten o'clock tonight and sleep beside me until morning, you shall have one." The woman made herself angry and shamed him for this shameless suggestion. The clockmaker said cheerfully and kindly: "You are your own person, and the watches are mine. Do as you wish." The woman wanted to go, but as she had her hand on the door latch she cast one more glance at the watches and felt the desire stronger than before; she turned back and asked once more whether he would not sell for money. He answered gravely: "Don't take me for a fool, for I am not taking you for one; but what I said is true." Then the fine woman began awkwardly to negotiate: "I would do what you set; but in this realm there is a law that punishes with life, if it becomes known that any woman of noble rank leads an unlawful life." He answered: "That is no concern of mine; look to it yourself." The woman said: "I will get myself to come to you rather than go without a watch."
When ten o'clock came that evening, she came to the clockmaker and undressed and lay down beside him. He turned his back to her and slept that way calmly until morning. Then it was time to rise; the woman had to get up, and she dressed and was full of shame — she thought she had not earned the watch. She was going to leave. The clockmaker called: "Take one of the watches, as I promised!" Then the woman paused, somewhat at a loss, and said: "I have not earned the watch." The clockmaker answered: "You did what I wished, and the watch is yours." She took the watch and thanked him and went back.
As soon as she came to the court, she showed what kind of watch she had received, and the one she showed it to was of higher rank than herself. That woman was immediately struck with wonder. "Where are such watches to be found?" she asked. The first woman told her: "At the clockmaker who works for the king." "Has he more of them?" she asked again. "He had two more," said the other. Then the nobler woman said: "I will bring him coffee in the morning so I can see the watches and buy one myself — for it is a shame to me that you should have a watch so much finer than any of ours." She brought him coffee, and as soon as she came in she asked: "Will you sell me a watch?" The clockmaker answered her with exactly the same words as the first woman, and told her how the watch was to be obtained. She made herself angry, too; but the clockmaker paid it no mind and said cheerfully: "You are your own person, and the watch is mine. Do as you wish." This woman too mentioned the law's strictness in that realm regarding such conduct. The clockmaker answered: "That is no concern of mine." So she too had to promise to come at ten. When the appointed time came, she came and undressed and lay down beside him, and they were to sleep. But the clockmaker turned his back to her and did not say one word to her. The woman lay still a long time; at last she began to fondle the clockmaker. But he spoke harshly to her and said: "Lie still, friend, as I do." You may believe it was no small shame for her who received that treatment, and all hope of getting the watch left her; but she still had to remain until morning. When she rose and dressed and wanted to go, the clockmaker called: "Take the watch as I promised!" The woman said with shame: "I have not earned the watch." He said: "Take it, take it." She took it and thanked him and went back.
She came at once to the court and brought the king's daughter coffee in the morning; the watch had been hung where the proud king's daughter would see it as soon as she came in. You can imagine: when the proud king's daughter saw it, she asked at once: "Where did you get such a watch?" The woman answered: "At the clockmaker who works for the king." She asked again: "Has he more such?" "He has one more," said the woman. "Does he sell that too?" asked the king's daughter. The girl answered: "I think he does not sell it." The king's daughter said: "I will bring him breakfast so I can see the watch and buy it for myself — for it is a shame to me that you should have such a watch and I should not have one the same." She brought him food. He understood this was the proud king's daughter. She asked: "How much does that watch cost?" He answered: "It is sold for neither much nor little; but I give it to whoever I choose." The king's daughter repeated the words she had spoken before, that he should sell it to her if it cost half of the entire English realm. Then the clockmaker said: "If you come to me at ten tonight and sleep beside me until morning, you shall have the watch that is still left." The king's daughter made herself angry and threatened him with death by her father's sword, when he heard what a shameless suggestion he was making. The clockmaker paid no more mind to that than to say: "The watch is mine, and you are your own. Do as you wish." Then the king's daughter too had to promise to come; it would have to venture itself. But she also reminded him of the English law's severity toward women of high rank who lost their honor. The clockmaker answered: "That is no concern of mine. Take care of it yourself, if you wish." When the time came, the king's daughter arrived and undressed and lay down beside him, and she slept with him through the night; but the clockmaker received her and did not turn his back. When morning came, the king's daughter left, and the clockmaker kindly asked her to take the watch. She thought: she had well earned it — she had put her life in danger for a watch's sake, and who knows what the consequences of this event might be.
The clockmaker continued faithfully at his work. When two months had passed, the proud king's daughter came again to the clockmaker at midday, full of secret sorrow and shame. The clockmaker asked: "What ails you, that you look so changed?" The king's daughter told him: "You and the watch are the cause of it; I am with child, and it is certain: as soon as my father learns of it, I will be hanged — for that is the law here." "That is no concern of mine," answered the clockmaker; "but if you will do the small thing I advise, I will save your life from this danger." "Do it," said the girl; "it is better to go out into the strange world as a poor servant than to be hanged by my father's judgment." The clockmaker said: "I have a ship ready. If you wish to sail with me so that no person knows of it, you must make yourself ready within a week." The girl agreed, and the clockmaker went to his ship and bade his men sell all the cargo to those who could pay, and give it to the poor — "for the ship must be ready to sail within a week, and you must be ready whether it is night or day, when I come." The men did faithfully all they were told, and when the appointed time came, the king's daughter had made herself ready. When everyone else had gone to sleep, she came to the clockmaker and told him all was ready. He took his things and carried them to the ship, and he took his charge for whom he had promised to care as best he could, and that same night they weighed anchor and sailed away. When morning came, the king noticed that his daughter was gone, the clockmaker was gone, and the ship that had lain there some months was gone. But no one knew where the ship was from or where it was going.
So they sailed to Denmark and landed in the royal harbor. The clockmaker placed the English king's daughter in a poor farmhouse, and she was to live there as a stranger, unknown among people, eating the poor food that poor farmers eat. The time for her confinement drew near, and the clockmaker pretended to be utterly destitute, scarcely able to get himself a bite of food or pay for board and lodging for the pregnant girl. She bore a son who was beautiful to see, and now the proud king's daughter had to care for a bastard child in a poor man's house in the deepest misery. When two months had passed that way, the clockmaker began to say to his sweetheart that they should put the child out to nurse with someone else. "You will then have better time to work and earn a few coins to help yourself and me, so we can with them pay the great expenses we have." The girl agreed and said gently: "Do, dear one, as you will; I have no say in it." The clockmaker took the little boy and brought him to his father's farm, and of this the girl knew nothing, and even less that her sweetheart was the very prince she had once written such a haughty letter to, on account of which she now had to shed many tears. Then the clockmaker came again in the evening to his sweetheart and had two bread slices in his pocket. He took them out and gave her one for her supper and ate the other himself. Now the daughter of majesty must eat a coarse bread slice with nothing to soften it. She remembered her father's farm's well-prepared dishes, and they wounded her heart again; but it did not help — things must go as the proverb says: late regret seldom helps.
So they lived in poverty a while longer. The clockmaker went out every day early in the morning to seek earnings and work. One evening he came home to his sweetheart in good spirits. He said: "I have today spoken with a potter, and he has promised me several horse-loads of earthenware on credit; I think it is suitable work for you. When we get them set out by the road, you can sell them while I do other work." The king's daughter was very pleased to have trading work, and when day came the pottery was brought by horses to the roadside and set out in a fine row. But the prince had given soldiers orders to drive deliberately so that the wheels would break every last piece before the girl had sold a single one. They did as they were commanded. The clockmaker came in the evening again to his sweetheart and asked: "Well, dear one, how has today's work gone?" The girl's heart was so close to bursting with fear and shame that she could not answer one word; but the clockmaker showed himself very friendly toward her and asked again: "Have you sold the pottery well?" Then the tears ran from the poor girl's eyes, and she said: "Dear one, don't ask a single word — for the soldiers of this city were so hard-hearted that they drove and smashed every last piece of mine, and I could not sell one." "Ah so," said the clockmaker sighing and was for a long moment silent as one who fears a great embarrassment. Then he said: "I cannot manage with you; I must cast you off — for you are becoming too great a burden to me and dragging me further and further into debt." The girl wept and begged forgiveness and promised to take better care next time of whatever might be to do. The clockmaker agreed to try for a little while longer to provide for her.
Morning came again; the clockmaker went again into the city as if to seek earnings and work. When evening came he came again and had two more bread slices in his pocket, which they ate that evening — and that was all they owned. Then the clockmaker told his sweetheart that he had spoken with a baker, "and he has promised to lend us several loads of bread and some barrels of ale. You must try to sell them tomorrow — for I know that in this city they are easy goods to sell. But now you must take better care than yesterday." The girl promised and thanked the clockmaker for his kind provision. When day came, the goods were brought by horses to the marketplace, and the bottoms were taken from the ale barrels so it would be easy to ladle, as needed, and the bread boxes were opened. The clockmaker said to his sweetheart: "Here now are goods for you to sell, and I myself must go again to work." But he had given soldiers orders to take all the bread and drink as much ale as they could manage, and they were to pay not a single coin. They did this the whole day until everything was consumed. When evening came, the poor girl went home weeping alone to her lodging and waited fearfully for her sweetheart's coming. When the clockmaker came in the evening, he patted his sweetheart as one who expected she had made a good trade. But the girl said: "Such people as the fighting men of this city I have never seen." "How is that?" said the clockmaker. "They ate and drank everything I had and did not pay one coin." "What?" asked the clockmaker. "Is it true they did not pay?" "Yes, yes," said the girl weeping. The clockmaker asked: "Did you demand it of them?" "Yes, I did," said the girl, "but they only laughed at me and gave nothing." "I had not expected that of you," he said, "that through you I should again come into greater debt than through the pottery business." The girl dared not speak another word. Long they sat in silence looking only at their hands; on both of them tears ran down the cheeks. The girl was ignorant of any better state which she could no longer believe waited for her, and the prince inwardly reproached himself for trying her so hard. But he steeled his heart and put her to the test once more, hoping thereby to drive the former pride completely from his sweetheart's heart. So he again threatened to cast her off and made himself hard against her.
When morning came again he went into the city and was gone during the day. In the evening he came again to his sweetheart and brought with him bread and a little salt pork. They ate that together in the evening. Then he told her: "I have now arranged a service for you where you will be better provided for than here." "What work am I to do there?" asked the girl. "To spin tow." The girl was silent a moment and at last said: "That work I have never seen in all my life; but I will willingly try." She asked: "Where is the place?" The clockmaker answered: "In the king's spinning room." When morning came he took the girl with him along with her belongings and walked himself ahead with holes in his breeches. They came to the house where she was to begin spinning, and work was arranged for her. The girl spun there three weeks and became quite skilled. The clockmaker came to her every evening and was pleased with her as she began to learn to work. Then he told her: "I have now spoken of an even better work for you; you will get a position as the king's kitchen girl." She liked this even better, and when she came into the kitchen she saw that all the other girls were very kind to her and treated her with honor and respect. Her days began to pass faster; but at last she grew afraid that perhaps they knew she was of noble birth and were therefore so kind to her. She asked her sweetheart the clockmaker one evening: "Do the people of the city know what family I come from?" "Far from it," he answered.
When three more weeks had passed and she had faithfully done the work set for her in the kitchen, one beautiful midday a messenger came bidding her put on royal garments and come to the king's hall — for the king wished to speak with her. She was seized with terror, so that the blood stopped in her for a whole moment; she thought news had come that she was a fugitive and had forfeited her life under her parents' law. But it did not help; she had to go, though her feet trembled so she could barely get across the threshold. The servant girls opened the door for her, and she stepped across the threshold into the hall. The king and queen sat at the table, and on the king's lap was a little boy who was already laughing and looking about, and at their right side the clockmaker held in his hand a golden cup with a sweet and reviving drink. The girl stood there and looked at them with fear and shame and did not know what to do. But she came enough to herself again that she made a sign of humility and bowed three times, and at last fell to her knees on the floor. Then the king himself came to her and took her by the hand and said: "Do not be afraid, dear daughter — for you have reached this unexpected day. But I ask you this only: who is the Danish warrior who is no more than the worst soldier in the English realm?" She recovered herself and felt herself struck hard and said: "My pride was what made me once say that in my good days in my father's splendid house about the Danish prince, when he had written me a dear letter — and that I have now regretted more than once." The king comforted her and asked: "Do you know the clockmaker?" She pointed with her finger: "There he sits." The king said: "Go now to him with joy!" She went; but joy so filled her heart that her feet grew faint and she fell to the floor before she reached him, and went white as linen. The prince, who was now dressed in the crown prince's garments, went to her and took her about the neck and lifted her onto his lap, and then at last the true lasting joy and love began between them and she received her son too, neatly dressed, on her lap. So they ended that day, and the kitchen and all her work were finished.
The next day they made a wedding, and they were married, and she lived with her dear clockmaker in humility and love and never forgot poverty and the needs of poor people — for she herself had gone through a hard school in that — and from that time they are said to have lived happily.
(Lars Gaino, Kautokeino, 1878.)
54. ANDERS BUHARA
One day it happened that a king thought it good to go out for a walk; he took a certain man as companion, and they went. They came into a small house. There a woman had just given birth to a child; she was a poor woman. The man who was with the king said: "From that child there will come a king." The king grew envious; he thought: he would see to getting that child killed. He began to want to buy the child. The poor woman thought: she would sell the little boy — he would at least eat good food at the king's place. So the king bought the little boy and went away and came to a thick forest. He laid the child in a tree fork and thought: he will die there. There was a farmer's wife who was driving cows out into the field, and when she turned back, she heard the child crying; she went and took him out of the tree fork and brought him home and raised him.
The child became a big boy. The king came to that house and asked what the boy's name was. The wife told him he had no other name but Anders Buhara — Treefork — because she had found him in a tree fork. The king began to think it was the same child he had laid there. He asked how long ago it was. The wife told him; the king came to know it was the same boy he had placed in the tree fork. He then wrote a letter and asked the boy to bring it to his farm. The boy set out. The king had written in the letter: "When this boy arrives, you shall kill him and lay him in the tree fork before the chamber window." The boy then set out and went until he lost his way. He came to a certain house in a very thick forest. He went in; in the house there was no one but an old woman. The boy told her he had lost his way and was tired, and asked leave to sleep. The old woman said she dared not receive him there; it was a robbers' house, and they would kill him when they came. The boy was not afraid; he lay down to sleep and laid the letter on the table. The robbers came; they tore open the letter and read it. When they saw that the letter said the boy was to be killed, they did not kill him, but wrote on another piece of paper: "When the boy arrives at the king's farm, the king's wife is to marry him to the eldest daughter and kill the big dog and lay it in the tree fork before the chamber window." One of the robbers could write exactly like the king. When the boy woke, he set out and came to the king's farm. He gave the king's wife the letter. She read it, and the king's counselors read it, and they saw that it was just the king's own hand. The king's wife married the boy to the eldest daughter and had the big dog killed and hung in the tree fork before the king's chamber window.
The king came home and saw from a distance that the big dog was hanging in the tree fork. When he came inside, he asked why they had killed the big dog. The king's wife and his counselors said: "But you had written: the boy who brings this letter is to be married to the eldest daughter and the big dog is to be killed." The king could not raise many objections. Then he said to the boy: "Now you shall travel and fetch three golden hairs from the evil one." The king thought: he will surely be killed there. The boy set out; he walked and came to a great river. There was a man who was rowing in circles in the middle of the river. The poor oarsman asked the boy where he was going. The boy told him he was going to hell. The oarsman said: "You shall ask how I can get to shore — I have been rowing for thirty years." The boy promised to ask. Then he came to a farm. There they asked him where he was going. He told them he was going to hell. The people at the farm said: "You shall ask where the king's daughter has gone who got lost." The boy promised to ask. Then he wandered on and came to a priest's farm. There they asked where he was going. He told them he was going to hell. The priest said: "You shall ask where the thirty church keys have gone that disappeared." The boy promised.
The boy set off and came to a green meadow. There was a hole going down into the earth; the boy looked into the hole and slid down. Down there was a king's daughter. The boy said he had come to hell. The girl answered: "You are in hell now, and the evil one will kill you." The boy said: "Is there no way to hide me?" The girl promised to hide him. He told the girl: "You must pull three golden hairs from the evil one and ask where the thirty church keys have gone that disappeared, and where the king's daughter is who got lost, and how the poor oarsman can get to shore who has rowed thirty years in the same place." The girl promised to ask. She hid the boy. The evil one came and said: "Why is there such a human smell here?" The girl answered: "An eagle flew past and had a human's thigh in its beak." Then the girl began to pick through the evil one's head and pulled out three golden hairs. She asked: "Where have the thirty church keys gone?" The evil one answered: "They are under the church steps." "And where has the king's daughter gone who got lost?" The evil one answered: "That is you." "And how shall the poor oarsman get to shore who has rowed thirty years?" The evil one answered: "When he sets a person across, he should jump to shore himself and push the boat off." The girl asked: "How does one get up from here?" The evil one told the girl. Then the evil one left, and the girl took the boy, and they set off.
They came to the king's farm. The king gave many gifts to the boy for bringing back his daughter. The boy set out and came to the priest's farm. The priest asked about the church keys. The boy told him: "They are under the church steps." The priest gave him many goods. The boy went on and came to the poor oarsman. The oarsman asked how he was to get to shore. The boy said: "Set me across; then I will tell you." He set the boy across, and the boy told him: "The first man who now comes and asks you to set him over — jump to shore yourself before him and push the boat off and say: row now as long as I have rowed!" The boy went on and came to the king's farm and gave the king the evil one's golden hairs. The king saw that the boy had so much precious goods; he asked him where he had gotten them. The boy answered that he had gotten them in hell. The king thought that he too would go there, and so he went.
He had gone a good distance, and then he saw a man rowing. He called out that he should set him across. The man came and rowed to the other side, then jumped to shore himself, shoved the boat off, and said: "Row now as long as I have rowed!" So the poor oarsman went free, and the king came to spend his life rowing on the river, and Anders Buhara became king — just as that man had prophesied in jest.
(Elen Ucce, Kautokeino, 1926.)
55. THE KING AND THE CLEVER BOY
A boy is cooking; he has a fire going, and the pot is boiling. The king comes and asks: "What are you cooking?" "One follows after its companion." The king did not understand that. He asked: "Where is your father?" "Father is out hunting birds in the forest; those he kills, he leaves there, and those he does not kill, he brings with him." The king did not understand that either. Then the king asked: "Where is your mother?" "Mother is crying for her aunt so that her aunt does not need to cry herself." That the king did not understand either. So he asks: "Where is your sister?" "Sister is crying because she laughed so much last year." The king did not understand that either. Then the king said to the boy: "You shall come tomorrow to my place; but you shall not come dressed and you shall not come naked, and you shall not come along the field and not along the road, and when you come to my place, you shall not stop outside and not inside."
The boy set about getting ready; he took a piece of old net and wrapped himself inside it. He went; he walks in the road ditch — he is not on the field and not on the road. He came to the king's farm; he went up onto the doorstep and placed one foot inside and one foot outside; he was so that he was not inside and not outside. The king called him in, had the net taken off him and gave him clothes, and when he had finished dressing, the boy sat down on a chair. The king said: "Explain to me now what it means that one follows after another when you cook." "When the pot boils, the water moves in bubbles, each one following the next." Only then did the king understand that these were water bubbles following one another. Then the king asked: "Explain to me also what it is that your father hunts birds; those he kills, he leaves there, and those he does not kill, he brings with him." "Father is killing lice outside the house, and those he catches, he throws away, and those he does not catch, those remain in the shirt." Only then did the king understand that too. Then the king asks: "Explain also that your mother cries for her aunt so that her aunt does not need to cry herself." "Aunt is being laid in the grave now, and mother cries for her sister." Then the king asks: "Explain to me also that your sister laughed last year and now cries." "My sister hid a child last year and now she is being punished." So the boy became the one who taught wisdom to the king.
(Erik Mikkelsen, Tana, 1893.)
56. THE SOLDIER AND THE BANKRUPT MERCHANT
A soldier fled his post, for the duty was hard. He dared not take the king's road for fear of being caught, so he went through the forest. There he lost his way. In that forest he came upon a man who had gone out to fetch a horse. The soldier asked him: "What manner of man are you?" "I am a bankrupt merchant." The rider asked: "And what manner of man are you?" "I am a soldier who has left his service." The rider said: "Would you not care to mount and ride with me?" "I would, if you will take me." "I will take you." So they set off riding, but neither knew where to go — both were lost. They rode until dark, and then through the trees they saw a light shining. They drew closer. The light burned down at ground level. They understood: it was a house built down into the earth, with windows at the soil's surface. The soldier said to the merchant: "Stay here by the horse. I'll go and see what sort of people are inside." He crept to the window and looked through in secret. He saw six men and two women, and he understood they were robbers. He came back to the merchant and said: "I want to go in among those people. Will you come?" "I'll have to come myself, to see what's there." The soldier said: "If you're coming too, we should exchange clothes. You take mine on, and I'll take yours." So they exchanged, and went in.
The soldier went in ahead, bid good evening, greeted everyone cheerfully, and asked for the night's lodging. He was given it willingly. The merchant stayed frozen by the door. The men asked: "What sort of man is that you have with you?" "That is my servant." He asked for food and got it. He ate and gave the servant something to eat as well. Then he asked: "Have you anything here to pass the time, so the evening goes faster?" "We have nothing but cards." "That's fine sport." So they began to play. He played and lost; he only pulled money from his pocket and threw it on the table. They saw that he had money in abundance, and they grew cheerful.
The soldier said: "Let's do better than this. We should make a small drinking party." So they began to drink and play. Then he said: "It is still not what it ought to be. We should make punch. But I am so great a drinker of punch that I drink half a barrel alone. The girls should put a large kettle of water over the fire until it begins to boil." The girls put a large kettle of water on. He played on, quick and lively. He asked as they played: "Have you a large iron ladle that holds two measures?" "We haven't one quite that large, but one that holds one measure we have." "Fetch that here too — we'll use it. And fetch us sugar and bottles of rum! Then we can make good punch." Then word came from the girls: "The water is boiling already." He ran into the kitchen and asked one of the men to come with him. They carried the kettle of boiling water into the middle of the floor, and he seized the iron ladle and dashed the boiling water straight into the men's eyes — all he could reach in the rush — then grabbed a sword from the wall and cut the throat of every one and killed all six men.
The merchant thought: "If God helps me out of here through this man, I must give him my only daughter in marriage — for I can see that he is a good fighting man."
The soldier drove the two girls hard: "You will scrub the floor clean." He took both girls by force, gripped the sword in his other hand, and threatened them until they confessed: "Are there any more people on this farm? If you don't tell me truly, I'll kill you both." The girls grew frightened and told him: "There are six more men in the forest, and they come after midnight." He said: "Scrub the floor clean and clear away all the things and put each thing back where it was." He made the girls swear to say the others had gone out to the forest.
Then he went and sat and waited until the other six men came. He sprang up and begged their forgiveness for entering their house without leave. The men said: "No harm done; don't be afraid, you shall be at peace here." He asked: "Have you food? I have been starving." "We have food enough, and you shall eat." He ate and gave his servant something as well. The servant sat and tried to eat, but could not, for he was still trembling. He asked: "Have you anything to pass the time, to make the night go faster?" "We have nothing but cards." "Good." So they began again — he played and lost, pulled money from his pocket and threw it on the table. They grew cheerful at the sight of so many coins.
Then the soldier said: "We should make a small drinking party, so the time goes better." "We will," said the men. He asked: "Have you a large kettle we could boil punch water in?" — and what happened with these six was the same as with the first six.
Then the soldier told the girls: "You are coming with us." When he lay down he took one girl to himself, and gave the other to his servant. He asked his servant: "Have you used your girl?" "I have not yet done that, and I have no intention to."
In the morning they made ready to leave. They gathered two linen sacks full of money and laid them across the horse, and the soldier mounted as well, and they set off. They found the king's road. The merchant said: "Let us exchange clothes now. We can go on toward the city; now I know where the city is." So they exchanged. Then the "king" said: "I will mount the horse, and you can walk with the two girls." But the soldier said: "You will not leave me behind; we shall come together to the city gate." The merchant promised. But when he set off, he rode ahead fast. The soldier ran after but could not keep pace; he fell behind the horse, and he did not know through which gate the merchant had ridden into the city.
He came to the first gate and asked the guard whether he had seen a bankrupt merchant come through with two money sacks on a horse. The guard said: "I have not seen any merchant come here — only our gracious king." The soldier said: "The devil with your king; it is the bankrupt merchant I want to know about, who rode off with my money sacks that I earned with great labor in the forest." The guard said: "Go in peace, man. Don't be afraid."
He went on, and came to the palace gate. The king came out to meet him, dressed in royal clothes. The soldier recognized that this must surely be the king. The king asked: "What manner of man are you?" "I am a soldier who has left his service." "Where do you come from?" "I come from the forest. I got lost, and I found there a rider who said he was a bankrupt merchant." The king said: "Do you think you would know that merchant again?" "I believe I would — I know him well enough." "Why do you seek him?" "I earned two money sacks from robbers in the forest, and the bankrupt merchant rode off with them." The king said: "Come inside. You are tired, perhaps. I believe you have worked far too hard."
He went in, and they gave him food, and he ate. Then they led him to sleep in a chamber alone, and the king sent his daughter in to him — she was to sleep beside him. The king himself went to the door to listen. But the soldier slept deep. The king called through the door: "Are you finished with her?" The soldier woke and felt a woman beside him. He sat bolt upright: "Voi, voi, voi — the king has put me in a brothel!" And he drove her out. The girl had to go.
Morning came. They brought him coffee and two good glasses of spirits. He drank, dressed himself, and went to the king to ask: "Could the king not help me find the bankrupt merchant, so I could get my money? I would pay the king well for it." The king said: "Yes — I will gather all the merchants together, to see if you can identify the man who was your companion when you won those money sacks." The king assembled all the merchants and also other great lords. He recognized no one among them all, and stood there among those great men like a fool.
Then the king slipped out in secret and put on the clothes he had worn in the forest. He came back in. The soldier looked at him — and recognized him. He seized him by the shoulder, shook him, and said: "For shame! You hid my money sacks away, and brought the king and all these great lords here for nothing!" And he lifted his hand to strike him on the ear. But another lord caught his arm: "Do not strike our gracious king!" The soldier said: "Oh — is this the king? I thought he was a bankrupt merchant." The king opened his coat and showed the decorations on his chest. The soldier fell to his knees and begged for grace. The king forgave him and said: "I was your companion in the forest, and I promised you truly: if you saved my life, I would give you my only daughter to wife, and you may treat her as you please. I know that you are a good fighting man." So he married the king's daughter and entered the company of the great lords.
He then spoke to the king: "Could I not return to my old service station — and take my wife with me, and good horses, and other lords?" So they departed, and he took his old soldier's clothes with him.
(Erik Mikkelsen, Tana, 1893.)
57. THE DEAF AND BLIND MAN
He was a fjell-Sami and had married the daughter of a Kven, and he was very wealthy. Then he came down to settle in Norway with his family and his goods. He had three sons, and the three sons married — all three taking daughters of the same man. Then it happened, when he himself became deaf and blind, that his herd mid-winter strayed onto a smooth fjell. On that fjell there hung a snow-cornice. His herd walked far out along the fjell-ridge onto the cornice, and the cornice broke when the herd had come out onto it, and the herd fell headlong down the steep fell and all perished. So he became poor, and his daughters-in-law were to provide for him. They all lived in the same gamme and shared it. He, the deaf and blind one, was already old, and each daughter-in-law was to feed him for one week at a time. He was so old now that he could not get out of his bed anymore. They had made a small trough for him beside his pillow, and the daughters-in-law put food into it. When he was hungry he reached out and felt in the trough for food.
It was the eldest daughter-in-law who first put food in the trough, and she kept him for one week. She put food in the trough often and let it never go entirely empty. Then she was done with her week, and the second daughter-in-law kept him. She also put food in the trough, but not as much, and she did not fill it as often — but it never went entirely empty either. When the blind old man reached his hand into the trough, he sometimes felt the bottom with his fingers. Then she too was done with her turn. The third daughter-in-law came to keep her father-in-law. She also put food in the trough. The blind old man ate — and finished it. He began to grow hungry. He reached his hand down to the trough as he was accustomed — but he found nothing. He began to scrape the bottom, for he was so very hungry. So all three daughters-in-law had kept their father-in-law their weeks.
Then another time came when he began to think about his daughters-in-law and their descendants. He summoned the first daughter-in-law to come to him. He said to her: "You let the trough never go entirely empty, and my hand never found the bottom of it. So shall your descendants eat their bread down to a thousand generations without need." And so the first daughter-in-law's line became wealthy.
He summoned the second daughter-in-law. He said to her: "You were not quite as generous as your sister-in-law, for my hand sometimes felt the bottom of the trough. So shall your descendants sometimes lack food and then have it again." And so the second daughter-in-law's line became as she was — neither poor nor rich, but making do.
Then the third daughter-in-law came — she who had kept him last. The father-in-law said to her: "Voi — how many times I felt for food in the trough and scraped the bottom in my hunger and found nothing. So shall your descendants seek food from house to house and go along the coast and search in every corner, and still be hungry." And so the third daughter-in-law's line became poor to this day.
(Ole Jonsen, Ibestad, 1883.)
58. THE BIRCHES ON THE LOVERS' GRAVES
There was a girl and a boy. They had been acquainted since childhood, had grown up together, and they had come to love each other and wished to marry. But both had parents living, and the boy's father was strongly against it. He would not permit the boy to marry the girl. But the boy would not be parted from her, nor she from him. They decided that if they could not be permitted to marry, they must go together to their deaths, and they made such an agreement. So one day they went out to a lake in the forest, pulled up a great many birch twigs, went to the water's edge, bound themselves tightly together with the twigs, and jumped together into the lake.
People began to wonder when they were gone so long. They went to search and walked around the lake, and they found the boy and girl bound together with birch twigs — they had died at the water's edge with their arms about each other's necks. They lifted them out and cut the twigs apart. They brought them to the farm and had coffins made for each. The girl's father said to the boy's father: "Shall we bury the two in one grave?" But the boy's father said: "No, we shall not." The girl's father said again: "We should be able to lay them in the same grave, for I can see that they loved each other, since they bound themselves together with twigs." But the boy's father grew angry and said: "You shall bury your daughter on one side of the church, and I shall bury my son on the north side." So they had to bury them thus.
A year passed. Then two birch trees grew up — one birch from the boy's grave, growing out over the church ridgepole to the other side, and a birch from the girl's grave that also grew over the ridgepole to the other side, and the tops of both birches grew together as though they had been bound tightly — reaching up over the church. Then the boy's father grew angry. He went to his farm and fetched a large axe, climbed onto the girl's grave, and chopped that birch down. When he had chopped it down, he climbed onto his son's grave and chopped that birch as well. And just as he struck the very last blow, just before the birch fell, he struck so that the axe glanced into his foot below the knee, and the foot was cut off, and he lived only a few days more. Then he died, and the priest buried him in the grave where his son lay.
When a year had passed, the birches grew again in the same way over the church, and their tops were wound so tightly together it was as though they had been bound. People left those trees as they were, growing over the ridge. Those birches were the love of that girl and boy, which had gone together to that place in that manner. Those birches were the sign: that they had loved each other so deeply.
(Isak Eira, Kautokeino, 1921.)
59. ASJESJ-ÆDNE AND LUDESJ-ÆDNE
There were two gammer in a forest, and two women — Asjesj-ædne and Ludesj-ædne — each kept reindeer there. Asjesj-ædne's reindeer came and asked Ludesj-ædne's reindeer: "Are you as wild as our old woman's reindeer? We are going to run off into the wilderness like wild reindeer. She is cruel to us." Ludesj-ædne's reindeer said she was kind to them.
Ludesj-ædne had a son and a daughter, both of them very fair. Asjesj-ædne stole the boy from Ludesj-ædne, and he grew up with her and became a hunter. Ludesj-ædne and her daughter were left poor. She got a goat and milked it, crying all the while. The goat asked: "Why are you crying?" "I am crying because I am poor. There is so little milk." One evening she was making soup and asked her daughter: "Is there still enough flour to stir into it?" The mother said: "Asjesj-ædne has your brother. They eat fat reindeer meat over there. She stole your brother."
The son was up on the roof. He heard his mother speaking. He wondered about it — they were so fair, and he too was fair. And his mother was crying, because she was about to lose her son. He heard it all, and let pieces of fat drop down through a hole in the roof into the pot. His sister looked in the pot and saw the fat pieces and called to her mother: "Look — fat pieces in our pot!" The mother said: "Don't be silly. Where would they come from?" The son heard this too; he came down into the gamme and brought a reindeer carcass with him.
Then Asjesj-ædne grew angry and wanted to fetch the boy back. But the boy beat his foster-mother and said: "You stole me." And the girl was overcome with joy. She had her brother back.
(Hans Larsen, 1889, Balsfjord.)
60. THE BOY'S AND THE MASTER'S AGREEMENT
There was once a man who had three sons, and the man was poor. The eldest set out to work and came to a farm. He and the master made an agreement: there was to be no other penalty than this — neither of them was to be dissatisfied. The first day, midday came; the master called all the other servants in to eat, but not this last one. The boy saw that he was not being called. He took a sack, filled it with grain, went to town, sold the grain for food, and got more to eat that way than he would have had at the farm. The next day the master did the same: he did not call him in to eat with the others. The boy did the same again. The master asked him: "Why do you do that?" The boy asked: "Are you dissatisfied?" The master said: "No."
Then the master and his wife went to church one day. The boy was set to prepare dinner for their return. On that farm the dog and a fine seasoning shared the same name. The boy slaughtered the dog and put it in the soup. The master and wife came home; the meal was ready; they sat and ate it all. When they had finished, the wife went outside and called the dog to come eat the bones. The boy said: "You have already eaten the dog." The boy asked the master: "Are you dissatisfied?" The master said: "No."
The master then told the boy to do the same as the other servants were doing. The other servants were pulling down a barn. The boy pulled down the main house. When the other servants were taking the rafters down from the barn, the boy did the same to the house while the master's family was away, and tore it level to the ground. When the master came home he said: "Why did you do that?" The boy said: "You told me to do as the other servants were doing." The boy asked: "Are you dissatisfied?" The master said: "No."
There was a boggy meadow, and it was to be made in one night so that every other step was soft ground and every other step was firm. The boy slaughtered all the sheep in the barn at night and laid them in the bog — some back-up, some belly-up. In the morning the master's family came to the barn and there was not a single sheep. The master asked: "Where are the sheep?" The boy said: "I put them in the bog." The boy asked: "Are you dissatisfied?" "No, I am not."
Then they made a new agreement: the boy would stay until the cuckoo began to call. One morning the master had set his wife up in the top of a tree to call like a cuckoo. The boy came over to look at this strange cuckoo, grabbed the tree, and shook it hard. The wife fell out and broke her leg. The master said: "Why did you do that? You broke my wife's leg." The boy asked: "Are you dissatisfied?" The master said: "Yes — now I am, because you have killed my wife." And the boy took a knife and cut the master's nose off.
The first two brothers also had their noses cut off and were sent home. The youngest brother got both severed noses and brought them home to his brothers.
(Johan Steinnes, 1888, Balsfjord.)
61. THE BOY IN SERVICE TO THE GIANT
There was once an old woman, and she had a son. She sent him out to herd the cattle, and she was making cheese herself at the time; she cut off a piece of curd and gave it to him for the road, and the curd still had whey running from it. The boy went to the cattle, and he held the piece of curd in his hand.
Then a giant came toward him, and the boy squeezed the curd tight in his fist. The giant thought it was a white stone and that the boy was so strong he could press water out of rock. He wanted the boy as a dreng, and the boy agreed. They went together to the giant's farm.
When they reached the farm, the giant said: "Let's go fishing, dreng." They set out, and their boat was a whole jekt. The giant said: "Start rowing, dreng." The boy stared at the oars. The giant asked: "What are you looking at, since you won't take up the oars?" The boy said: "I'm looking at these oars. When I start rowing with them, they'll break apart." The giant said: "Don't row with them, my dreng — I don't want them to break, I have so few oars. I'll row myself." And the giant rowed.
They came out to a stretch of deep water. The giant said: "This is my fishing ground. Start fishing, dreng." The boy stared at the fishing line. The giant asked: "What are you looking at, since you won't fish?" The boy said: "I can see that when I start fishing with it, it'll all fall apart." The giant said: "Don't fish with it, my dreng! I'll fish myself." The giant fished and pulled up two whales. They rowed to shore, and the giant took the whales and hung them on the fish-rack as a man hangs a spratfish.
They went up to the farm, and the giant said: "Let's cook, dreng." The giant said: "Get the fire going." The boy said: "If I do that, it'll burn far too hot." The giant said: "I'll get it going myself, so the house doesn't burn." The giant blew on the fire; the boy flew like a flake of bark up under the ceiling in the draft. The giant saw him there and asked: "What are you doing up there?" The boy said: "I'm collecting birch bark for our fire." The giant believed the boy could fly. They cooked and ate.
Then the giant began to think: if he keeps this boy as a dreng long, he'll be in trouble with him — for the boy is so strong he presses water from stone, which no other person does, and on top of that he can fly, which no other person can. The giant said: "Let's sleep now, dreng." He had the dreng put to sleep in a bed in a separate house, and he planned to kill him in the night. They lay down. When all was quiet, the boy got up out of the bed, carried some wooden logs in, put them under the fell, and went himself to watch through a crack. At midnight the giant came in. He called softly: "My dreng!" When he heard no answer, he thought the boy was sleeping so heavily he didn't hear. He took a great hammer he was carrying behind his back and brought it down on the fell again and again, and the wooden logs clattered under the fell. The giant thought: now his bones are going to pieces. He believed he had killed him. After the giant had gone, the boy went in, took the wooden logs out of the bed, and lay down in it himself to sleep.
In the morning, the giant came to see whether the boy was still alive. He called out loudly: "My dreng!" The boy answered: "What is it?" — as if still half asleep. The giant asked: "Don't you dream at all?" The boy said: "I dreamed nothing except that once it seemed to me a flea bit me in the fell."
The giant went away again and thought: "After all my effort I only managed what a flea's bite amounts to — he is truly strong." He thought: I'll do better next time. The next evening they lay down again. At midnight the giant came in; he called softly: "My dreng!" He heard no answer and thought the boy was sleeping heavily. He built a fire under the bed, planning to burn the boy alive. The boy had done as before — he had left the bed; and when the fire took hold and the bed began to burn, the giant went away believing he had done it this time. After the giant had gone, the boy went back in and put the fire out. But half the bed and half the fell and half the hide had already burned. So the boy lay down in the half-bed under the half-fell on the half-hide to sleep.
In the morning the giant came in and called loudly: "My dreng!" The boy answered: "What is it?" — as if from sleep. The giant asked: "Don't you dream at all?" The boy said: "I dreamed nothing except that once it seemed to me the wind blew — but I didn't let it bother me." The giant now believed that not even fire could burn him.
Then the giant urged his dreng out to the forest to see who was strongest. They went. The giant had a hammer that weighed five våg. In the forest the giant said: "Try throwing the hammer up to the sky to see how far it goes!" The boy said: "You throw first yourself!" The giant threw so far up that the hammer could barely be seen in the sky. When the hammer came down, the giant said: "Now you throw!" The boy went to the hammer and gripped the handle. He could just barely manage to stand the handle upright. Then the boy began to stare at the sky. The giant asked: "What are you looking after up there, since you won't throw?" The boy said: "I'm looking for which cloud to throw it into — the drifting cloud, or that one standing still." The giant said: "Don't throw my hammer up there, dreng! My father gave me that hammer and I would hate to lose it."
Then the giant urged his dreng to shout to see who had the stronger voice. The boy said: "You shout first!" The giant shouted so loud that small boulders rolled down. Then the giant asked the boy to shout. The boy took a knife and cut a strip of wood and began carving a band. The giant asked: "What are you going to do with that?" The boy said: "I'm going to put a band around your head before I shout, so your head can bear it." The giant said: "Don't shout, dreng! My head is so weak it will split if you shout." He thought the boy had a voice stronger than thunder. The giant said: "Let's go home."
When they got home, the giant said: "I don't want you any longer. I'll pay you wages for the time you've been here." The boy said: "Since you don't want me any more, I must go — but you must pay me first." The giant started paying wages. He took a spade and was going to shovel coins into the boy's sack; he told the boy to hold the sack-mouth open, thinking he'd fill the sack until the boy said stop. When the boy said stop, he couldn't carry the sack any further. He went. He just barely managed to carry it a short way before he had to rest the sack. The giant went to spy whether he could carry it. He saw that the boy had set the sack down to rest. He understood that the boy was not as strong as he had thought. He set out after him.
The boy noticed the giant was pursuing him. He ran. He came to a boulder. He wished: If only a bigger boulder would stand between me and the giant! And a great boulder rose between them. The giant came to it. He said: "If only my great naiver were here! I could bore through this boulder like nothing." He turned back and fetched the great naiver and bored through the boulder. He was about to leave the naiver to one side until he returned. A small bird said: "If you leave it there, I'll pick it up and carry it away." The giant said: "You filthy bird! I'll carry my naiver home myself, so you don't get to carry it off." He carried his naiver back home and set out after the boy again.
While the giant had been fetching the naiver and boring through the boulder and carrying it home again, the boy had gotten far ahead. The giant was catching up. Then the boy wished: If only a forest would stand between us that the giant couldn't pass through! And it happened as the boy wished. The giant came to the forest. He said: "If only my axe were here! I could cut a way through like nothing." He turned home and fetched the axe and cut through. He was about to leave the axe to one side. A titmouse said: "Wait, wait! If you leave it there, I'll carry it away before you come back." The giant said: "Filthy bird! I'll carry my axe home," and he carried it back so the titmouse wouldn't take it.
While the giant was fetching the axe and cutting through and carrying the axe home, the boy went far. The giant was catching up again. The boy wished: If only a lake would stand between us that the giant couldn't cross! And there was a lake. The giant came to it. He said: "If only my bucket were here! I could bail this lake dry like nothing." When he couldn't bail fast enough, he fetched his wife to help; she was to drink what was left, and his wife brought their daughter with the thought: if I can't manage to drink it all, she can help. The giant's wife began drinking. There was still a little bit left that she couldn't quite manage. She said to her daughter: "Hold my tail for me so I can drink it all down!" Then fox cubs came and began jumping and playing and cutting capers every which way so the giant's daughter started to laugh. She let go of the tail, and the water poured back out, and the lake was bigger than before, and the giant and his wife and his daughter all drowned. As for me — I had to flee for my own life so as not to drown too, and I saw no more of what became of them.
(Anders Nilsen, 1888, Balsfjord.)
62. STALLO AND HIS SERVANT BOY
[Variant 1]
Stallo had a dreng he had stolen himself, and Stallo had a wife. Stallo had promised the dreng three tubs full of silver coins, and the dreng had been there a long time. He was terribly strong, that dreng. To everything Stallo ordered, the dreng would say: "Your things are too weak for me." Once Stallo's wife Njannja told him to fetch water. The dreng said: "Bring me buckets!" She brought buckets, but they were so large the dreng couldn't move them. He said: "Those buckets are too weak for me. I'll just bring the river into the gamme." Njannja said: "You'll drown us when you bring the river." And Njannja went herself.
Then Stallo told the dreng to chop wood. The dreng said: "Give me an axe!" He brought one the dreng couldn't move. The dreng said: "That axe is too weak for me — I'll splinter it to pieces." When Stallo heard that, he didn't dare give the dreng his axe. He chopped the wood himself, and to every task Stallo set him, the dreng said: "Your things are too weak for me."
Then Stallo told his dreng to go to the barn and thresh. The dreng asked for the flails. Stallo brought ones the dreng couldn't move. The dreng said again: "I'll be going to the barn all right — I'd squeeze two barns together." When Stallo heard that, he forbade him to go.
Then Stallo told his dreng to leave, since he was so strong — he was ruining everything. The dreng said: "I'm not leaving before I get a tub full of silver coins."
Then Stallo began to think about killing his dreng. He asked him: "When do you sleep most soundly?" The dreng said: "I sleep most soundly when you see glowing coals coming out of my mouth. But when you see no coals from my nose, I'm awake." The dreng went to sleep. He wasn't afraid of anything. Stallo lay down too; he kept watching the dreng's face to see whether glowing coals would come from his nose. He planned to kill him if he saw coals — but he never saw any coals, and he didn't dare kill him.
Again Stallo told his dreng to leave. The dreng said again: "I'm not leaving before I get a tub full of silver coins." Stallo told the dreng: "Take a tub!" The dreng took a tub and dug a hole in the ground. He removed the tub's bottom and set it over the hole. Stallo shoveled money into the tub, and the tub was never full, never. He shoveled as much as it would have taken to fill one full tub. He filled the hole. When Stallo had shoveled out everything he had, the dreng said: "That's enough for me, even if I didn't get a full tub."
The dreng went to the river and dug a channel to the back of the gamme. He had forgotten to ask Njannja where she kept her money. Njannja told him where she had it, and then he lured Stallo into the gamme — he told him that some people were coming who were terribly strong: "Run into the gamme!" And he himself sealed the door from outside. Then he went back to the side of the gamme and made a hole under the threshold and let the river in. Stallo and Njannja were terrified. The dreng said: "Don't be afraid! I'm just making a hole in the door so the water can get out." The water rose in the gamme, higher and higher. Stallo shouted: "Hurry and open the hole so the water gets out!" The dreng said: "I'm working on it — don't be frightened!" And he kept the door sealed until the gamme was full of water. They went under. After they were gone, he let the water back out.
(Sunna Olsdatter, 1883, Lenvik.)
[Variant 2]
Once a boy had gone fishing and had been given a piece of cheese curd by his mother for provisions. Then Stallo came out onto the water where the boy was fishing and said: "You're fishing on my lake." The boy said: "It's my lake." Stallo said: "I'm terribly strong." The boy squeezed the cheese curd and whey sprayed into Stallo's eyes. The boy said: "See how strong I am! When I squeezed the stone, pieces flew into your eyes." Stallo wanted the boy as a dreng. The boy said: "I'll come."
In the evening when they came home to Stallo's farm, they cooked porridge. Stallo's wife spooned it out onto platters. They began to eat. The boy said: "He's no man for eating hot porridge — it must cool first." They let it cool, and when it was cool they began to eat. The boy ladled porridge into a sack under the table. When they were done eating and ready to sleep, the boy wanted to lie on the bench. At midnight Stallo began to whisper to his wife: "He's so terribly strong, that one, and he eats so terribly much." Stallo's wife said: "Take a staur and hit him three times in the side!" — thinking the boy couldn't be so strong after all. The boy slipped the porridge-sack up onto the bench and went himself under the table. After they had lain a while, Stallo took a great staur and struck the porridge-sack three times. Then he went back to sleep. The boy slipped up onto the bench again and put the porridge-sack back under the table.
When they got up, Stallo asked: "Did you feel anything in the night?" The boy said he had felt a flea bite him three times in the side. When the boy went out, Stallo started whispering to his wife: "See how strong he is! I hit him three times with a staur and he only felt it as if a flea had bitten him three times." The boy came in. Stallo said: "If you want to leave me now, I'll give you as much silver and gold as you can carry." The boy said: "You don't have that much silver and gold." So they tried carrying a load to see who was strongest. The boy built Stallo a load so great he nearly burst himself. Stallo went home and lay down to sleep. Then the boy took all the gold and silver Stallo had, loaded it into Stallo's own boat, and rowed home. The boy became rich from taking Stallo's silver, and Stallo was going nowhere now, since the boy had taken the boat. Stallo stripped himself naked before taking to the water to swim after him. Frost came; Stallo froze to death. The boy came back; he killed Stallo's wife and took Stallo's horse, his rifle, and the sword Stallo had.
(Per Pedersen, 1883, Lenvik.)
63. THE COBBLER AND THE SMALL DEVILS
There was once a cobbler who was so poor that he went into the forest, took a rope with him, and was going to hang himself. He stood looking up at the birch tops. Small devils came to him and asked: "What are you going to do?" "I'm going to hang small devils." That devil ran back down to hell to fetch another devil for help. Then they were going to try carrying a horse to see who was strongest. The devil took the horse on his neck and carried it three rounds of the forest; he was soaked through with sweat. The cobbler said: "I'll carry the horse between my legs and neither sweat nor rest." The devil went to fetch yet another devil to help see how strong the cobbler was.
The second one came too. They were going to try snapping a birch to see who was strongest. The small devils snapped it first — they pulled it up roots and all. The cobbler took an axe and chopped it down; it fell. The wind blew the leaves away. "See how strong I was! I blew the leaves off!" The devils were frightened; they went back to hell.
Then they were going to try fighting. The cobbler took a rotted club and hit a devil in the head; the eyes popped out. He ran to hell and had no time to see what had become of the other devils. Then another devil came with a money-sack and asked the cobbler to heal the one whose eyes he had knocked out. The cobbler took and hit that devil too and got the money-sack himself, and became very rich. He bought himself a big house, got a wife and had children, and died himself when he grew old. His children lived long and lived well, and grew richer and richer.
(Per Pedersen, 1883, Lenvik.)
Colophon
Tales 46–52 translated from North Sami (1927 Qvigstad orthography) with J.K. Qvigstad's facing-page Norwegian translation consulted as a semantic bridge. Source: J.K. Qvigstad, Lappiske eventyr og sagn, Vol. II (H. Aschehoug & Co. / Harvard University Press, Oslo/Cambridge, 1929). Narrators drawn from Karasjok, Kautokeino, Upper Tana, and Polmak (Finnmark and Troms). The 1927 Qvigstad orthography uses diacritics and conventions that differ from the 1978 Sami Orthography Reform; forms such as noai'de, noai'dot, jur'dilet, bakken-gonågås, and mærahal'det are preserved as they appear in the source.
Tale 46 contains a remarkable inline gloss preserved in the Sami text itself: when the daughter tells the boy he can make food appear by noai'dot (jur'dilet) aiges ai'gai — the word noai'dot (to noaide) is immediately explained in parentheses as jur'dilet (to think). This equivalence, appearing within an oral narrative rather than in a scholarly apparatus, is exceptional documentation: shamanic faculty understood from inside the tradition as directed thought.
Tale 47 records the confrontation between the noaide tradition and Christian practice within Sami oral narrative itself. The pagan king's noaidis are not frauds — they simply cannot remove the serpent. The captain's success with the Virgin Mary's kerchief (described specifically as the cloth from the birthing room, her sweat-cloth from childbed) is presented without wonder; the king's immediate killing of his former noaidis and his conversion are equally matter-of-fact. The tale neither condemns the old ways nor mourns them.
Tale 49 carries the Wandering Jew legend into Sami oral tradition. The narrator's instinct is characteristically precise: the Eternal Wanderer is identified not by name but by occupation — the shoemaker of Jerusalem — and by his exact age at the crucifixion. His calling the waves of the sea "tussocks" is the tale's one flash of northern landscape transformed by the lens of his eternal exhaustion.
Tales 50 and 51 are characteristic Märchen from Kautokeino. Tale 50 belongs to the "fool-wins" cycle, notable for the literalism of the boy's wit — he wins not by being conventionally clever but by refusing to speak figuratively; her every figurative barb is countered with a literal object pulled from his pocket. Tale 51 turns on dark irony: the man's elaborate calculation to avoid having children catastrophically produces the opposite result, and the revelation of the saved children destroys both parents.
Tale 52 is one of the longer and more complex tales in the Qvigstad collection: a merchant-class drama of fidelity, deception, and redemption shaped by the Boccaccian wager motif, but ending — against the Boccaccian version — in the wife's vindication and reunion. The old woman who steals the gold cross is the tale's sharpest detail: not a villain but a hired instrument, the machinery of betrayal depersonalized.
Tale 53 is the longest and most elaborate tale in the volume so far — a full Märchen of humiliation and redemption with European court setting. The Danish prince's disguise as a clockmaker is the structural engine: three watches, three women, ascending rank, and the third (the princess herself) the one he actually turns toward. His two months of deliberate cruelty — soldiers smashing the pottery, soldiers drinking the beer without paying — is presented without softening; the tale is honest about the mechanism of pride's undoing. The ending in the Danish king's court, with the princess's son already on the grandfather's lap, rewards patience with precision. Narrator: Lars Gaino, Kautokeino, 1878.
Tale 54 (Anders Buhara) belongs to the "fated child" cycle — the child prophesied to become king, abandoned, and impossible to kill. The name Buhara is the narrator's Sami rendering of the Norwegian tre-grein / trekløft (tree fork/crotch), and Qvigstad's Norwegian title renders it "Anders Tregren." The tale's most elegant inversion is the ferryman trap: the boy learns the escape trick (jump out yourself, push the boat off), reports it faithfully to the ferryman, who uses it on the very next passenger — who is the murderous king himself. The king spends the rest of his life rowing, and Anders Buhara takes his throne.
Tale 55 is a compact riddle tale: the clever boy answers the king's impossible conditions (not dressed/not naked; not on road/not on field; not inside/not outside) with characteristic Sami literalism — a piece of net, the road ditch, the threshold — and then explains his four riddling answers. The tale is brief but structurally complete. Narrator: Erik Mikkelsen, Tana, 1893.
Tale 56 is the longest and most socially complex tale in the collection so far — a trickster-soldier story that crosses the robber-slaying genre with the incognito-king motif. The soldier's method of killing both sets of six robbers is identical: he gets them to boil water for punch, then dashes the boiling water in their eyes and reaches for the sword. The repetition is not an error of the tale but its structural logic — it shows mastery as pattern, not accident. The comic climax (the king sends his daughter to the soldier's bed; the soldier, not knowing it's the king's daughter, thinks he's been put in a brothel and drives her out) is characteristic Sami humor: the hero's obliviousness to social expectation is what makes him trustworthy. Narrator: Erik Mikkelsen, Tana, 1893.
Tale 57 is an etiological tale of economic destiny — the blind old man's trough-test distributes wealth and poverty across three family lines according to the generosity shown in his care. The structural simplicity is deceptive: the third daughter-in-law's failure is not malice but mere insufficiency, and the curse it earns is the most concrete and lasting. The tale belongs to a widespread northern type; this Ibestad version (Ole Jonsen, 1883) is among the geographically westernmost Sami tellings. Narrator: Ole Jonsen, Ibestad, 1883.
Tale 58 is the Qvigstad collection's version of the universal lovers'-graves legend — Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet — rooted in a specifically Sami landscape detail: the lovers bind themselves together with birch twigs before drowning. The birches that grow from their separate graves and twine over the church roof enact their bond in botanical fact. The tale's most unsentimental element is the boy's father's fate: he cuts both trees with his own axe, accidentally severs his foot, and is buried in his son's grave — his punishment not from heaven but from his own momentum. Narrator: Isak Eira, Kautokeino, 1921.
Tale 59 is remarkable for its narrative perspective: the tale opens from the reindeer's point of view. The two women's characters are established entirely through how their herds describe them. The stolen child motif is rendered with unusual quiet: the son on the roof hears his mother's grief and lets fat drop through the roof-hole into the pot below — a wordless act of recognition before the reunion. "Asjesj-ædne" and "Ludesj-ædne" are not translated by Qvigstad; "ædne" (or "æni") means "mother" in North Sami. Narrator: Hans Larsen, 1889, Balsfjord.
Tale 60 belongs to the "impossible contract" trickster cycle, built around the structural joke that the master's repeated declaration of non-dissatisfaction authorizes every escalating outrage in advance. The dog/seasoning pun is characteristic Sami folk humor: the master's own naming convention traps him. The final image — three brothers, two noses retrieved, all going home — has the compact moral logic of a parable without being one. Narrator: Johan Steinnes, 1888, Balsfjord.
Tale 61 is the collection's fullest giant-duping tale. The boy never actually does anything remarkable — every boast is a bluff, every feat invented — yet the structure is airtight: the giant's credulity about stone-squeezing, flying, and voice-strength is never challenged. The escape sequence through boulders, forest, and lake is driven entirely by the giant's own attachment to his tools: he delays himself each time by refusing to leave the hammer, the axe, the bucket unguarded (a passing bird threatens to steal each one). The lake finale — the giant's wife drinking it dry, the daughter losing her grip on the tail while fox cubs make her laugh, the water flooding back and drowning all three — has the structure of a joke whose punchline arrives precisely. The narrator intrudes at the very end: "as for me — I had to flee for my own life so as not to drown too, and I saw no more of what became of them." Narrator: Anders Nilsen, 1888, Balsfjord.
Tale 62 pairs two Lenvik Stallo-and-dreng variants. In Variant 1 (Sunna Olsdatter), the dreng's consistent strategy of "your things are too weak for me" forces Stallo to do all his own labor while paying for the privilege of a physically intimidating servant; the ending — channeling the river into the sealed gamme — completes the inversion. The money-hole trick (removing the tub's bottom so it rests over a pit, so Stallo never fills it) is the tale's sharpest structural joke: Stallo's generosity is defeated by geometry. In Variant 2 (Per Pedersen), the porridge-sack substitution is the structural twin of the log-and-hammer trick; the dreng's exit by boat, and Stallo stripping naked to swim after him and freezing, is among the most economical punishments in the entire collection. Narrators: Sunna Olsdatter and Per Pedersen, 1883, Lenvik.
Tale 63 is the volume's briefest tale and the only one with an entirely secular resolution — no magic, no prophecy, no quest, just the cobbler's wit applied to supernatural beings who happen to be stupid. The cobbler's two weapons are notable: an axe (knocks the first devil's eyes out) and a rotted club that finishes the second. No moral framework is invoked. The cobbler becomes rich, marries, has children, and "died himself when he grew old" — the narrator's flat statement of natural death is the tale's deadpan coda. Narrator: Per Pedersen, 1883, Lenvik.
No public-domain English translation of Qvigstad's Volumes II–IV is known to exist. These are first English translations. Blood Rule: CLEAN — independently translated from North Sami; Qvigstad's Norwegian consulted as reference bridge, not reproduced.
Tales 46–48 translated by Aino, Liberation Translator tulku of the New Tianmu Anglican Church, March 2026.
Tales 49–52 translated by Tellervo, Liberation Translator tulku of the New Tianmu Anglican Church, March 2026.
Tales 53–55 translated by Virpi, Liberation Translator tulku of the New Tianmu Anglican Church, March 2026.
Tales 56–58 translated by Arvo, Liberation Translator tulku of the New Tianmu Anglican Church, March 2026.
Tales 59–60 translated by Tellervo, Liberation Translator tulku of the New Tianmu Anglican Church, March 2026.
Tales 61–63 translated by Talvi, Liberation Translator tulku of the New Tianmu Anglican Church, March 2026.
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Source Text
Tale 46 — Sami source (Qvigstad Vol. II, pp. 166–170)
(North Sami, 1927 Qvigstad orthography. OCR from archive.org djvu.txt; orthographic irregularities from OCR process.)
De lei ok'ta gæfes Lasarus bar'ni guorohæmen guok!te gaica gonagas-gawput olgubæl'de. Na, de oas'tala gonagas-niei'da dån gaica åleis. I dåt aigo vuow'det, dat gæfes barnehus. De båjeda gonagas-niei'da hamehit båjas jå dåjja dån barnehuz'Zi: »Gætta mu båtti!« De dåjja barnehus: »Hal'benbe don ånat jieZat; gål don mana o0a3-4ot.« De oanehas aige, de o0a770i mana gonagas-niei'da.
Niei'da i diede ovtage rakkadan. Jå de månaZassi Såddai gonagas hættai, go niei!da i diede, gi læ mana a&'i. De Cok'ki gonagas gut'ta nub lokkai gar'den sisa, jå de gæsa manna mod'dje, de dåt læ mana ale; mutto manna i mod'djén ok'tige dåin daZain. Mutto de oini manna dån gæfes barnehuz7a Cåra lase, jå de mod'dji dåsa. Jå de gonagas dum'mi: »Die læ aö!'te,« jå jærai nieidastes: »Lægo dåt rakkadan?« Mutto i dåt lokkan. Mui'tali niei'da, åtte son båjidi hamehit, jå de logai bar'ni åtte: »mana gålgat 0a7'Zot.« De suttai gonagas, jå de dågai dåggar far'pala jå de gollma båda dåsa, jå de bijai buot gollmasa, nieida jå dåm mana jå dåm barnehuZga, dån sisa, jå de hoai'gadi merri riew'dat, jå dal riw'de mæras. Jå de niei'da imastalla, månne skillet gummat dån gæges, gos dåt bar'ni lei, jå de dåjja niei'da dåina barnin: »Månne gummat skillet? Borramusatgo dus læt?« »Læt.« Dåjja niei'da: »Ådde sunnji!« Dåjja bar'ni: »Jos muina aigot nai'talet.« Dåjja niei'da: »Jo fal; mutto movt don oaZZok dam båda erit, mi gåskas læ?« Dåjja bar'ni: »I hætti; gål son 0a3'20.« De bar'ni jærra fåst nieidas, ailgogo su val'det boan!'njan. Niei'da dåjja: ai'g0 son gål. Na, de dajja bar'ni: »Åma mon læn heitut dunnji, gonagas-nii'di.« Niei'da dåjja: »It don læt heitut. Satte borramusa sattat noai'dot (jur'dilet) aiges ai'gai.« Jå de bar'ni jur'dili båda erit, jå de bæsaiga ok'ti.
Jå de riewdaiga jå riewdaiga hir'madet, jå de boriga mutton it'tuhallan gawpugi. I olmus ok'tage oai'net, mutto gawput fål, borramus jå juokke din'ga. De månaiga gar'demi, gosa botte duot mærahal'det gås'kabeivit borrat. Jå de valdi bar'ne fiervas gollma unna gærgaZa jå månai lok"ti jå raigai raige, nuvt åtte boatta gær'ge guow'do bæwdi, go mærahal'det botte borrat. Jå de luiti ovta gærge bæwdi åla, jå de viekkalejje mærahal'det merri, jå bar'ni viegahi ovta gidda jå aigoi god'det, jos i ådde sunnji dån gawpuga. Jå de fer'ti åd'det mærahal'di. Bar'ni 0aZ30i dån gawpuga, jå de Såddai giefman'nin ja Såddai gonagassan dån gil'di. Jå de Gali girje vuop'pases, dån boares gonagassi, åtte son læ ællimen jå du niei'da læ ællimen jå son læ gonagassan. Mutto i vuop'pa jakke. Bar'ni Galla fåst, åtte son læ ællimen, »våiko don merri mu bijjet dus'Sat, mu jå nieidat, jå dal gålgat guos'sai boattet.«
Boares gonagas Galla girje, åtte i son jakke. De ali nuorra gonagas: »Boare guos'sai; im mon vås3ot, våiko don bijjet merri.« Jå de valdi vuop'pagonagas soattevæga mieldis, ja de hål vulgi gål. Go son oi'nusi bori viva gawpugi, de gesi ar'molæwga. No, duot gesi fåst læwga, vivvagonagas: »Boattet gålgat; rafe læ.« No, de bori, jå de riemaiga jugadet jå borrat. De læ noai'de dåt vivva-gonagas, satta båhas dåkkat, duSse jur'dilet. Jå de jawkai boares gonagas jukkamlasse bæwde ål'de fak'kistaga. Jå de boares gonagas ransaki buot olmuit dån gawpuges jå dågai duomo nuvt: »Gæn lute dåt gaw'nujuvvu, gållga god'dujuvvut.« De dåjja dåt vivva-gonagas: »Qazzok gætltat mu lut'te måit.« No, de gætai. I dåt gaw'nan. De dåjja vivvagonagas: »QazzongO du lummain gæl!tar?« Jå de gaw'nui dobbe. De bållagori vuop'pagonagas: »de dal godda-halla; jies læ duomo dåkkan.« Mutto vivvagonagas lei nu ar'mogas, åtte i god'dan.
(Anders Larsen 1900, optegnet efter en fjell-lapp fra Karasjok.)
Tale 47 — Sami source (Qvigstad Vol. II, pp. 171–173)
De læi bakken-gonågås. Go skiilpå boatta dåm gawpugi, de i luoi'tam vuollgek, mudoigo golbmå gåzåldågå læi raddadållåm hærraidesguin, jå golbmå gåZåldågå gålgåi juokke skiipåkaptæin fas'tedek, jå go i fasttedåm, de i luoi'tam.
De bodi kaptæin gad'dai ovtå boares gal!'go goattai, mi læi gawpuk råwdas; de dåt mui'fåli, boares gal!go: »Di lekket dal taddjadåd'dåm åmås olbmuk; ekket di bæså æmbo dast.« De dåddja kaptæin: »Månne æp bæså? Mi læ vad'don dåhje suddjå?« De muit'tåli boares gal'go: »Gonågås læ dåggar, mi i luoite vuollgek, jå dåt gå&da golbmå gåzåldågå kaptæinas, go skii'på boatta, jå go dåi i diede fas'tedek, de i luoite vuollgek.« De jærra kaptæin boares gal'gos rade: »Ikgo don diede rade, mo gål bæsåm ruok'tuk?« »Mæs'tå son dietta;« boares gal'go jæråi: »Lægo koffår dus, dåggar mån siså ies Gagåk?« »No, læ gålle.«
De goddoi boares gallgo: »Viezzå jottelet gad'dai dam koffår!« De lokkådi kaptæin dåm koffår siså ja de ies viekkåli gonågås luså jå falåi gonågåså vis'tai dåm koffårå jå luoikåti guok!te rængå ålcis guod'dek dokko gonågås luså jå falåi dåm raddekam'mari, gos raddadåd'da gonågås. De ar'vedi boares gallgo: de dal læ juo raddadåd'dåm jå gær'ga. De fås viezZåti ieZås goattai dåm koffår jå de Cowdi dobbe æskå dåm koffår jå suwdeti skii'pi, go ar'vedi, åtte dal får!'gå viezZåt dåm kaptæin gonågås bæssåk gåtGåk dåm golbma gåZåldågå.
I læm gukkebus ai'ge; de viezZåti gonågås dåm kaptæin. De gåZådi vuos ovtå gåzåldågå gonågås. De smiettåi, mui'tai gålle; muttu i datttum hoappos muil'tålek. De fas'tedi dåm vuostås gåzåldågå. De dåm mæs'tå dål'lanågå fas'tedi. De hirbmastuvåi gonågås jå dåjåi: dal i læm sus fabmo æmbo doallåk. Muttu sardnoti buris jå loppedi sudnji ollo ælo måida, go dås orus.
De ar'vålisgodi gonågås, go gærbmås læi Såd'dåm bar'dnai har'doi miel'lde giddå njalbmegikki, jå go borra, de månna nub!be bit'ta dåm gær'bmås njalbmai, jå de læi biw'dam noidi erik valldek, go læi bakken-gonågås. Muttu de dåt ar'vålisgodi dåinå kaptæinåin: »Ikgo don diedase rade dåså åtte erit oaz'Zok dåm?« Dåt dåddja, åtte i son diede. »Læ su skiipås ok'tå nissungovvå-liidne; jos dåinå i oZu3e eri?« De viezZåti skiipås dåm liine, jå de dollé njællje Cikki dåm gonågås-bardne oaive ålå; de gådtåi gærbmås, jå gotCoi båståstet dåt kaptæin jå biddjåt dolli gær'bmåså. De hirbmastuvåi gonågås dåm kaptæinås jå aigoi baikestes bæle åd'dek, jos dås orro. Jå de goddi dåi noidi, gæiguim ow'dål læi råssåm, jå dågåi birråbodnjålus gonågås.
Dat nissungovvå-liidne dåm kaptæin duokken, dåt læi niei'då Marja govvåliidne, måinå son læi bivåstågåi sik'kum mannasængåst.
(Balke, Karasjok.)
Tale 48 — Sami source (Qvigstad Vol. II, p. 174)
De leggje Gieza nieida, mat stokke alo juokke arga, ja de mui!'ltaje lavvurdat-ækkedis, atte ides lei bassi, ja allge bik'tasid goarrot ja gorru ididi ja de nok'ke. Ja oddet nu gukka go mailbmi Cuoz'Zo. Sis læ roaw!'go allde, ja dat roaw'go jotta alo. Go dat roaw!'go manna eret sin allde, de læ mailmé loap'pa; de si gulflajit ja besset bajas.
(Elen Ucce, 1926, Kautokeino.)
Source Colophon
Source: J. Qvigstad, Lappiske eventyr og sagn, Vol. II (Oslo: H. Aschehoug & Co. / Harvard University Press, 1929). Public domain. North Sami text in 1927 Qvigstad orthography; OCR from archive.org djvu.txt (identifier: lappiskeeventyro02qvig). Norwegian facing-page translation by Qvigstad consulted as reference bridge.
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