Sámi Folktales from the Near and Far Worlds

 

I'm thrilled to present the cover of my next book, Sámi Folktales from the Near and Far Worlds, the most extensive compilation of Sámi narratives recorded from Sámi storytellers ever published in English translation. 

Although the publication date is some months away--April 28, 2026 to be exact--it's now in the catalog on the University of Minnesota Press website. I love how the photograph captures the sense of mystery and spaciousness of Finnmark in Northern Norway/Sápmi, where the narratives were collected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

I'm also really pleased to see Isak Saba's name on the cover as a second collector. When the initial volumes of these folktales were published in the bilingual Norwegian Sámi edition in 1927-1929, only the name of Just Knud Qvigstad, the eminent linguist and folklorist, was listed. Isak Saba, a teacher, politician, and folklorist, was relegated to a role as a contributor, particularly of stories from East Finnmark. 

But my research showed that Isak Saba had also been a collector and translator of Sámi folklore. Only his untimely death kept him from publishing his own works of narratives by Skolt and Varanger Sámi storytellers, fifty of which are included in this book.

 Here are a few things that early readers have said about this edition of three hundred narratives, translated from the Norwegian: 

“Beautifully written, the introduction to Sámi Folktales from the Near and Far Worlds captivates the reader from the very beginning with poetic descriptions of the Sámi landscape, the historical context and thematic characteristics of the storytelling tradition in Sápmi, and an exploration of the relationship between Just Knud Qvigstad and Isak Saba. This book is a valuable collection of Sámi stories.” —Line Esborg, Head of Norwegian Folklore Archives, University of Oslo

“For decades, these stories have provided contemporary Sámi literature with drama, detail, and inspiration. This collection is a treasure trove for every writer and reader to choose from, and it's a gift to the English language that these folktales are now translated.” —Elin Anna Labba, author of The Rocks Will Echo Our Sorrow: The Forced Displacement of the Northern Sámi

“Sámi Folktales from the Near and Far Worlds is invaluable to anyone even remotely curious about the Sámi. The deeper you dig into this collection, the more satisfying it gets. Often mysterious and magical, sometimes scary, occasionally funny, the tales are always captivating. They are told with an immediacy and sense of the storyteller’s voice that does more than entertain, it passes on insights into Sámi culture not readily found anywhere else. Including extensive historical information, translator Barbara Sjoholm’s introduction is worth its weight in gold.” —Lise Lunge-Larsen, author of Seven Ways to Trick a Troll

 

 

August Travels in East Finnmark, Norway

 

Thanks to a travel grant from the American-Scandinavian Foundation in New York, I had the good fortune to spend most of August in Northern Norway, specifically in Eastern Finnmark. I flew into Kirkenes, on the border to Russia, and then made my way slowly, by bus and car, around the Varanger Fjord. From Vadsø I took the Hurtigruten to Tromsø for a last week of visiting friends and doing research in the Tromsø Museum library. 

Hurtigruten arriving in Vadsø

Most of this travel was in service to a project I’ve been working on for the past two years, a translation from the Norwegian of a significant collection of Sámi folktales. These appeared a bilingual (North Sámi and Norwegian) series of four volumes, Lappiske eventyr og sagn [Lappish Folktales and Legends] in 1927-1929 under the name of J.K. Qvigstad, a Lappologist and college rector in Tromsø. In 1997, the thousand or so folktales in Lappish Folktales and Legends were condensed into a hefty book of around three hundred stories in Norwegian, Samiske beretninger [Sámi Narratives], edited by Brita Pollan, a Norwegian scholar of religion. My version has echoed many of her choices though I’ve added and subtracted some tales (it will be published by the University of Minnesota Press in a year or so). 

J.K. Qvigstad

Dozens of Sámi storytellers contributed to the volumes. Most of their tales were told in Sámi dialects to Qvigstad, from the 1880s through the 1920s; he then transcribed them into a standardized North Sámi and translated them to Norwegian. The stories came from different regions of Sápmi, particularly the Lyngen Peninsula, the Varanger Fjord, and Karasjok and Kautokeino. But the work of another collector, Isak Saba, was also important to the first volume of Lappish Folktales and Legends.

Saba, born on the Varanger Fjord and a former student of Qvigstad’s in Tromsø, played an important part in Sámi politics in the early twentieth century, as the first Sámi person ever elected to the Norwegian parliament. He later resumed teaching back in North-Varanger, but also decided to become a folklorist. With support from the Norwegian Folklore Archives in Oslo, Saba collected folktales from the Varanger Fjord area and from lands to the southeast, still inhabited by the Skolt Sámi in Neiden and Boris Gleb. Sadly, Saba died in 1921, just forty-five. Over a hundred folktales collected by Saba made their way into Qvigstad’s hands and into Lappish Folktales and Legends.

 

Isak Saba

Over the course of working on the translation of the folktales and writing a draft of the introduction, I became more aware of the extent of Isak Saba’s contributions, and I also grew determined to make them more visible. So my trip this summer was in part to educate myself more thoroughly about Isak Saba’s work as a folklorist, as well to get a sense of the landscape of these stories. I have long been curious to visit a few of the museums in East Finnmark, and particularly Ä´vv Saa´mi Mu´zei, the Skolt Sámi Museum located in the border area of Norway, in Neiden. The Skolt Sámi are far less written about than other groups of Sámi, and there’s not much about their history in English. But having translated a number of Skolt tales transcribed by Isak Saba, I was eager to see something of the Skolt landscape, however truncated by state borders and time.