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Rentukkaojan Aatu

Performed by Pentti Kumpulainen

A Finnish song I remember with warmth from my childhood.

Rough translation:
Rentukkaojan Aatu (Aatu of the Kingcup Ditch)

Slide 1: Sauna
Was not born into wealthy spacious house,
in the hands of many nurses or into sparkling light.
But in steam of the sauna and the break of the dusk, I was cleaned up from the bench to the cradle.

Slide 2: Yellow flower Kingcup (Caltha palustris), Rentukka in Finnish.
For my luck nobody brought no roses, raised a toast to lips, still less drank it.
But the Kingcups paved the ditch in the yard, greeted the boy welcome .

Slide 3: Red Cranberries
Not much worry was carried about my name.
Once my mother after coming from cranberry marsh,
said let your name be if no other than Aatu, poor received trouble as old.

Slide 4: Light thru a forest
Then slowly I grew to be a vigorous boy. Grabbed eagerly to my shred of life. Roamed thru many jobs earning my bread. Until came up the hardest of journeys.

Slide 5: Soldiers in winter camo
Woed no one me leaving. The old mother died in her cabin at winter.
As I crawled to our bunker from guard duty, the only comfort was the warm stove.

Slide 6: A man with a cow
After finally returned back to life, soon met widowed Mari.
And in fall when I turned the field with plow, the boy was crying in the cradle.

Slide 7: Houses painted red
I don't grieve my part in life, for how many the faith ended it there.
I often see in my memories ragged young boy.
And the ditch made yellow by Kingcups.