ABSTRACT
THESE Lapp people, who live in the harshest of northern climates where periods of light and darkness alternate, seem to endure existence like dwellers in the desert, yet they mingle joy with their woe. For these folk arrange lively banquets to which fiddlers are invited to make the guests merrier (even though their meals consist of the toughest meats) and stimulate them to dance. As the fiddler strikes up more briskly, they tread the measure, at the the same time singing to traditional rhythms and tunes the famous deeds of their ancient heroes and giants, that is to say, the praise and glory they won by their valour, and in so doing they melt into groans and deep sighs, and then proceed to lamentation, tears, and keening, till the pattern of the dance is broken up and they sink to the ground. Many of the bystanders act in the same fashion, wishing to be seen conforming to the movements of the others. Eventually the fiddlers revive them and they rise to pleasanter amusements, singing nothing further that will incite them to grief. 1 They were chiefly moved to sorrow because they have no means, or very few, of imitating the famous exploits of their ancestors or winning a comparable name, by defending the purity of virgins, for example, and removing ferocious tyrants; now, by the crafty dissembling of those in authority these godless crimes are done, or allowed to be done, with impunity. 2 Therefore these people think it is far and away safer to die than to live; for the most part they greet the birth of a child with lamentation and death with a joyous song. 3
Alternate light and darkness
Dance turns to lament
They are revived and feast
The nature of their forbears’ exploits
Better to die than to live
