![[Reindeer Stag Image]](cari2.gif)
This story was recorded in the early 1940's in Chicago by a Saami woman, she knew it was not a Saami or Finnish folk or fairy tale. She did not however know where it did come from. Can you help research this? If you recognize the source of this folktale, please e-mail me at tinne@eskimo.com.
This is a cave painting from France of a reindeer stag. The painting is very old from a time when people did not read or write and didn't have television sets but drew pictures and told each other folktales of legendary journeys like this one on long Winter nights.
There was a young woman who did not live in Lapland, we don't know where she lived. Her family had died, she was living by herself, far outside of any town. She was living alongside the edge of a river. There was a wonderful glade of trees down by the river. She was happy, all that she needed she could find from the trees in the forest, from the grasses and the herbs. She hunted some, she got along just fine. She was a very happy woman.
One fall, she heard a thundering noise. she had never heard the thundering noise before. So she got up and out of her bed, and stood in her doorway and watched something that was an object of wonder. Across the river, where she had never seen them before was a huge herd of Reindeer. The Reindeer filled the valley as far as she could see, from the right to the left from the edge of the river on up to the edge of a mountain peak. All that she could see was reindeer, reindeer. Wonderful jostling reindeer and the sound of their hoofs, and the sound of their breathing, and the smell of their bodies, and the beauty of the cows and the bulls and the calves traveling all as one, all as individuals, all as one. It was fabulous. She had never seen it before, she had no idea why she saw it now.
She stood wrapped in silence watching this. All night long until the sun came up. When the sun cam up, she couldn't stay awake any longer so she went back to bed for a few hours of sleep. When she got up, the reindeer were gone.
All that huge tide of reindeer, all that loud and wonderful sound, all that beauty, all that majesty was gone like it had never been. Curious, she got in her little boat, she crossed to the other side of the river. When she got over there, she found the fields had been torn up by all the hooves. She wandered through what was left of the meadow inhaling the scent left of the Reindeer, picking up bits of fur. Finding little bits of twig. All that was left was a touch of a smell and the ground that had been churned up.
But as she was about to go back to her boat and head back across the river to her own lonely little hut she heard a sound. It didn't make any sense. There was no one there, there was nothing there, it wasn't the sound of an animal, it was a strange sound.
She followed it. What she found, was she found a man. He was lying with his eyes closed, he was obviously injured, his leg was badly broken. He wore nothing except for two gloves and two boots. The boots, she'd never seen anything like them. The leather was soft as butter, lined with rich, rich fur. On the outside they were painted and embroidered with the finest silks, reds, and blues and metallic golds. Rich, rich designs, and the gloves, the gloves were soft. They were not quite as good a quality as the boots, but they were wonderful.
Well, she couldn't leave him there. So she went and she got two birches, took them cut them down, made them into a splint, splinted his leg, and still with him asleep, she carried him to her boat, put him in the boat, ferried him across the river to her hut, put him in the bed. Then she started thinking: "Where did he come from? Where was he going? I never see anybody out here. I'm at the edge of the world. There's no one out here. I've never seen anyone like him. He's good looking. He's healthy. Those boots, those gloves, those aren't the things of someone who is a peddler. Those are fine and rich. I wonder where he comes from?"
Well, by supper time he came to his senses, but he wasn't making a lot of sense to her because he spoke a language different than her own. So with motions of her hands and her head, and smiles, she managed to get some soup down him before he fell fast asleep.
Well, things went on like this for weeks and weeks and weeks. In the depths of the winter, in the coldest, deepest, heart of the winter, when all you could see all night long was black. The sun didn't rise above the horizon, but for an hour each day By that time they had learned enough of each other's language they could talk a little, but not much. He was able to begin walking on his leg, but it was very sore and he was very weak, and he was not doing well. So feeding him on soups and homemade bread and biscuits and dried fruit, and the bits of herbs and things she could find he gradually got healthier.
He learned more of her language, and she more of his, and it was obvious that they were falling in love. Came the springtime with the bright green leaves bursting out of the trees. Finally she asked him the question she'd been meaning to ask him since she'd found him. That is "Who are you? I've been calling you the Stranger, but you must have a name. Where do you come from? Where were you going? I've never seen anyone out here on the edge of the world. And you look nothing like anyone I've ever seen. Where do you come from? Where were you going?"
He got a strange look on his face, and he said 'It's better not to ask.' She stopped, that wasn't what she wanted to hear, but she knew if she pushed she wasn't going to get any answer. So she waited. And all through the spring as they were going around and they were fixing up things on her cabin an things on her fences, and they were gathering the new greens, and they were gathering the new herbs, and flowers and beginning to collect the fur from the goats and the sheep that played in the meadows across the river. She kept looking at him. His eyes, they were bright, they were wonderful, but they were different than any eyes she'd ever seen before. Finally, at the beginning of summer, around the time we would call our May, she looked at him and said "Who are you? Where did you come from? Where were you going?" He looked at her, and he gave a deep sigh, and he said "I'm only going to have to leave you. I don't want to, I can't help it, you know I love you, but I'm only going to have to leave you. I don't want you having to come after me, I don't want you to try and follow me, I don't want you to fall in love with me." At this she laughed, and she said "well, it's too late. I fell in love with you before we could talk."
Oh dear. They went out and they picked the wild strawberries in the field. They gathered some of the early fruit. As summer went on, they fell very, very, very much in love. They knew they were going to become lovers. And they did. It was wonderful, because they were in love with each other and it was perfect. But every once in a while, she would look over at him, and she would ask him "Who are you?" He would give a deep sigh, and he would say "I'm the Reindeer Prince. I don't want to, but I'm going to have to leave you. And I'm going to try not to leave you, but I'm not going to be able to stop. I'm going to have to leave you and it would be better if you went back to your people. They will protect you. Go back to your people. You can't come after me. You can't come after me."
Well, as summer became winter, he started to get more restless. He would spend more time sitting in the doorway of the cabin, looking across the river. Looking at the clouds, watching the leaves on the trees fall from the trees, looking, watching, thinking. She would walk up to him and she would say "What are you thinking of?" He would give a great big sigh and say "I'm only going to have to leave you. I really don't want to."
One afternoon, she walked over to him and said "you can't leave me." He looked at her and said "I don't want to." She said "No, you don't understand, you can't leave me. We're going to have a baby, we're going to have to get married." At that he got a strange look on his face and he ran out the doorway. He ran and he ran and he ran, and she watched and he ran to the boat and he took the boat to the meadow on the other side of the river, and she watched with him on the other side of the river and she no longer had a boat. He paced and he paced and she watched him waving his arms wildly and he was obviously talking to the wind or himself or the trees or something.
Oh, she hadn't meant to upset him like this. But at supper time, she went inside. She began making dinner tears rolling down here eyes. She thought: "Well, he'll either come for dinner, or he won't. If he does, we'll talk about getting married. If he won't, my baby and I will live at the edge of the world and I will tell him about his father the Reindeer Prince."
Well, come supper time, she heard the oars of the boat, and she heard the boat come to the shore, and she heard him walking up the path to the doorway. As he opened the doorway, he looked at her and he sighed. He said "You can't follow me. Especially not when you are pregnant. You can't follow me. It's a terrible journey. It's dreadful. I don't want to go, I don't want to leave you, but you don't understand. I can't help it."
She said "Why do you call yourself the Reindeer Prince?" In all this time she'd never asked him that. He said, "I'm afraid you're going to throw me out of the house." She said "No I won't, I love you". He said "Well, I call myself the Reindeer Prince because I'm a reindeer. My father is the head of the herd. And sometimes I can become a man. What happened last fall, was I was part of the Reindeer migration, I was in the shape of a man, but one of my father's rivals knocked me down, and broke my legs, and so in the shape of a man you found me. If you'd found me in the shape of a reindeer, you would have killed me, and brought me back and eaten me and no one would know the more about us."
She looked at him and said, "Well it's a good thing that you were in the shape of a man isn't it?"
And he blinked. He said, "but your people? Your people don't believe in things like this. They say we're terrible." She laughed and she said "no, no, my people are all gone. I live at the edge of the world, because I have no more family. I am my people. And that's why I'm going to follow you, I'm going to become of your people. And besides" she said, "what happens if your son is a shape changer like you and he becomes a reindeer? I can't teach him to be a reindeer. I can teach him to be human, but I cannot teach him to be a reindeer. You will have to teach him. We will have to go together." At this, the Reindeer Prince looked at her and said "you can't. You cannot follow me, you don't understand. In order to follow me, you have to become a reindeer, or you will die."
She looked at him and said "I'm strong, I've lived by myself at the edge of the world for all these years, I will do fine." He said "I won't know when I will be leaving." He tried to explain to her, that one night, he was going to walk out the door, he was going to intend to come back, and what would happen is he would become a reindeer, because he would smell the herd on the other side of the river. He would swim over and he would go. He would have no warning. The only thing she would know is she would wake up in the morning and he wouldn't be there, and then she would have to try and find him among all the other reindeer. But the reindeer would be gone. She would no longer be able to see them, so she would have to track them. It was going to be a long journey, it takes all the months of the winter to go where they need to go. Then they turn around and they come back. He said "it's a long journey, you will die if you try it. You must become a reindeer to survive." She looked at him and she laughed and she said "well, if I must become a reindeer, I will become a reindeer."
Sure enough, a couple of weeks later after all the leaves had fallen from the trees, he went out to get some firewood for the fire, and she heard the roar and the rumble. She walked to the doorway of her cabin, and sure enough on the other side of the river, there was the wonderful reindeer herd. All the noise of their hooves, all the smell of their bodies, all the motion, all the excitement, all the wonder, they were there.
Sure enough, her boat was gone. As she strained her eyes, she could see her Prince, climbing out of the boat, and he began to run. He ran into the center of the herd, and lifting his arms up high, he gave out a yell in words that he'd never used with her, and he was so excited, and he was so proud, and he had never been more handsome and wonderful than he was at that moment in time. She felt the baby in her womb move, and she knew she had to follow him, because she knew her son would be a reindeer too.
So she turned and went inside and she packed a few things. A cook pot, a little food, a little salt, some berries, some things to keep her busy on the cold nights on the trail. She packed them all together, she went out and started to walk along the banks of the river, and sure enough, along about sunrise, long after the reindeer had run beyond where she could see, she came to a shallow place in the river, and she crossed over. Sure enough, among all the hooves of all the reindeer, and the bits and pieces left behind, and that marvelous smell of the reindeer, she could see the trail of two feet. She knew the trail of those boots. They belonged to her Reindeer Prince, and so she began to follow.
Unlike the reindeer, she couldn't travel day and night, but she would begin before the sun would be up, and she would trudge along the river, and she would trudge through the meadows, and she would go through the fens and the swamps and the thickets and all the places the reindeer went.
One month passed, and then another, and she was tired from traveling, and she was getting more and more pregnant. Then, she found an awful thing. She came to a swamp. She wandered through the swamp, following the trail, following those boots, and on the other side of the swamp, there was a thicket of alders. Short alders. She walked through the thicket, and found herself on the beach! on the beach of a salt sea. The salt sea, it was like nothing she'd ever seen before. There was nothing on the other side. This wasn't like a lake, this wasn't like a river, there was nothing there. It went on forever. there was nothing she could do.
Now, finally, she understood what it was her Reindeer Prince had been trying to tell her. That if she could not become a reindeer herself, she would not be able to follow him. She would lose him forever. She sat down on the edge of the beach and she let her shoulders fall, and she put her pack down, and she began to cry. She was so tired, and she'd come so far, and she'd worked so hard, just to come to the edge of a sea that she couldn't cross over. She had crossed mountains, she had crossed desserts, she had crossed meadows and swamps, and thickets, all of this, all of this. She was following those boots, but now she came to something she could not cross over.
Finally, she cried all the tears she had in her to cry. So she got up, and she walked back to the swamp, and she walked beyond the swamp, to a meadow. There were a couple of large stones there, big as a person as a matter of fact, and she sat down and leaned up against one of them, started her fire, and she was so upset the only thing she could think of to do, was to sing a song to the baby in her womb. So she sang him the song of her Reindeer Prince, and how he came into her life, and what had happened between them, and how she was trying to follow his father, and how she'd come to the edge of the sea and she didn't know what to do.
As she was singing this song, she was making her dinner. She set up her tent, and she sang and she sang and the sun went down. She was standing, looking out through the dark, out at the swamp, beyond the swamp to the thicket at the glitter of the sea. The next thing she knew, she heard a voice behind her going "Hello?". She whirled around, because she hadn't seen anybody. Standing in front of her, were three women. They were grandmothers. They had grey hair, they had smiles on their faces they had wrinkles, they were wonderful grandmothers. They were looking at her. They were saying "Can we help you?"
She said "I don't think so. Where do you come from?" "Oh, we live here" they said. "You live here? But, but I've been traveling for two months, I live at the edge of the world and I'm two months beyond the edge of the world, and I haven't seen another human being." The grandmothers laughed, "oh no" they said "we're not humans." Now according to the Finns, the three grandmothers are trolls, and they can only be human at nighttime. But according to the Saamis, they're not trolls at all, they're the spirit of the trees, the trees in the thicket. These grandmothers set her down and they tell her that if she goes to a certain place in the swamp just as the sun rises, there will be a door that opens. But they said "You must be very, very careful. If you go though that doorway, you may not take any fire. You may not take any food, you may not take anything made of iron. You may only take yourself, and a little salt." They told her that she would find terrible dangers down there, but she could not have a torch, she could not have a flashlight, she could have no candle, not even a single match. She had to go through that terrible long darkness. If she went on that long darkness, and did not complain, and faced the dangers she would meet down there bravely, she would come out on the other side, and on the other side would be the other side of the sea, and there she would find the Reindeer Prince and his people.
This was the best thing she could have ever heard!. She was so excited. She thanked them and, and she fed them and gave them the best tea, and the best of the milk, and she started giving them things from her pack. She didn't have much, a little embroidered head cloth here, a little bit of a vest there for she obviously wasn't going to need it anymore, to another she gave a pair of hand knit stockings in three colors.
Oh they were wonderful gifts. The grandmothers thanked her very, very much, and they looked at her and they said "Now remember, you may not take anything that can make fire, you may not take anything made of iron, you have to go alone, and be very careful" they said "for you may frighten yourself to death. If you do, all will be lost. But if you remember that you love your Prince, and you love your baby, and you are strong and you are courageous and you are steadfast in who you are, you'll make it to the other side and you will find their people."
So she went to the place in the swamp where the grandmothers had told her to wait, and sure enough, just as the sun rose, just for a second, there was a doorway that opened in the ground. Into she went and there was a straircase. At first it was a nice broad staircase made of wood with nice banisters to hold onto, and it didn't bother her that there was no light. She'd been out at night gathering wood before, remember she lived by the edge of the river where there were times when the winter dark went all thorough the day but for an hour. So down she went. But soon the stairs were not made of wood anymore, soon they were just cut out of the earth. They were getting narrower, and narrower, and soon the railing was gone. There was no banister. Soon if she put out one hand all she could find was air. If she put out the other hand, all she could find was air. She went down the stairs and they were narrower and narrower and narrower and soon there was no room for anything but for two feet. Down and down and down they kept going. She could hear her own breathing, and she could hear her heartbeat. She could hear the heartbeat of her baby. She kept telling herself, "I will get through this. I will be all right." But up ahead on the staircase, the staircase that was only wide enough for two feet, she heard a noise. She called out "Who is it? What are you? Can I help you?"
A small voice, a voice that sounded like the wind, but very soft and very faint said "No. You cannot help me, but I can help you." "What do you mean?" asked the girl. "Four steps ahead, the staircase makes a turn. I've watched you. You are a brave girl. You deserve a chance. I hope you find your Reindeer Prince. I loved him once too. But I came down the stairway and I became afraid and I became so afraid that my heart broke in two, and now I'm just the wind. Four steps ahead and then turn to your right." The girl thanked the wind. She felt very sorry for someone who had been so afraid that her heart had broken. She had been afraid too, but she knew she had to make it to the other side because otherwise, the baby in her womb would never learn how to be a reindeer and his life would be terrible. She couldn't turn back now. So down and down and down she went. Then all of a sudden, her feet were in water, and there was no stairway. It was just a path. It was hard walking on that path. Lose her balance just a bit and she was up to her waist and in the dark where she couldn't see she had to find the pathway again and climb up. Soaked from head to foot. She fell in, not once, not twice, but ten times ten. Soggy. Wet. Her clothes feeling awful. She tripped one last time on a stone, and heard a voice in the dark. The voice in the dark said "May I help you?" The girl said "WHAT?!?" The stone said, May I help you?" "Uh, I'm not sure. I'm trying to find the Reindeer Prince." "You're almost there" the stone said. "I, too, many many years ago, many many many years ago, I fell in love with the Reindeer Prince's father. And I tried to follow him. And I was fine until I got to this point. But five steps up ahead you will find a thing. I grew so frightened of that thing that my heart closed up tight, and I could no longer breathe, I couldn't open my mouth, I couldn't open my eyes, I couldn't reach out my arms to feel anymore. And I closed down and I died and I became a stone from fright. It's all right. All it is is a bit of stone, with a bit of old moss on it from when it used to be above the ground. But the trolls rolled it down here. Or the sea, or maybe the earth herself, I don't remember. But it's it's all right."
The girl thanked her very much, walked ahead, sure enough, blocking the pathway was this stone that felt like it was covered with fur. But now she knew it wasn't fur, it was moss. So she gathered some moss and put in her pack. She went on further, and up ahead, was that a bit of light? Did she see a bit of light? Ah, yes, she did. So she began to walk, and as she walked, the stairway began to get wider, and wider. It was no longer under water. Now it was a pathway, and then, then it was the steps made of mud, and then it was the steps made of wood. But she came to a place where there were no steps. She looked down. If she couldn't jump across, and jump up to the next step, she'd fall and she'd fall and she'd fall and she'd fall until she found herself in the middle of the earth. Way down deep, down there, she could see a fire. A fire as bright as the sun in the sky. And she was afraid. Oh she was afraid. But she remembered if she didn't jump across the hole, if she didn't get to the next step, her son, the son of the Reindeer Prince would die with her. And she couldn't do that.
So she stopped. She thought very very hard. What was it that her parents used to do when they were afraid? What words did they say? So she found herself saying a prayer that she hadn't heard since she was a very young child. Saying it over and over and over again. Remembering back to the love of her family and how important it was when she was growing up.
She gathered herself together, and she jumped across the hole and there, she made it. She climbed up the stairs on to the other side, and when she came out on the other side, she came out into a boggy place. There were birches, and there were swamps, and there were meadows and there were rivers, and they were just like where she'd been from. But she knew she had walked across the top of the world. She could tell it was springtime now. It was almost time for her baby to be born. The trees, they were beginning to put out green leaves. The flowers they were beginning to bud in the meadows, and she walked ahead. She could smell the smell of the snows far away. She could smell the smell of the sea. She could also smell the smell of the reindeer people. She walked and she followed her nose. She came to a village. In the village were people that were dressed strangely, but they spoke the tongue of the Reindeer Prince, so she could talk to them. She asked them "Where, where are the reindeer?"
They frowned, they looked at her, they said "Who are you? Where did you come from? Where were you going?" She said "I come from far away, I live at the edge of the world and I have traveled over the top of the world. I have climbed mountains, I have swum streams, I have swum ponds, I have walked across deserts, I have gone forever, and then I had to go underground. I had to walk I don't know how long. I had to meet dangers, and the only thing that kept me going was the idea that I would meet the Reindeer Prince when I got here. Where are the reindeer people?" They looked at her and they laughed, and they laughed and they laughed. They took her in their arms, and they took her to the nearest house, and the took all of her clothes off, and they gave her a bath. They dressed her in their finest gowns, they anointed her with their finest perfumes, they collected the bright spring flowers and the fresh leaves and they made her a crown and they put on her head. Then they said "follow us."
They walked her to the edge of the village. There she found the Prince looking across the sea. She walked up to him and she tapped him on the shoulder and she said "Hello. I made it." At that, he turned around and his smile, his smile was brighter than the sun. His hair it shone like spun gold, and beyond him, beyond him, was the reindeer herd. He took her in his arms, and he held her and he kissed her, and he said "We will be married."
She said "But first, I think I need to find the herb woman. I think it's time for the baby to be born." So they went to the village, and they found the herb woman, and they did the things that you do for babies to be born. The Reindeer Prince and the lovely young girl, went out to meet the herd with their newborn son, and there they were married before his people. And returned to the village and rejoiced. The lovely young girl and the Prince of the Reindeer people were the parents of the Saamis. Who came across the top of the world from the edge of the world, traveled long and had great dangers, to get where they are today.
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