For your inspiration, encouragement, and all-around happiness, once again I offer this video of Gjallarhorn, playing “Suvetar,” Goddess of Spring. Like some of my maternal ancestors, the members of Gjallarhorn are Finnish. This is one of the woman warrior songs I play all of the time to ground me, to connect me with the great river of womyn, as my friend Amazon Night calls it, which preceded me and of which I am part. Following are the lyrics in Finnish and in English.
Suvetar
Suvetar hyvä emäntä
nouse harja katsomahan
viitimä emännän vilja
kun ei tuskihin tulisi
Manutar maan emänätä
nostele oras okinen
kannon karvanen ylennä
kun ei tuskihin tulisi
Syöttele metisin syömin
juottele metisin juomin
mesiheinin herkuttele
vihanalla mättähällä
siull on helkiät hopiat
siull on kullat kuulusammat
nouse jo neitonen
mustana mullasta
Akka mantereen alanen
vanhin luonnon tyttäristä
pane turve tunkomahan
maa väkevä väantämähän
Akka mantereen alanen
vanhin luonnon tyttäristä
tuhansin neniä nosta
varsin vaivani näöstä
Suvetar, Goddess of Spring
Suvetar, fine matron
Arise to see the seeds
Raise the matron’s corn
So that we may be spared pain
Manutar, matron of the Earth
Lift up the shoots from the ground
New shoots from the stumps
So that we may be spared pain
Feed us with honey-hearts
Give us honey-drink
Delicious honey-grass
On a blossoming knoll
You have shining silver
You have glistening gold
Rise up, O maiden
Black from the soil
Underground crone
Most ancient of Nature’s daughters
Make the peat shoot forth
And the ground turn over
Underground crone
Most ancient of Nature’s daughters
Lift up a thousand seedlings
To reward my efforts.
Blessed Be,
Heart
Holy WOW. . . I am in love with this song, Heart, thank you for posting it!! I’ve listened to other songs on that particular CD and I now really think I need to buy it.
I’m Scandinavian myself and until recently I was never aware of music or language of any of the Scandinavian countries. It’s something I’m discovering now and I really like what I’m finding. 🙂
Posted by Chloe | April 8, 2007, 10:39 pmBeautiful – I am half-Norwegian and raised to appreciate this sort of music – and of course the Goddess 🙂
Posted by sparklematrix | April 9, 2007, 12:39 amawsome. wish you could’ve felt the kick i got when i heard this – theres an instrument in the mix that sounds so much like a didgeridoo – Indigenous australian instrument – i couldn’t believe it. so i listened to it about 10 times or so, just to make sure 😉
high strangeness!
Posted by sparx | April 9, 2007, 2:44 pmsparx – that is a didgeridoo! I think it gives them a very cool sound.
Posted by Swedish Gjallarhorn fan | April 9, 2007, 3:52 pmDo you have other songs for celebrating the seasons with? I was singing Suvetar all Winter. Would like other songs to celebrate the cycles with. Lyrics in both the Native and English translations would be nice. Thank You.
Namaste
Posted by Barbara | April 25, 2007, 12:46 pmHey, Barbara, I’ll see what I can come up with. 🙂
Heart
Posted by womensspace | April 25, 2007, 6:22 pmThank You. I don’t have much resources. I just saw Suvetar several years ago on Linktv, linktv.org, and that is the only celebratory song I know.
Namaste
Posted by Barbara | April 26, 2007, 8:17 amI love this song so much, and am especially thinking of it today, so I thought I’d bring it up to the top.
Heart
Posted by womensspace | February 20, 2008, 11:58 pmLovely on a cold cloud covered day!!
Posted by Satsuma | February 21, 2008, 12:17 amIn the Name of Suvetar, Perspicacious Persephone, Fated Crones… what if … Womankind Worldwide could decide to Unite on the big picture:
We honor existing Life by honoring our own lives as intelligent creatures; we disavow the claimed dominion of men over their surroundings and other creatures; and we respect the diversity of constructive creativity in the flow of conscious living.
Divided, we may all fall, including every mother’s son.
Example: China’s poised to build countless nuclear power plants, and US investors on the man-made, greed-based model are poised to buy up and re-sell uranium to meet the demand being led by the new class of Chinese billionaires. You’d think Chernobyl had never happened. You’d think Rachel Carson had never sounded the warning about nuclear waste as planetary despoiler.
If Womankind does not unite spiritually to stop this and the many insanities marching to the drum of business as usual, well, the planet may recover in a billion years or so, after
humanoid life has died. Co-ed environmental movements always seem to let male ego trump effective action, so it looks, as usual, to be up to us …
Can we unite, if only by spiritual ways?
Suvetar, Perspicacious Persephone, Fated Crones … be with us.
Posted by Judy Best | February 24, 2008, 5:15 amSo might it be, Judy Best. In every way I am able, I will stand with you and welcome all women and men of good will and true intentions who will stand with us for the survival of the whole world and all benificent life.
In the name of Freyja, the Norns, Suvetar, Perspicacious, Persephone, Fated Crones, Green Tara, White Tara, Sekhmet, Ishtar, Eireen, Maat, Sulis, Artemis, Brigid, Mary Magdalene, Mary, Sophia, Kali, Abundantia, Hathor, and all of the names by which the Old One is known,
Heart
Posted by womensspace | February 24, 2008, 5:40 amYour good will very much appreciated, Heart! May the Old become the New — as we remember the future.
Posted by Judy Best | February 24, 2008, 9:12 pmFan-tastic!! perfect for my day. How can I get a copy of this video???
Susan
Posted by Susan Kirsch | March 6, 2008, 2:43 pmI just found this blog today: what luck! and this brought tears to my eyes. As a bohemian Black (and Native and Scotch) musician and artist and feminist I say also– don’t forget some of the names by which the Goddess is known on the Dark Continent– Hathor, Isis, Neith (who, interestingly, gave birth to Ra and the other god/desses). You don’t hear of this much.
I agree with Judy also. As guidance said to Jano and I –“When the nations rise up, the people shall be as one.”
Yet, the music, the music, the dance, the Earth and the joy– that’s what will give us the energy to create beauty and overwhelm, in power, all this confusion, pain and ugliness.
I am glad to know of Gjallarhorn. She will be next to Mari Bono, the wonderful Sami (Native people of Norway) singer, and Queen Miriam Makeba– who is on her farewell tour, btw.
If anyone knows of other musicians who try to tap into the strength of real shamanism, and women power and sexual power– please speak up. I love singer songwriters, but some times we really need to root deeply and fire up.
Posted by Su-Sarakali Heron | June 26, 2008, 1:55 amHey, Su-Sarakali Heron! So great to “meet” you here and yes to everything you have said.
I bet you would also enjoy the Finnish group, Värttinä. 🙂
https://womensspace.wordpress.com/2007/10/28/kyla-vuotti-uutta-kuuta/
https://womensspace.wordpress.com/2007/10/28/aijo/
I moved my blog, hope to see you at the new address. 🙂
http://womensspace.org/phpBB2
Heart
Posted by womensspace | June 28, 2008, 8:19 pmThanks so much for the links. I was looking for a very good drummer (Edwina?), that a fellow new drummer told me of. She often comes to The Happening in New York state every August. So, in natural search for women’s music/womyn’s music Womensspace came up. Glad to be here, to listen learn/teach and share. I’ve got you in my daily rss folder on my toolbar. And I’ll change the bookmark. Good luck on the move, Heart.
Posted by Su-Sarakali | July 3, 2008, 11:12 pm