"Thanks to thee, my dearest father,
For my former life so joyful,
For the food of days passed over,
For the best of all the dainties
Thanks to thee, my dearest mother,
For my childhood's cradle-rocking,
For thy tending of the infant,
Whom thou at thy breast hast nurtured.340
"Also thanks, my dearest brother,
Dearest brother, dearest sister,
Happiness to all the household,
All companions of my childhood,
Those with whom I lived and sported,
And who grew from childhood with me.
"May thou not, O noble father,
May thou not, O tender mother,
Or my other noble kindred,
Or my race, the most illustrious,350
Ever fall into affliction,
Or oppressed by grievous trouble,
That I thus desert my country,
That I wander to a distance.
Shines the sun of the Creator,
Beams the moon of the Creator,
And the stars of heaven are shining,
And the Great Bear is extended
Ever in the distant heavens,
Evermore in other regions,360
Not alone at father's homestead,
In the home where passed my childhood.
"Truly must I now be parted
From the home I loved so dearly,
From my father's halls be carried,
From among my mother's cellars,
Leave the swamps and fields behind me,
Leave behind me all the meadows,
Leave behind the sparkling waters,
Leave the sandy shore behind me,370
Where the village women bathe them,
And the shepherd-boys are splashing.
"I must leave the quaking marshes,
And the wide-extending lowlands,
And the peaceful alder-thickets,
And the tramping through the heather,
And the strolling past the hedgerows,
And the loitering on the pathways,
And my dancing through the farmyards,
And my standing by the house-walls,380
And the cleaning of the planking,
And the scrubbing of the flooring,
Leave the fields where leap the reindeer,
And the woods where run the lynxes,
And the wastes where flock the wild geese,
And the woods where birds are perching.
"Now indeed I am departing,
All the rest I leave behind me;
In the folds of nights of autumn,
On the thin ice of the springtime,390
On the ice I leave no traces,
On the slippery ice no footprints,
From my dress no thread upon it,
Nor in snow my skirt's impression.
"If I should return in future,
And again my home revisit,
Mother hears my voice no longer,
Nor my father heeds my weeping,
Though I'm sobbing in the corner,
Or above their heads am speaking,400
For the young grass springs already
And the juniper is sprouting
O'er the sweet face of my mother,
And the cheeks of her who bore me.
"If I should return in future
To the wide-extended homestead,
I shall be no more remembered,
Only by two little objects.
At the lowest hedge are hedge-bands,
At the furthest field are hedge-stakes,410
These I fixed when I was little,
As a girl with twigs I bound them.
"But my mother's barren heifer,
Unto which I carried water,
And which as a calf I tended,
She will low to greet my coming,
From the dunghill of the farmyard,
Or the wintry fields around it;
She will know me, when returning,
As the daughter of the household.420
"Then my father's splendid stallion,
Which I fed when I was little,
Which as girl I often foddered,
He will neigh to greet my coming,
From the dunghill of the farmyard,
Or the wintry fields around it;
He will know me, when returning,
As the daughter of the household.