Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/29

Rh several, it is added at the end. A capital F before an English word, both in round brackets, means that the latter is the literal meaning in Finnish of the word it follows. To save an inordinate number of footnotes, a word is put in single inverted commas to show that it must not or need not be taken quite literally. For instance, in nine cases out of ten the epithet ‘golden’ means ‘dear, precious’; ‘fiery’, ‘holy’ are occasionally synonymous with ‘terrible’, ‘awful’, ‘dangerous’. ‘Iron’ as an attribute may also denote ‘iron-coloured’. ‘Toad’ as a term of abuse might equally be translated ‘fiend, wretch, loathsome creature’. Double inverted commas are used to call attention to certain epithets applied to animals or personified objects. In Finnish words the dotted vowels are the narrowed open sounds of the corresponding undotted vowels: ä = a in hand, ö = French eu, ü French u, j = y in you. The double consonants must be sounded twice. The main stress is always on the first syllable.

The first ‘birth’ is evidently a late composition, and throws no light upon early Finnish speculation regarding the origin of man.

I.—.

II.— (noita).

Of course I know the wizard’s birth—the fortune-teller’s (arpoja) origin.

There the sorcerer (noita) was born—fortune-tellers took their rise

Behind the limits of the north, in Lapland’s flat and open land;