Forests, meadows
Who is cutting trees in the forest?
Refr. Birdcherry's trunk, birdcherry's top,
birdcherry's beautiful blossoms.
Mihkel cuts down trees in the forest.
Who's there for the food?
Manni brings food.
"Eat, eat, dear Mihkel."
"I cannot eat, dear Manni."
"Why is that, dear Mihkel?"
"Broken hand, dear Manni."
"I'll wrap it up, dear Mihkel."
Kes seal metsas puid raiub?
Refr.Toome tüvi, toome latv,
toomel ilusad õied.
Mihkel metsas puid raiub.
Kes seal süüa järgi viib?
Manni süüa järgi viib.
"Söö, söö, Mihklikene"
"Miks nii, Mihklikene?"
"Käsi katki, Mannikõnõ."
"Mähin kinni, Mihklikene."
All I know about Ridassaare is this – my father was 74 years old when he died, and it's been 40 years since he died, – and he told me that Ridassaar and Kääbassaar and all the islands here in this swamp are the result of fire – that here used to be a big forest everywhere. This is proved by the fact that at the shore of the Peipsi lake here, when the wave washes down the shore, there comes out peaty earth, and large burnt stumps of pine. And even I once got a big oak from the meadow, from which I got two steres of wood with burnt trunk.
Well, that is to say, there was a great forest here, and the islands in the swamp are the sandhills that remained there, the kind that hasn't burned. So there's Palksaar – 'Trunk Island', Mikitsaar, Ridassaar – 'Row Island', Vaheliksaar – 'Between Island', Kääbassaar – 'Mound Island'. There were two farms in Kääbassaar in its time and now there is still a house there.
It was said about Ridassaare, that once in the old days, during the war, so many people were killed, that there was a row of corpses, and so the place became Row Island, my father said.
Kääbassaar was also a result of the war, because there were mounds or burial grounds, so that afterwards it was named Mound Island.
Well, I do not know anything else. I once asked, I wrote to the Naturalists' Society, whether it is in our old books that there was a large forest here. In Pedaspää – 'Pine Head' village there probably was a large forest. In the far past Estonians might have come here from the present Russian area. And they started to build their dwellings here, and when they tied a cow to a tree, they started to make a field, and so soon a village emerged, which was named Pedaspää.