Varain ol varis jalalla

SKVR IV1 450·Liissilä·1848·Collector: Europaeus, D. E. D.

In the SKVR edition: [Liissilä]. D. E. D. Europaeus. III 2. 392. 1848.

SKVR textEnglish

1Varain ol varis jalalla,Early was the crow on its perch,

2Muita ennen musta lintu,The black bird before all others,

3Varahampi ol miun emoni,Earlier still was my mother,

4Niitti ruokoa merolla.She reaped food from the sea.

5Minkä niitti, sen siteli,What she reaped, she bound,

6Kanto meren rantaselle.Carried it to the sea's shore.

7Nuo kuin poltteli poroksi,Then she burned it to ashes,

8Tek tuo liukkahat lipiät,Made slippery lye,

9Millä pessä sulhon päätä,With which she washed the groom's head,

10Sulhon päätä valkiaista.The groom's radiant head.

11Män tuo Tuonelta tytärtä:She went to Tuoni's daughter:

12Kuin teit miun työni,"When you did my work,

13Munan solmuhun sivalsitYou thrust an egg into a knot,

14Vaskisilla vastaksilla,With copper tongs,

15Hypi meien pitkät pellotClimbed our long fields

16Kirvehen teriä myöten,Along the axe's edge,

17Kassarin kasoja myöten.Along the blacksmith's heaps."

English translations by DeepSeek R1, provided by Lidia Pivovarova (University of Helsinki). AI-generated translations may contain inaccuracies.

The text is that of the SKVR digital edition of the Finnish Literature Society (SKS), with these changes:

The editors’ signs inside the verses ([ ], ⌈ ⌉, *, [!], [?]) are left out, as in the poem reader; the letters they enclose are kept.
The edition’s line numbers are replaced by a number on every verse, counted as in the poem reader.

Source

Text: SKVR (Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot), the digital edition of the Finnish Literature Society (SKS), licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Added by RunoVerse: the English translations, the song types, the verse numbers and the links.