One of the most ancient of the Lapp poems is called “The Child of the Sun,” and the substance of it is briefly as follows:—The Child of the Sun goes on a voyage. After several years he reaches the dreadful land of the giant. The giant asks if he has come “to the table of death to nourish his (the giant’s) father, to give him (the giant) a mouthful to suck, to restore his tired brother, and set his brother-in-law on his legs again.” The Child of the Sun says that, on the contrary, he has come to marry the giant’s daughter. I ought to have said that this lady did the sewing and washing for the giant, who was blind, and she must soon have washed his shirts into holes, for she thumped and swabbed exactly as they wash to this day all over the North of Italy. On the Child of the Sun’s frank declaration, the daughter of the giant said it was a case of love at first sight, that she couldn’t wait, that they must be married that instant, and that she would speak to her papa about it, as well as her mamma, who was lying rolled up in sand and birch-bark (? dead or inebriated). “The giant, who meant to eat the hero, said: ‘Come, Child of the Sun, and see whose fingers are the most flexible.’” His daughter gives the hero an iron anchor to proffer the giant, who, on feeling it, declares him to be too tough for anything. On the advice of the daughter, the hero then gives the giant a barrel of fish-oil (as wedding food), one of tar as wedding drink, and a horse as a tit-bit. The giant is thus made maudlin drunk, and in this condition unites the happy pair, and loads their ship with bits of gold and silver; besides this the bride takes “three pine-wood chests, blue, red, and white, respectively, containing war and peace, blood and fire, illness and death, and three knots containing breeze, wind, and storm, respectively.” When the hero and his bride have departed, her brothers, who were out walrus-hunting, return, and finding only “the smell and sweat” of her seducer, are riled. They give chase: the first knot is untied, a wind rises, and the lovers outstrip them; again close pressed, the lovers untie the second knot, and a powerful west wind blows; close pressed again, they untie the third knot, a tremendous north wind blows; the bride’s eyes flash fire as the light of dawn spreads, her two brothers are turned into two rocks, even their copper-coloured skiff becomes a rock visible with the other two to this day at Vake. After this she became as small as other human beings, and gave birth to the sons of Kalla—i.e., a race of royal heroes.
This poem belongs to the three-months winter fairy story of the three volume novel type: examples—Long, Broad, and Sharp-Eyes and the Three Citrons. In the speech of the giant: “Hast thou come to the table of death?” etc., we have the Lapp form of Jezibaba’s stereotyped phrase: “Fly! fly! here there is not one little bird, much less one little human being; and when my son comes home he will eat you.” In the orally collected Venetian variants it occurs with unfailing regularity in the formula: Tanti annie tanti anni e nessuno ha picchiato à questa porta, in King Raven, the King of the Beans, and many others. In the incident of the anchor it is
