Sámi Folktales from the Near and Far Worlds Collected by Just Knud Qvigstad & Isak Saba and Translated by Barbara Sjoholm

From the vast region of Northern Sápmi comes Sámi Folktales from the Near and Far Worlds (University of Minnesota Press, 2026), the most extensive compilation of Sámi narratives recorded from Sámi storytellers ever published in English translation. Comprising more than 300 folktales and legends from Northern Norway, including many from the coastal Sámi and the Skolt Sámi of Eastern Finnmark, this volume illuminates an oral storytelling tradition and shares narratives told by fishers, farmers, reindeer herders, lay preachers, and teachers from the interior plateaus and valleys to the Arctic fjords.

Originally recorded in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by the Norwegian philologist Just Knud Qvigstad and the Sámi politician and folklorist Isak Saba, this collection spans centuries of storytelling in multiple genres, from migratory fairytales with kings and princesses to legends of ghosts and the Devil to fables with talking animals.

With historical context that reveals the cultural resilience of the Sámi people, Sámi Folktales from the Near and Far Worlds honors these traditional narratives, often overlooked in other folktale anthologies from the Nordic countries. Translator Barbara Sjoholm’s insightful introduction describes Qvigstad’s and Saba’s backgrounds and their work in gathering and translating these essential texts, and she introduces Sámi storytellers Johan Aikio, Efraim Pedersen, and Elen Utsi, who contributed dozens of stories.