49
1950: 108–118). According to Ruppel, the
conception of
sáiva as a gate to the other-world
is mainly found in western Finnmark (Kulonen
et al. 2005: 376). Identification of a lake
without outlet as an access point to the
otherworld is paralleled in Finno-Karelian
traditions (Siikala 2002a: 263, 343, and cf.
128). However, the significance of this parallel
is unclear. Finno-Karelian traditions spread
through areas where Sámi and probably other
languages were spoken, creating the possibility
of reciprocal influence (Frog 2013: 87–89).
If all of these meanings share a common
etymology,
*sāvje
̮ became connected with the
supernatural or mythic world quite close to the
word’s spread and spread in conjunction with
it. There is no reason to believe that a
phenomenon of cosmology or religion spread
with Proto-Sámi language and then a Proto-
Scandinavian word was borrowed and spread
through Proto-Sámi dialects to designate it. It
is also not clear that
*sāvje
̮ was borrowed to
designate a local mythological or cosmological
phenomenon that then spread through Proto-
Sámi with the word. Basically,
*sāvje
̮ is a
loanword that must have spread through Proto-
Sámi dialects, but it seems to be attached to the
otherworld or points
of access to it in different
ways, and it is not clear that it was used in such
a way in Northeastern dialects.
The proposal that the northeastern use of
sáiva for the cardinal direction ‘south’ is
because this was the direction of a celestial
realm of the dead (Kulonen et al. 2005: 375)
requires transferring the word from a lower to
an upper world and then referring to
a cardinal
direction with the word for the upper world.
Scandinavian and Finnic cosmologies identify
the realm of the dead
as down and north rather
than up and south (e.g. Lid 1949; Siikala
2002a; Heide 2014). This same model is
reconstructed for Proto-Uralic (Napolskikh
1992). If
sáiva meaning ‘south’ developed as a
cosmological reference, its model presumably
derives from a very different culture. However,
this word may just be a homonym of unknown
but independent etymology.
Accepting the
Proto-Scandinavian origin of
the word,
*sāvje
̮ seems to have been assimilated
with the meaning ‘fresh water, lake’, with its
semantics extended, for reasons unknown, to
places of supernatural access to the otherworld.
Nevertheless, the word seems to have become
attached to different things in each area. Rather
than being consistently identified with the
same thing as the word spread and then
evolved in different directions locally, this
variation may, at least to some degree, reflect
variation in what the term became linked to in
local religion formations as it spread.
Two Common Proto-Sámi terms borrowed
from Proto-Scandinavian refer to supernatural
agents that human beings encounter in stories:
(3)
*rāvke
̮ (§1028) (
rávga)
‘water spirit’
(4)
*stālō
(§1222) (
stállu)
‘giant in tales’
The term
*rāvke
̮ was connected especially with
victims of drowning who returned bodily after
death. It corresponds to Old Norse
draugr,
which was the term for the animated dead. The
Old Norse word was not specific to drowning
victims, and could be used for restless and
aggressively haunting dead or those residing
peacefully in a burial mound (which they could
defend when being robbed). The Sámi word
and concept seems likely to have been adapted
into the Kven language (i.e. the Finno-Karelian
language form spoken in Finnmark) as
meri-
raukka [‘sea wraith’]. (Kulonen et al. 2005:
293.) The loanword’s
spread was likely linked
to an associated concept in legends (a legend is
here considered a short story about a specific
encounter that is developed on a traditional
plot or motif and engages contestable beliefs
about
the supernatural or history
18
).
The term
*stālō generates Sámi terms for a
mythic being that corresponds to a ‘troll’, ‘ogre’
or ‘devil’ of legends and tales. The majority of
stories about
stállu seem to be of Scandinavian
or European types, though there are a number
of elements that seem to have a separate
pedigree that connects them with traditions of
other Northern Eurasian hunting and fishing
cultures.
19
The word clearly became prominent
in the vocabulary concerning monsters and
supernatural ‘others’. Its range of use indicates
it became a ‘tradition dominant’
20
– i.e. its
prominence in the tradition led to more and
more narrative material to become attached to
it, so that
*stālō and its derivatives replaced
other terms or identities, while new stories
were probably also generated around it as an
evolving identity.
50
The initial consonant cluster leaves it
unambiguous that this is a loan and suggests a
Proto-Scandinavian model. It seems to belong
to a word family of instrumental nouns
ultimately derived from the verb ‘to stand’,
which produced
stál [‘rick-post on which hay
is stacked; pole on the prow of a ship’] and its
derivative Old Norse
stáli ~ Norwegian
ståle
[‘big, strong man’].
21
The question of the
etymology arises because the latter terms look
like they belong to a metaphorical paradigm of
referring to tall/large powerful men with words
for ‘pole’, ‘post’ or ‘beam’, a type of appellative
that seems to have been generative.
22
In this case,
Old Norse
stáli would be a weak masculine
formed from neuter
stál by adding the
inflectional ending
-i. Nils Lid (1933: 43–77)
proposes a connection to a Norwegian dialectal
use of
ståle to refer to a supernatural being
associated with Yuletide, making a number of
interesting, although potentially anachronistic,
comparisons.
23
Nevertheless, Lid (1933: 61–
62) argues that
ståle and
stáli derive from
Proto-Scandinavian
*stālō, the form anticipated
as the model for Proto-Sámi
*stālō (cf. ON
máni < PSc
*mānō). In this case, the Old Norse
epithet
stáli may have carried particular
connotations perhaps more comparable to uses
of
þurs [‘ogre’] as an epithet. Such connotations
would extend from being physically big to
perhaps mean, clumsy and/or stupid.
The background of the word is unclear, but
a Scandinavian etymology seems likely.
25
The
fact that Proto-Sámi
*stālō suggests a Proto-
Scandinavian noun
*stālō lends credence to
Lid’s argument.
24
If Lid is correct, the
Norwegian dialectal
ståle would have continuity
from a Proto-Scandinavian
*stālō, which, in
some uses, would presumably have referred to
an anthropomorphic supernatural
agent.
Alternately, these could be independently
produced masculine forms derived from a
neuter word for ‘pole’ in different eras. In this
case, use for a supernatural agent would be a
development in Proto-Sámi comparable to that
of
*sāvje
̮ , introducing supernatural connotations
to the loanword. Of course,
this etymology for
Proto-Sámi
*stālō could be incorrect, but it
seems probable, with the central question
being whether a Proto-Scandinavian term
meaning something like ‘big guy’ was adapted
as a term for a supernatural agent or it was
already identified with such an agent in the
source language.
*Stālō undoubtedly replaced other terms on
local and regional bases when it spread. It
presumably became identified with stories in
those local traditions, which would seem to be
the source of features connecting
stállu with
traditions of other Northern
Eurasian and even
North American cultures. The term can also be
assumed to have spread through the dialect
networks in conjunction with stories, which
could account for at least part of the narrative
traditions that seem likely to have filtered
through Scandinavian contacts. Nevertheless,
Erkki Itkonen’s (1976: 12–25) comparative
survey of archaic features of
stállu and stories
related to it does not give the impression of a
uniting underlying tradition that spread with
Proto-Sámi language. Rather than potentially
archaic features strongly linking
stállu
traditions to an Uralic heritage, the stories
connect Sámi traditions to Northern Eurasian
hunting cultures and to hunting cultures of the
Northern Hemisphere more generally.
This list of Scandinavian loans can be
expanded with two terms that are more
difficult to assess:
(5)
*likkō
(§587)
(
lihkku)
‘luck’
(6)
*pierne
̮ (§939) (
bierdna)
‘bear’
Although
*likkō (~ ON
lukka [‘luck’]) could be
connected to a supernatural concept, this is
unclear, as is whether the term
spread with the
concept or only as a pragmatic unit of the
lexicon. Similarly,
*pierne
̮ (~ ON
bjǫrn
[‘bear’]) looks like a naming-avoidance term
(cf. Edsman 1994: 93–101). In that case,
*pierne̮ would be a potential indicator of
naming taboos and thus beliefs about bears
found among other Uralic groups (Honko et al.
1993: 120–121; Pentikäinen 2007: 93–100).
However, the mythic status of the bear and
bear ceremonialism have remarkably deep
historical roots in Northern Eurasia:
26
the
groups that underwent language shifts quite
probably had beliefs
about bears and practiced
forms of bear ceremonialism independently of
Uralic contacts. On the other hand, it is the
only Common Proto-Sámi word for ‘bear’
listed by Lehtiranta.