Rauta rukka, ruoste raukka
In the SKVR edition: Kivij. Krohn 3946. 84. Kinnula. Hilta Kinnunen, 23 v. Kuullut isältään.
SKVR textEnglish
1Rauta rukka, ruoste raukka,Iron wretch, rusty wretched one,
2Et sinä ollu suuri, etkä pieni,You were neither large, nor small,
3Etkä kovin korea,Nor particularly splendid,
4Kun sinä maitona makasitWhen you lay like milk
5Nuoren neitosen nisissä,In the young maiden's breasts,
6Kasvannaisen kainalossa.In the grown woman's armpit.
7Pure puuta, pure maata,Bite wood, bite earth,
8Elä ihoa ipase!Don't gnaw the skin!
9Sillon on rauta tylsä,Then the iron is dull,
10Kun helvettiin heitettiin pohjattomaan.When cast into bottomless hell.
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.
Permanent address of this poem at SKS: http://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:sks-kvr-053007 · Read at SKS ↗
Added by RunoVerse: the English translations, the song types, the verse numbers and the links.