Å bån og veslegut (I Am But a Little Child)

This is a translation into English verse of an old poem by Jørund Telnes, an author and poet from Telemark. It is written neither in Nynorsk or Bokmål (then Landsmaal and Riksmaal), but in a dialect from Telemark. Below is what is originally given for the lyrics, and then a modified version to better reflect the pronunciation of singers Odd Nordstoga and Ingebjørg Bratland (themselves both from Telemark) in their recorded version, set to music, from 2013. A contemporary Nynorsk explanation of the dialectal words in this poem can be found here.

Though the original is mostly written as pronounced in dialectal forms, the regular A-A-B-B-A rhyming structure in each verse may help to give some further insight into pronunciation. In verse 4, the ‘A’ rhyming scheme is fjør, ber, der. Ber and der do rhyme, if they are both pronounced with a long é, /e:/. This pronunciation is common in many dialects for der, contrary to the Urban East Norwegian pronunciation of /æ:/. Fjør, however, clearly does not rhyme, having the vowel /ø:/. Given the existence of Swedish fjäder and Danish fjeder/fjer, it is possible that Telnes intended for it to be pronounced fjér, and indeed pronounced it this way himself, to rhyme with ber and der, but instead wrote it as fjør.

Likewise, verse 3’s ‘A’ rhyming scheme is renn, kvenn, fin, the first two being pronounced with short è, /ɛ/, and the last being pronounced with a long, open í, /i:/. There are two real possibilities I see here, without knowing for certain how Telnes would have pronounced them to rhyme. First, it might be that the vowel in fin has lowered, as did happen with a lot of Old Norse words evolving into Norwegian dialects, for instance boge “bow” from Old Norse bogi. So, then, fin, might have been pronounced fèn, with /ɛ:/ or /ɛ/, so that they all rhyme.

Conversely, it might be that renn and kvenn have raised to something like /ɪ/, and fin lowered from /i:/ to /ɪ:/, so that they all rhyme. This might be due to a collapse of historical short but mid-close /e/ with short but close-mid /ɪ/. This is supported by the fact that renn probably comes from Old Norse rinn, with /i/ or /ɪ/, which later became renn. So, then, fin is fìn, renn is rìnn, and kvenn is kvìnn, all with /ɪ/ or /ɪ:/, so that the rhyming scheme is restored. I considered the possibility that renn and kvenn might have raised further to /i:/, without fin lowering, but I think that this is unlikely given the source of kvenn, Old Norse kvern, which has a clear short /ɛ/. Raising of /ɛ/ to /i:/ is, as far as I’m aware, incredibly unlikely in the development of Old Norse into contemporaneous Norwegian dialects.

Å bån og veslegut (original)

Å bån og veslegut heiter eg

og pil og boge hev eg med meg.

Kom reven raue,

no skò du daue,

no skyt eg deg.

Å rev du slett alli tenkje må

at du meg lombi skò stela frå.

Kjem du i skogen,

eg skyt med bogen,

skò du få sjå.

Burtafor stoga ein bekk der renn,

der set eg upp både sag og kvenn,

og bygger båtar,

båd’ skip og flåtar,

på sjøen fin.

Te mast eg set upp ei hanafjør

og så te Gull-landet då det ber.

Sjå skipet reilar,

ja, sjå det seilar,

snart er me der.

Så kjem eg att med ei tunne gull,

med lomb og sauir og silkeull,

og fuglar kjøne,

båd’ blå og grøne,

som syng i krull.

I Am But a Little Child

Oh, I am but a little child,

a bow and arrow have I, in the wild.

Red fox beware,

I’ll shoot you there,

I know your wiles.

You simply never must try, O fox,

to steal a lamb from all my flocks.

Amongst the timber,

you’ll hear a whimper,

you’ll get a shock.

And behind the stead, there runs a rill,

where I’ll build both saw and mill,

and build watercraft,

both ships and rafts,

by the sea so still.

I put some feathers on the mast, thus

so that skywards it shall ferry us.

Watch how she sways,

how she sails away,

caught on a gust.

And I’ll return with a barrel of gold,

and lambs and ewes and silk I’ll hold,

and some birds so keen,

both blue and green,

that sing of old.

(Yes, birds so keen,

both blue and green,

that sing of old.)