ANCIENT PRAYERS
My God, highest, dearest God, high, kind Creator, Heavenly Water, Protectoral
As I am praying to you with a brimming bowl, full of broth and bread, protect me, do not surrender me to
the enemy or evil spirits.
Let the grain that I sowed, ripen like
strawberries. Let it yield 30 roots, 12 segments, 1000 grains, silver ears and golden corn.
When I go hunting, let my chasing dogs touch the prey with their paws" catch it in their jaws. When I go into the
woods, bring fluffy-tails into my traps. Bring them to me, like a boat sliding over the waters, my God!
Show me your generosity! Praising my good reputation, let those who can hear hear me, and those who can see see
me, from where the sun rises as far as where the sun sets. Let the children whom you have given me live happily
like swallows, give them good luck and health. Grant children to the seven daughters who have left home, and sons
and daughters-in-law to the nine whom I have taken in. Watch over my only wife, my first-born children.
Oh my God! When the mare foals, let the foal grow Into an атЫег bearing a star on its forehead. When
the cow calves, let it be a calf that will give us milk and butter. When the sheep kids, let it be a lamb that
will yield much wool.
There is nothing more I can ask for. — Give me what Thou witt, my God, Creator, Heavenly Water,
Protector!
IMPRECATION OF DESEASES
If only You, illness, could make seventy seven rowan-trees grow together, and tf only all of the trees would germinate through one and the same ant-hill, you could overcome this man (woman). I am not going to let you ruin this man (woman) until you make one trunk out of seventy seven trees struck by lightning. Dont you dare to touch on this man (woman) until you turn seventy seven millstones Into one-millstone If only you could grow one tree from alt branches broken off from trees and bushes, as well as all chips of wood one can find in the forest, you could overcome this man (woman). There are seventy seven gold rings hidden. Until you find them, this man (woman) wont give himself (herself) up. If only you could turn the dust flying in the air, into an endless gold chain, this man (woman) would grve himself (herself) up. You cant carry out any of these tasks and you’ll never be able to. So dont you dare to touch on this man (woman).
BABY — WEDDING SONG
(sung when friends and relatives pay a visit to the woman in childbed).
Driving seventy seven pairs of horses they have come.
Driving eighty eight pairs of horses they have come,
— Why did they come?
— They came to celebrate a «baby-wedding».
LULLABY
Sleep, my baby, sleep, my apple-tree flower.
A nightingale will sing you a song,
A golden bee will bring you some honey.
A blue-winged butterfly will lay flowers down your head.
Sleep, my baby, sleep, my little pigeon.
When you grow up, once you’ll take an axe
And go to the forest, singing a song,
YOU Will fell a big fir
And get tired of hewing its branches.
When you get tired of hewing
YOU Will come home and be feeling weary. Mother will bake you some tabani And feed you well.
*Tabani — a sort of flat-cake.
FAREWELL SONG
(lamentation sung by the bride at a wedding ceremony).
My dear home, I’m saying, dear home.
My dear mother, I’m saying, dear mother.
My dear father, I’m saying, dear father.
HOME — LEAVING SONG
I wish I had turned into a silk thread
As I was leaving home and parting wrth mother, in the doorway.
Then I would have caught on the threshold and stayed. I wish I had turned into a gold coin
As I was going out of the gates and parting with father.
Then I would have fallen out and stayed.
WEDDING-SONG
I’m only saying, «Let it ring»,
I ’m saying, «Hey, hey, woman».
Let us celebrate a wedding,
Saying «hey, he/’, only „hey, he/’.
Hey, right away,
Let us celebrate a wedding.
If we jump, we break the girder under your floor.
If we go down to the cellar,
We drag out your mouldy barrel.
Hey, hey, right away,
Let us celebrate a wedding.
LAMENTATION OF THE BRIDE
I got up early in the morning
And went out of the gates.
Oh, dear father and mother,
Why have you brought me into the world?
You shouldn’t have brought me up.
You ought to have kept white geese instead,
And in summer you would have heard their ringing cackle. And in autumn you would have had some white down. You would have made downy pillows out of it And had good dreams.
KEEN
Oh, my men, my husband, why are you dead? You died and passed away, for good! And Goodness“ you cant feet anything. Oh, my man, my husband? Nobody will take care of me. Now I have nobody to live with nobody will love me! I’ve got as many children as grains in porridge, you see. You left them and t have to bring them up alone. Oh, my man, my husband! As the sun scorches the field tn the summer so shall we be scorched without youth Well, may you live well in the other world. May you rest in peace?
LAMENT
Oh my body, my body
You with become black earth.
Oh my hair, my hair
You will become silky waterweed.
Oh my hands and feet
You will be mud in the water.
Oh my shirt, my shirt
You will be fishing net
Oh my neddace of coins
You will become fish scale.
Oh my beads, my string of beads
You will be hard roe.
Oh my eyes, my eyes
You will become black currants.
Translated by Kai Vass/fjeva and Audrey Prokopyev
THE SONG OF SACRIFICE TO ONE’S DEAD PARENTS
(Sacrifice to one’s dead parent, or the ritual of ^Offering of Head and Legs» takes place a year (or 3. 5. 10. 20 years) after one’s parent’s death. Horse’s head and fegs were sacrificed to one’s father, those of cow to one’s mother).
The meadow-folk are, maybe, waiting for us, and thinking that their invited guests are coming. Thinking that their invited guests are coming. Those meadow-folk are real midgets, you see. So, to feel their breasts, we had to kneel down.
— What would you like us to give you, my dearest friend?
-What would you like us to ghee/e you, my dearest friend?
— A kind word from you would do.
— A kind word from you would do,
-Meadow-folk — the deceased, people of the nether-world
