Tale
Võrumaa jutud
Not translated into English
Juhan Jaik · 1924
Synopsis
Tales from the Võrumaa in which everyday life on the farms sits alongside a fantastic world drawn from folklore. The peasant Tabi finds a half-dead old devil in the forest, nurses him with milk and potatoes, and his children play with him as Midsummer approaches; old Peedsu, solitary and filthy, can do nothing but fish in the Mustjõgi, where the river beast prowls. Terror readily turns to humour there, and one can hardly tell whether these pages are meant for children or for adults.
Context
The first volume appeared in Tallinn in 1924, illustrated by Eduard Viiralt, and the second in 1933; they were brought together in 2008. Jaik uses Võro less here than in his poems, but everything is bound up with his native region and its folklore, in which the folklorist Oskar Loorits saw him embodied. Long read mainly as a writer for young people, he was rediscovered at the turn of the twenty-first century, and he is now regarded as a classic of Võrumaa and one of the sources of Estonian fantasy.
Who it is for
Short stories in Estonian; only two have appeared in French, in a bulletin, in 2000. It is worth knowing that Võro, a dialect of the south-east of the country, surfaces here and there.
Prizes and reception
His most remarkable work, without which the literary culture of Võrumaa cannot be conceived.