((written in charcoal in Westron))
To Ristiinnä, Lumi-väki, care of the Prancing Pony, Bree.
((written in charcoal in Lumi-kieli, in two different hands))
How dare you be alive all this time and not tell us? Your father was still sobbing when he did not think I could hear him, just last moon! He barely managed to sing anything cheerful for Juhannus. The chieftain even remarked on it and asked if anyone else wanted to take over his duties for the festival, but he insisted. And he was crying while he was singing, not just the song about Niekija but even the songs about the reindeer of the dawn!
And all along you are traipsing about some etelä-mâ? Why are you not coming back here? You can bring this girl with you. If she is made of sturdy enough stuff to be your love then she can certainly be of sturdy enough stuff to put up with a little cold! Then your father and brother and I can see if she is good enough for you. Yes, your brother came back from the hunting camp last year after he received word about your death, to help your father and I, and has not left yet. Maybe now he will, so you had best come back! The goahti is not warm enough in winter with just your father and me.
Are the etelä-väki better at being friendly to you even when you are too much? Maybe you have learned how to do better at being less at first and gradually build up to knowing you more. Then you can come back here and make friends amongst your own kind!
Pienilaulu, do not take your mother's words too much to heart. I was watching her writing and took the charcoal away because I think you need to hear what she does not write as much as what she does. She speaks sternly, and it is not that she is not angry, because she is angry, but she puffs up the anger like a bear that roars not to threaten but to bluff. She is very glad to hear that you are well. We would love to see you, but I know that your story may not be written on the pages of our snows and shores, and no pleading from me or your mother should be as any more than a slight breeze that does not bend the course of the sea-monster.
She and I are also both glad to hear that you have found love, and we also agree that we would wish to meet this Marja, though more than your mother, I am convinced you are smart and wise enough not to give your heart to someone who would not care for it. And should it prove that this time you have thrown your spear and did not strike true, this will only make your arm and your heart stronger and your aim more keen the next time. Also I am glad to hear that you prosper. I hope that you still remember to sing songs and tell tales, even if the etelä-väki cannot appreciate Lumi-väki songs and stories. They nourish your own spirit and those in the land and sky around you, and in time even the clumsy men of the south, who have ears only for their own voices, may come to find beauty in them.
Typical grand words from your father. It is easy for him to dismiss practical concerns when someone else takes care of them for him! On that note, thank you for the replacement for the cooking pot. You are right, it was a great hardship to be without it. The loss of a good sled dog was also the source of a lot of grousing, I can tell you! But the rest of your expedition did reach Pynti-peldot, barely. The storm broke not long after they lost you, so they were able to get food, though it was cheerless, eaten cold and in worry about what had come of you. They saw kalpa-kita footprints and thought you must have been taken by one during the storm, and thought that Valkoista must have tried to save you. No one imagined you and the dog might have been carried to far lands! You have given her a new name? Perhaps it has a suiting meaning, if she has helped keep you alive! You had best take good care of her.
We have traded for a jar of hilla jam which we are sending along with this letter. We remember how much you longed for hillat every spring. I imagine that the etelä-mât are full of berries sweeter and more luscious, but we hope that a taste of home will be as a bird's song in midsummer. Juhannus this year was warm and the hillat plenty; and while what your mother writes is true, that I was still sad at the memory of your passing, the spirits were otherwise kind to the Lumi-väki, after so hard a winter. We have feasted well on fish, and the coats of the reindeer shine like starlight, and the healers have so many herbs to dry they have had to build racks outside for what will not fit inside the goahti.
It warms my heart to think that even in so distant a land, you also were celebrating Juhannus. Perhaps at the same moment I was singing, so too were you! Let us pact that for Keskitalvi, we both play Huolehdit Huomenna just as the sun sets, and imagine that we are playing together! And I will persuade with hilla-sweet words your mother to dance with me under the sky-ribbons after, and you can fill your heart with the memory of dancing under them again the same night, warm memories flowing south on the winds under the hanhi wings. Let that be enough to sustain you until you can come visit us and see them once more and dance with your Marja under them.
Your father is a fool. I am far too old for dancing now, especially not in the cold of Keskitalvi! You will just have to come home again and then you can dance with him. We expect to see you soon, and until we can, to hear from you by letter. Do not forget you have a family and a home.
