"These Stories Will Not Lead You To Heaven": An Encounter with Two Sami Narrators

This article deals with a neglected narrative tradition that of the largely nomadic Sámi people of the northern regions of Norway, Sweden and Finland. In the past, when the stability of tradition was taken as necessary to an interesting and authentic culture, Sámi narratives were regarded only as loans from other countries through which the Sámi passed, and of no intrinsic interest or value. Though nowadays such criteria are no longer considered either necessary or valid, there still has been no extensive study of Sámi narrative culture. This article attempts to begin to remedy this situation by discussing two Sámi narrators and their stories.