Samiland is the area where the Samis live, but they do not own it or control it themselves. They live amongst Finns, Swedes and Norwegians in the countries of Finland, Sweden and Norway. A small number of Samis live in Russia.
They speak different languages, either Finnish, Norwegian or Swedish. Many of those who think they are Samis, do not speak any of the Sami dialects.
The Danish sage, Grundtvig, once said: “He/she is Samish who feels Samish.”
This is really the basis for having the suffrage to “Sametinget,” – their own parliament – and the right to have school lessons in a Sami language.
Some Sami families live as fishermen along the shores of Norway or as reindeer farmers, following their grazing herds across the mountain plateaus summer and winter.
Fisher- and reindeer samis tend to uphold their traditional dresses which are very colorful.
Samiland is placed under the Northern Lights around the Polar Circle. There you have 24 hours of daylight in summer, called the midnight sun, but around Christmas the sun does not rise at all.
It may be hard to get a glimpse of a bird in Samiland. Yet, most of the ducks, geese and swans of Europe do have their nests and raise their young ones out here.
In summer the reindeer farmers live in tents or campers, in winter in small log cabins. In villages there are churches, schools and stores and gas stations because of the snow scooters in winter and motor bikes in summer.
The Samis have a very special way of singing, called the “yoik.”
You can get modern Sami music on cd or hear some on the radio.
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Once upon a time there was a young Sami.
He lived in Samiland close to the Russian border.
Our Sami loved snow.
Snow was his toy and at the same time his playground.
He had his own sledge.
He had his own raindeer.
Sami loved his great open landscapes, the lakes, the wide open praires and the mountains.
Music was his magic.
In the evening he used to sit at his fireplace and sing.
His sang his own song. It was given to him at his birth which is a Sami tradition.
While singing, he incessantly looked into the fire.
It was as if his whole being went into the fire, until he felt, that he could fly.
His name was Lars. He was so finely built. His cheeks were round and they became red when he had been out on his sledge
and with his raindeer, but also while sitting before the fire in his little cabin.
Many people believed he was only twelve years old, because his body was delicate, but he was in fact much older.
Nobody but he knew what happened to him, when he was twelve years old.
He was the only one who knew.
Always, when sitting in his room and the icecold northern gales swept across the wasteland around,
he thought back to the time when he was twelve years old.
He was to be confirmed according to the Christian tradition.
He was a year younger than the other boys and girls, that were to be confirmed.
Is there anything more beautiful than a morning in spring filled with sunshine,
when all the people of a little village gather in order to see their young ones bud into bloom like the flowers,
like the trees, like all of nature?
And even if Lars was a bit younger than the others, he was a very handsome boy and his family was very proud of him.
His high cheekbones shone as if he were a statue. His body was very strong and agile. His eyes were so full of light and warmth,
that people either avoided them or they became so charmed that they wanted to stay as close to him as possible.
That was what happened to Karolina. His eyes caught her mind and heart as the beam from a lighthouse catches a ship in the night.
Karolina was also to be confirmed in the tiny little church of theirs.
She was thirteen and felt she was a lot older than Lars.
Yet, she couldn´t keep her eyes away from him.
She was wearing a creamy white dress and the rays of the sun shone back from her bright, almost white hair.
Lars was wearing a red jacket with his initials embroidered on the chest pocket.
On this sunny day, they looked at each other and their souls met.
A few minutes later, Karolina turned her back to the crowd, while talking to her mother.
Lars felt his heart stop, when she turned her eyes away from him.
Soon they sat before the altar inside the little white church and the priest talked about their future in faith, charity and love.
Then their hands met, two young hands, who had never wronged anyone or anything.
It was the magic of love which caught their whole being.
They understood this and received the best of all gifts without fear or hesitation. The gift of a complete mutual understanding called love.
In the evening there was a great feast in the red hall which had been decorated with dried flowers from the year before.
The most precious treasure of this village, the five confirmants, got many presents.
Each of them got their first raindeer and all of them got a sami outfit, colorful and embroidered, as well as sami leather boots.
They danced until very late that night. Nobody had to wait for anyone to come and ask for a dance.
If you wanted to dance, you went out on the floor and the violinist gave a signal with his violin. And everybody danced.
The rhythm of the violin reached all hearts and Karolina kissed Lars right on his mouth. She looked him straight in the eye and said:
“We shall always be together.”
BUT
There´s sometimes a “but” in serious love stories. The “but” in Karolina and Lars´ love story happened two months later.
Karolina´s family moved away from the village.
They had not said anything about this to anyone, not even to Karolina herself and she was too young to stay in the village on her own.
She had no choice and had to go with her family.
Her parents said they didn´t like the idea of living in the same place for the rest of their lives.
They wanted to maintain the tradition of Samish nomads and wander about in the High North, on the enormous plains of the most northern parts of Scandinavia.
They chose a life of endless challenges, yet according to the laws of nature. They felt, that life in villages and towns was conformative and boring.
When Karolina´s family travelled to the northern and westernmost parts of Samiland, they left the Finnish part of it and headed for Norway.
Lars watched them move away with their waggon whereupon Karolina sat without looking back. He felt that his heart was being torn out of his chest.
Only two months earlier Karolina had said
“We shall always be together.”
Now, she was on her way from their settlement and he felt he would never see her again.
Lars walked up to the motor sledge which was to pull their waggon over the wide plains and stood there as close as he thought was fitting and waited.
Karolina´s father gave him a smile while he passed him carrying some hides he put around his wife and daughter sitting up front.
The language of their eyes flew through the air like wireless telegrams.
But Lars didn´t dare say anything. He didn´t know what could be said at a time like this.
Is “good bye” the only word one can say, when one´s love is on the way out of one´s life?
When that happens, even the rising sun doesn´t matter any more. When that happens one´s life turns into nothing but a series of activities
other people have invented.
Lars stood there by the road and watched, when Karolina, her family, sledges on wheels, furniture, raindeer gradually drifted away,
until they were only a miniature picture. At last they were but a tiny dot on the line between heaven and earth,
a black contrast to the colorful wasteland of autumn all around them.
From this day on Lars didn´t add any to his growth. From this day he was “different,” people said.
He isolated himself, wandered alone about in the area, in spite of the danger of meeting a wild bear.
There are many wild forest bears in Samiland. They are hungry predators, that hunt for raindeer, kill them and eat them,
in case they´re not protected by the Samis.
From this day Lars spent more and more time in front of the fire in his hut. He could sit there for hours without saying anything,
even if his family tried to get him out of there, have him come for a meal or watch tv.
Nobody knew, that in his mind only five words had a meaning:
“We shall always be together,” and he chanted his own song, his power chant most of the time.
Like other people around him, Lars added years to his age. He even had to finish school and learn how to make his own living.
He started buying raindeer and became wealthy, because he never spent any money on unnecessary things and never travelled anywhere.
He only wandered about on the beautiful green plains of Samiland in the summertime and sat before the fire in his hut most of the white wintertime.
Had Karolina seen him sixty years later, she would have become quite surprised.
He had the same face, the same nimble and agile body. He had not changed at all.
This is what happens to some people. You can see, that they are not young any more, yet they have few if any signs of old age.
Only his eyes had changed. They didn´t shine any more like the morning sun.
They had turned into dark, introverted, expressionless balls.
His soul wasn´t to be seen any longer in them. It was as if his soul had left him. His eyes became alive only while he was chanting in front of his fire.
She had said:
“We shall always be together.”
She had meant it, but her family interrupted the flow of love.
However, Lars had developed a method which made it possible for him and Karolina always to be together.
While he was sitting alone in his little hut staring into the fire, his soul lifted itself from its prison on the wings of his song
and flew quicker than light to the place where Karolina lived.
He found her in a big wooden house in the northernmost part of Norway.
She had three children and a husband who was the greatest fisherman and raindeerkeeper in the whole of Samiland.
Their eldest son had taken over, as they were a bit tired after many years of strenuous work as nomads.
When they grew old, they built a big family house and started a new kind of Sami life, that of real farming, even with some sheep.
They were a big family now of three generations and lived together. Each time a new member entered the family, be it a spouse or a child,
they held a welcoming ceremony, so the new member would feel at home.
Then they had a round of different songs each and everyone of them had been given one at their birth.
And the new baby was given her/his new unique song.
The Flying Sami sometimes visited them and took his invisible seat at their table, where Karolina and her family were having dinner.
Karolina was the only one who sensed this, but she never told anyone about it.
Her youth was encapsuled in her heart, a treasure never to be parted with.
Once the fire in their fireplace shot flames up and out, so Karolina became scared.
She felt the Flying Sami´s presence was extremely intense this time. She became very silent.
She recognised the feeling, that had always remained between them. It was a wonderful warm feeling. Only she knew it.
It would always be there prooving that real love is eternal.
Each time this atmosphere came on in Karolina´s home, her husband, children and grandchildren and the rest of the family became quiet.
They felt that she was engaged in something they should not interfer with.
It was usually over in a short while and everything turned normal again.
Her grandson who was twelve years old, once asked her why she became so strange sometimes when she stared into the fire,
especially when the fire became dangerously wild.
She explained:
“Then I am thinking about a twelve year old boy, my flying Sami.”
Her grandson smiled and kissed her gently on her cheek.
“That must be me,” he said.