1. Poor Girlie

How at such time is one to speak, and how should one interrogate when a time of danger is at hand, a day of jeopardy impends? Already I, poor, wretched maid, have met with some embar rassment, with toilsome tasks, with a very difficult work, (when summoned) to eject attacks of sickness, to relieve from pain, to banish ailments wrought by spells, and overcome the en emy. Now they have need of me, they need me, and require that I divine an origin profound, and a great injury remove. Shall I begin, make venture now, shall I catch hold, shall I make bold to grip with hands a pestilence, to attack a devil (Perkele) with my hands, to give a hideous one a squeeze, and trample a gigantic one? 

 

The Magic Songs of The Finns, translated by John Abercromby 1898, p. 53, § Preliminary: A

2. Refusing an Old Man

When a girl would not agree to marry an old man, the man became angry. He headed for his barn and grabbed a handful of feathers off a rooster’s tail, citing the Lord’s Prayer as he did so. When done, the man minced the feathers to fine pulver and stashed the pulver in his pocket. He went to his neighbour’s sauna, knowing how the neighbour’s recently-passed grandfather was laid there, waiting to be buried. The old man grabbed a wooden stick and scraped and scratched it inside the dead man’s mouth. When he was done, he then deposited the stick firmly  in his pocket. He bought some coffee grounds and wrapped some of it in a brown handkerchief, depositing that as well in his pocket. After sundown the old man stalked outside the girl’s house, circling the girl’s room nine times counterclockwise. Next morning the old man went to visit the house nearest to where the girl lived. He brewed some coffee with the grounds in the handkerchief and sent someone to fetch the girl to partake in it. In the meanwhile the old man mixed the powdered feathers to the coffee using the stick he had run in the dead man’s mouth. Drinking that coffee made the girl lose her mind! And any time she passed the church or heard the peal of the church bells, she felt a pounding on her head and her legs would start to sink into the ground. And every night after sundown she became most restless and felt wretched. 

Original story: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran Arkisto: D 825 Keuruu. Akseli Salokannel b) 259. 1911. < Kulkeva akka Keuruulta. Partly by Pauliina Kauppila

Translation by Piiastiina Tikka & Janne-Pekka Manninen

 

I do not know at all just now, the reason I cannot surmise, why, Hiisi, thou hast entrance made, hast, devil (Perkele) made thyself at home in a guiltless heart, in a belly free of blame. From waters of witches hast thou come, from the lilies on a landlocked lake, from Nixies' (lummekoira) haunts, from a water Hiisi's hole, from the sea's black mud, a thousand fathoms deep, or from the heath of death (kalma), from the interior of the earth, from a dead man's belly, from the skin of one departed for eternity, from the armpit of a spectral form (kalmalainen), from beneath the liver of a shade (manalainen), hast thou been torn from a cross's base, been conjured up from women's graves, beside a decorated church, from the edge of a holy field, or from great battle fields, from the slaughter fields of men?

The Magic Songs of The Finns, translated by John Abercromby 1898, p. 53

 

Where doth thou carry from the church what belongs to the church, there will the spirits of the dead follow and create within you a great unease. 

Original: Kaarina Koski, Kuoleman voimat - Kirkonväki suomalaisessa uskomusperinteessä, ebook, 2019, p. 191-194, p. 200. Translation by Piiastiina TIkka

 

Where I command, there get thee gone, to the fiery rapids' centre point, into the violent Vuoksi falls, into the space between two rocks, into the awful midstream broil, whence all thy life thou won't escape, thou wilt never get away, unless by the Creator freed, without the Almighty's providence. If thou raise thy head from there or exalt thy snout, may Ukko pain thy head with sharply pointed needles, with packing needies or with iron hail.

The Magic Songs of The Finns, translated by John Abercromby 1898, Exorcisms, p. 68, F

3. Time and Again, You Misty One

 

Time and again, I feel the mist, the mist

Time and again, a misty child am I 

With sadness in my heart, with sorrow under my feet,

Lower than low, deeper than deep am I.

 

Time and again, a misty child am I

Time and again, I feel the mist

My thoughts as low as trodden on, as torn as dragged through thickets

My heavy heart is milled in mulch, stumbling in the ditches

My thoughts as low as can be, my heart no brighter than pitch

 

Time and again, you misty one, you misty child

You shed your tears, weep and wet your face

Sadness stretching this ardent face, gentle caresses stroking my cheek

End note:

All the village knew of my bathing, of brother bringing the water

But there I bathed in tears, poulticing my pain with my weeping.

 

Original poem: Trad Kanteletar II: 128. Partly modified Pauliina Kauppila. Translation by Piiastiina TIkka & Janne-Pekka Manninen

 

Synopsis:

Upon her marriage a maiden had to leave her family and relatives and join the family of her husband. Sometimes this meant crossing a great distance, geographically speaking as well,  away from her own home. Leaving behind dear and important people and turning away from her previous life was a change that often brought sadness and grief, sometimes also the anguish of having a violent husband, or a mean and malicious mother-in-law.

 

Translation of the synopsis by Piiastiina TIkka & Janne-Pekka Manninen

4. Please Grant Sleep

 

Sleepless in the bed I lay

Lay and toss and turn and curse

Counting seconds, even sheep

Dreamgiver find me please, flipping pillow, breathing

Bird of slumber I summon, flipping cover, untwisting

 

Longing for rest, to ease my weary bones

The swells of my mind’s waters

I wish to tame

Crack my thoughts like sheets of ice upon my breast 

 

Reaching for you

perchance to dream

Please grant me sleep?

 

Rest my head in softness still

Carry my body to its lanes

By the berry troves of bedtime, please lay me down to sleep

To sweet slumber in sleepy grass

 

Reaching for you

perchance to dream

Please grant me sleep?

 

Do bring me sleep from Dreamland

Permit my lawful rest

Grant the burden to break

Surrender me to sleep, give me sleep

Grant the burden to break

And a peace to claim my weary mind

 

Lyrics by Pauliina Kauppila  Translation by Piiastiina Tikka & Janne-Pekka Manninen

 

5. Burn the Circle!

Once upon a time a man from Korpilahten Särkijoin village came to seek Vihimäin Juho to tell him that his wife is turning forlorn. He pleaded with Juho to come with him and indeed Juho did come. As soon as the husband’s horse came to a halt at their house Juho went to the sauna where he remained for an hour. What he did there no one knows. After he came out again,he told the husband and his dayworker to take one truss of rye straws and stick them upright to form an oval ring in his field, leaving the circle open at one point. Then Juho went into the house, took the wife by her hand and walked her to the centre of the circle and stayed there himself. Then he told the husband: Set the circle on fire all around! The flames erupted over Juho and the wife but not a thread in their clothing was singed. Then Juho walked the wife to the house and said there will be no darkness on her mind for as long as she may live. The wife did survive and lived a long life and never was she troubled with said gloom.

 

Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran Arkisto: D 617 Synkistynyt emäntä: Petäjävesi. KT 61. Friiman Waldemar 4. 1938. < Koneta Ahonen

Translation by Piiastiina Tikka & Janne-Pekka Manninen

6. Endless Night

 

Cold grates at the palms of my hands, tearing with its claws,

Cold grates at the palms of my hands, numbing me as it goes,

Chill journeys through my body, not missing an inch,

Bullying and punishing, cutting with its scythe

 

The dark enfolds the toughest to its bosom

Bending the quenched wanderer to its will

The dark lures you into its realm, seducing you

Casting its blackness on my journey

 

Solitary in the face of night drifting e'er lower

How to ascend from mind's misery back to bright

Solitary in the face of night will curl and hide

But how to climb up quick, lift your face to the light

 

Lord of frost skulks around, staking his claim

Twisting and turning, setting fields to slumber

Splashing water on the bones of babes

Slithering deep under bones of babes

 

The Spell: 

Wizards there are in every dell, and sorcerers at every gate, diviners are at every fence, soothsayers are on every path. But I am not at all alarmed, I am not in the least afraid. I clip the wool from off a stone, fluff from a stone that has lain a winter there, I break the hair from off a rock, and from the gravel pluck coarse hair. A shirt of defence I make of that, 'neath which I sojourn every night and occupy myself by day, lest the sorcerer eat too much, lest the witch should wound o'ermuch. If that is not enough, ten adders shall I yoke, set saddles on a hundred snakes, here at my side to glide along; from his chains I'll slip a bear, from his headstall loose a wolf, to rush in front of me, to course in rear of me, to gobble up the village spells, to overwhelm the envious, the sorcerers in every dell, the witches in every lake, the soothsayers on every path. the envious in every place.)

 

 

The shackles of this endless night stifle even joy and light,

Wind grabs its coat tails, turns away any rider in the night

Sapping strength from a stance, mauling mettle,

Making heavy steps, weighing down even love.

Guard them, kind Wisdom / O Creator, guard too the happenstance

Let some sympathy coincide with temerity to love.

Guard them, kind Wisdom / O Creator, guard too the happenstance

Do grant us your blessings to this oppression of our age.

 

Lyrics by Pauliina Kauppila, except the spell: The Magic Songs of The Finns, translated by John Abercromby 1898, s. 54, §2, Defensive Measures: C

Translation of Pauliina´s lyrics by Piiastiina TIkka & Janne-Pekka Manninen

7. Trilogy - The Hanged Maid

 

Part one - The Thicket

 

The girl Anni, matchless girl 

went to the wood for bath-whisks 

to the thicket for bath-whisks: 

broke off one for her father 

another for her mother 

a third she gathered 

for her youngest brother, the 

best in the family.

 

Osmonen slipped from the dell 

Kalevainen from the clearing: 

"Grow, maid, to please me 

not the other young people

 the fair young people: 

grow in narrow, in neat things 

grow tall in dresses of cloth."

 

The girl Anni, matchless girl 

went weeping homeward 

wailing to the farm.

 

"There is cause for my weeping: 

the cross has slipped from my breast."

 

Mother on the shed step was 

washing butter in a pail: 

"Why do you weep, Anni girl 

you girl Anni, matchless girl?"

 

"I went to the wood for whisks 

to the thicket for bath-whisks 

broke off one for my father. 

Osmonen called from the dale 

Kalevainen from the clearing: 

'Grow, maid, to please me 

not the other young people 

the fair young people: 

grow in narrow, in neat things."

 

Part Two - The Storehouse

 

"You girl Anni, matchless girl

don't weep, Anni girl. 

Three are the sheds on the hill. 

Step to the shed on the hill 

open the best shed:

there eat butter for a year

and grow plumper than others

another year, pork

and a third, fish pies. 

Stand trunk upon trunk case on top of case: 

open the best trunk make the bright lid slam open 

put on the best things 

the most gorgeous on your breasts."

 

The girl Anni, matchless maid 

stepped to the shed on the hill 

opened the worst shed 

became prettier than others 

became plumper than others 

opened the worst trunk 

found six golden belts 

eight swaddling-girdles 

strangled herself with the belts 

choked herself with the girdles 

she staggered, she slumped 

hanged herself with her own thread: 

then she dropped upon the case 

fell on the trunk-lid.

 

Singer unknown Uhtua, Archangel Karelia E. Lönnrot, 1834, original. SKVR I1 233

Translation: Finnish folk poetry epic : an anthology in Finnish and English:410 -412, nro 104 Hirttäytynyt neito I (The Hanged Maid I)

 

osa 3 Weep Not, Mother Dear

Mother

 Rock the child to Tuonela 

the child to the planks' embrace 

under turf to sleep 

underground to lie 

 

Daughter

Cry you not, mother dear

 Give away your daughter dear

Cry you not, mother dear

Give away your Anni dear

 

MOTHER

For Death's children to sing to

for the grave's maidens to keep!

For Death's cradle is better

and the grave's cot is fairer 

 

DAUGHTER

Remember not your sadness

Or nurture sorrow in your heart

Worry not of days to come

Nor carry longing on your sleeve

 

Original Poem Tuuti lasta tuonelahan (Mother´s parts) Kanteletar II: 178; Daughter´s parts by Pauliina Kauppila

MOTHER´S PARTS translated by Kate Bosley World’s Classic The Kanteletar II:178, s. 64, 1992

DAUGHTER´S PARTS translated by Piiastiina Tikka & Janne-Pekka Manninen