In Northern Sámi, the word Ædnan means the land, the earth, and my mother. It sounds similar to the word ædno, “the river,” and ædni, “the mother.” In today’s orthography these words are written as eana(n), eatnu, and eadni. Etymologically they seem to come from the same root word, which roughly means “great.”
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Night camp at Lake Gobmejávri, near to where Sweden, Finland, and Norway meet. Early spring 1913
(ber-joná)
The voice
the cup that memory
fills
I drink your hair
and soar
–
Through the fells
that birthed us and
twine us together
your body and mine
–
Fingers search
and the heart
howls
–
Here
where I wander
–
A rangeland runs
from the forest snow
to the windswept shore
–
There my herd scrapes
and leads us
land to land
prying me from
your arms
–
Alone
among the lichen
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Excerpted from Ædnan by Linnea Axelsson. Copyright © 2024 by Linnea Axelsson. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
