SAMI FOLKLORE – “IN THE HOUSE OF ULDA”
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SAMI FOLKLORE – “IN THE HOUSE OF ULDA”
In house of the Ulda – (the underground peope/ the hidden people/one of the sáivu-people)
Read about the realm of Saivu here.
The underground people are richer than people living on the earth. They have nice houses, nice clothes and lots of other riches. All the gold and the silver that is under the earth, belongs to them. And in addition, all the treasures that people have hidden in the earth through the ages are also in their custody, the so-called árahávddit – tomb treasures. And they are put in the earth together with such words that no one else then the close family can take it back. If others take them, they become so frightened that they almost go mad.
And so when the son or daughter does not find the treasure of their father or grandmother, many treasures are left in the care of the people of the underground. And the underground people do not hand over the treasures to others then the right descendants.
They nurture nicely everything that is under the ground and they care nicely for the bear who sleeps in his winter den. The underground people gives it food, even though one cannot see that it has food in the stomach.
The following incident happened at the end of 1800. There was a young guy from Heahttá who had gone to pick cloudberries. It was autumn summer and it started to rain while he was there on the mountain. The boy headed towards home and crossed a marsh that had a little ridge of rocks on the edge. Then he saw smoke and fire on the hill. Since he was wet and cold he thought he was going to warm himself and at the same time see who was there and had a bonfire.
The boy went there and suddenly the earth opened and the boy noticed that he was now underground. There was a very big house and at the table there were unknown people, an old woman, two boys and a small child. They were all small and very pretty, and none of them seemed to be familiar to him. Then a door opened, and a pretty girl with very long hair came over to the boy, and she invited the boy for cloud berries to eat.
She showed him a white plate that had gold edges. The dish shone so clearly that the boy was almost blinded. The boy refused and said he had picked the bag full of cloud berries. That he would eat when returning home. He remembered what his mother and father used to say. That if you meet with the people of the underground you should not eat anything, not taste one bit. If you eat then you have to stay with them, you never get away from there. And finally, you yourself become an Ulda.
And, the mother used to say, the Ulda´s like young Sami boys and girls very much that can stay with them and give them Ulda children. As he sat there, the boy remembered how the elderly used to scare with stories about the Ulda people. He thought about how to get away from them.
He looked around to see what was in the room. And he saw quite strange things. The house had a flat floor and the walls had holes, where one could see and hear the sea just outside the wall. The boy thought it was very strange. He knew that here in Heahttá, where he lived, they were very far to the sea.
On the table he saw a round case, like a big bowl, emitting quite clear sounds. As if someone was inside talking. The boy thought that there must be a very small person who can fit in there. He started to get scared and thought that the Ulda´s might put him inside.
He noticed that they behave the same way as his own people there at home. Some eat while others lie to rest. Then the Ulda girl offers him bread. The boy doesn’t accept that either. Then the Ulda boy comes to him. He grabs his shoulder and guides him towards the door.
The boy did not understand what happened then, but suddenly he was out again, in the marsh. In a hurry, he got away from there and went home, without turning around to look at the hill. When he got home, he carefully told what he had seen and experienced, but he noticed that there were parts of the incident that he could not remember.
It was like empty parts in his strange journey.
The years passed and the boy grew up and lived for quite a long time. As an elder, when people began to think he was old and forgetful, he began to remember the old event. So suddenly one day he came to it. All the strange things he had seen in the land of the Ulda´s 60 years ago were such things that today’s people used. In the Ulda´s houses there had been machines and inventions of todays society. Radios, TVs, cell phones, baking machines, photo equipment and other things that people in the old days did not have any idea about.
This story is told by Beaska- Niillas, and translated from here (includes audio): https://www.nrk.no/sapmi/78-i-huldrenes-hus-1.12128359.
So who exactly are these beings from the underground? People all over the world are speaking about people from under the ground. Alot of tribes in south amerca speaks about hollow earth and caves that leads deep deep underground. They are said to be giants, but in the sami stories it sometimes sounds like they are small.
I also talked to people growing up in reindeer families that said they needed to use some kind of metall around their neck when they went outside and played incase they meet underground people.
It doesnt exaclty sound like its nice people. Is this what the bible describe as the fallen angels? As this story tells, they allready are infront of the ‘surfacers’ when it comes to technology. And exactly who are leeching out technology in their own pace these days? It’s for sure not Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer
When it comes to the stories about Huldra, Nøkken and other creatures, it would not surprise me if there were some hold in the stories, and that it has been ridiculated enough to only be a fairytale, but when it in fact were real threats once upon a time. Maybe they walk with us today enslaving people with their sound and rythm to make people have mantras on their mind with spells we have forgotten thay we should stay away from a long time ago, and great scare tactics to never evolve to our fullest potential. Is trolls just a myth?
A mountain in finland is said to be an old troll that samis fought and made to stone.
Seen the lord of the rings and the hobbit? Who made the trolls to stone? ‘Gand’alf.
Tolkiens Gandalf is actually based on a finnish wizard that travelled around the scandinavia with his knowledge. May wonder what kind of mysteryman that might have been with such a ‘sami-kind-of-name’ 😉
Hello! thank you for your comment. You have many questions that are difficult to answer in a comments reply, and some of them are also very deep, and requires knowledge that we might not possess. We appricitae your questions, as we also would like to know for sure about these matters. But unfortunately it could be impossible to know for any of this for sure…But we will try to seek this knowledge. But it could be that it boils down to what you yourself make of it.
Who excatly are these beings it is very diffucult to say. Few people know, and if they do, maybe they will not be belived. What I do believe is that since we humans excist, also other entities could excist. I am open to it. All ancient stories all over the world tell of them. The bible only told stories from one specific place of the world, so I am not sure it necasserily holds the whole story of the earth in it. Stories about fairies and undergound creatures excist in every part of the world, so for me it sounds strange that people all over the world, independent of each other would be wrong. But these stories could also come to life because of the ancient worldview. The belief that everything has a soul. But to explain properly what I mean I have to write it out carefully in a longer blog post when I get to that… 🙂
There are many different kind of nature beings. There are both little people and big people, fairies and uldra and stállo and so on. In Sami mythology they all excist.
Your question about if these creatures are good or bad, I can answer like this: Are all humans good? Are all humans bad? No, they are individuals. Some are “good” and some are “bad”… To judge all of humanity of being bad, because you have met a bad (hu)man, is not fair, and neither is it to judge all nature beings of being bad.. There are said to be so many creatues who are helping humans everyday. So just like with humans – we have to get to know them indivudually and be aware, so we don’t get fooled. And be grateful of and keep the ones that help us close.
About the technology of the huldra/gufihtar, I was wondering about the same thing – why do they have all that? I just know they live a better life then us. But I don’t know enough about them to answer this question yet. But I hopefully will know more in the future.
Warm regards Elin