Truly they lie, they talk utter nonsense
Who say that music reckon that the kantele
Was fashioned by a god
Out of a great pike’s shoulders
From a water-dog’s hooked bones:
It was made from the grief
Moulded from sorrow

Its belly out of hard days
Its soundboard from endless woes
Its strings gatheret from torments
And its pegs from other ills

So it not play, will not rejoice at all
Music will not play to please
Give off the right sort of joy
For it was fashioned from cares
Moulded from sorrow

If I’d died a three-night-old
Been lost in my swadding band
I’d have needed but a span of cloth
A span more of wood,
But a cubit of good earth
Two words from the priest
Three verses from the cantor
One clang from the bell

Softer the side of a groove
Than a widow’s beside is

The Devil weds a widow
The grave one twice wed
A widow’s hand is rougher
Than a dry spruce bough
With which she strikes the playful
Grabs the one who laughs
A widow has had her games
And spent a merry evening

The sparrow’s belly is chill
Sitting on the icy bough
But my belly is more chill
As I step from glade to glade

The dove’s heart is cold
As it pecks the village rick
But I’m colder still
As I drink the icy water

I cast my eyes downward upon the seaside
And a fair young girl on the shore I espied
Who was sitting and weeping
To see the waves leaping
And over the skyline the sad vigil was keeping

O why are you weeping alone on the shore ?
Now still from your eyes I can see the tears pour
What sorrow and smart
So pierces your heart
That even a midnight it will not depart

Its belly out of hard days
Its soundboard from endless woes
Its strings gathered from torments
And its pegs from other ills

So it will not play, will not rejoice at all
Music will not play to please
Give off the right sort of joy
For it was fashioned from cares
Moulded from sorrow

There’s no hearing my treasure
No seeing my marten-breast
No hearing her in the lane
Driving below the window
Chopping the wood by the stack
Clinking outside the cook-house:

In the earth my berry lies
In the soil she’s mouldering
Under the sand my sweet one
Beneath the grass my trasure
The one I grieve for

Without the sun people lived
Gropped about without the moon
With candles sowing was done
Planting performed with torches.

At the time we lived
Without the sunshine
Who had covered up our sun
And who had hidden our moon ?

Without the moonlight stumbled
With our fists fumbled the land
With our hands we sought our roads
With hands roads, with fingers swamps
We could not live without sun
Nor manage without moonlight;
Who would seek out the sun
Who spy out the moon ?
Who else if not God
The one son of God

The farmer hammers
And tempers his spears
Marries off his sons
Hands out his daughters
In boots clogged with clay
In fancy mittens

The sea-swell rumbles
And the wind it blows
And the king hears it
>From five miles away
>From six directions
>From seven back woods
>From eight heaths away

Drag my cares away
Carry off my griefs
For no horse can draw
No iron-shod jerk
Without the shaft-bow shaking off
The cares of this skinny one
The sorrows of this black bird