“The Sunbeam and the Goblin”

This time around I will keep it short and simple: will only briefly introduce to all the non-Finns out there this one, particularly classic song, one that has been effectively instilled into the Finnish cultural inheritance, into the minds of all of us who were born sometime over the latter half of the twentieth century in Finland. The song is “Päivänsäde ja menninkäinen,” or, as it seems best translated: “The Sunbeam and the Goblin.”

The lyrics were written sometime in the 1940s (the exact date is not known to me) by the famous and highly productive popular song- and screenwriter Reino “Repe” Helismaa (1913–1965), best known in his time for his comic, even slapstick movie scripts and couplet songs, but who was also the genius behind a couple such timeless masterpieces as Päivänsäde ja menninkäinen.

The song has been adapted literally dozens of times by different artists, but we all know it best from the versions sang by Tapio Rautavaara (1915–1979). According to the “Päivänsäde ja menninkäinen” page in the Finnish Wikipedia, Rautavaara had first heard it performed (live, I suppose) on radio, by the actress Tuire Orri, and he then asked Helismaa’s permission to record it himself. The first rendition by Rautavaara was published as a gramophone record in 1949. The Wikipedia page also told me that Rautavaara made a re-recording of the song in 1965 (in memoriam of Helismaa, perhaps, for the latter died in January that same year), and that it was that later version, where the singer is accompanied by electric guitars and an electric bass, that has become the more renowned or classic one.

The surface story of Päivänsäde ja menninkäinen tells about this fleeting, transient encounter between, you guessed it, a goblin and a sunbeam – the last ray of daylight before the darkness falls. It is rather fairytale-like and could be seen simply as a children’s song. And almost all Finns of my generation have probably first heard it as children and been captivated by the story as it stands. (I am pretty sure the song was also in the elementary-school song book that we used in the school music class in the 1980s.) But the underlying metaphor is not too subtle: this is also a story of unrequited or impossible love. (The story, as you will soon see, leaves it unclear whether the sunbeam would have felt the same way as the goblin did, had it not been absolutely impossible for her to stay.)

At the end of this post you will find an English translation of the lyrics I prepared for you. But perhaps you would like to hear the song first; here is a link to a recording on YouTube that I found. No actual video there, just a picture of the singer, Mr. Rautavaara – a handsome devil. In the picture he is wearing a Suomi sweater often worn by athletes (Suomi means Finland, in case you didn’t know). And it is not just for show: Rautavaara was also a highly successful athlete, who among other things won Olympic gold in the javelin throw in the 1948 London Olympics! Indeed, he was a bit of a multitalent, did several movie roles too, but the most lasting impression to the Finnish culture that he did he surely did as a singer. (Or as a singer-songwriter ... I should mention that he also wrote a few songs himself.) And what a singing voice he had, wow! I read it online somewhere that the experts call that bass-baritone. (In an autobiographical work he tells us that, as a young man he was actually a tenor, but that the voice got deeper with age (Numminen, Juha [1978] 1986, Tapio Rautavaara: Päivääkään en vaihtaisi pois (Helsinki: Tammi), p. 275).)

Did you listen to the video already? Do listen to it, please, especially if you are a non-Finn and have never heard the song! It only takes a couple minutes of your life.

Okay, done? Now a quick note on the English translation I made for you. By no means is this an exact word-by-word translation, and I did not get all the rhymes into it either. The first priority was to get all the concepts and sentences translated as well as possible, and roughly in same order as they appear in the Finnish song. However, the concepts and the sentences may have been switched from one line to another, when that seemed best for some reason. Most prominently, right at the begining, in the Finnish lyrics the sunbeam (päivänsäde) is not mentioned until in the third line, whereas it is told already in the second line that she was left behind of her sisters; but I just found that these lines worked better in the reversed order in English. The reason for that is related to the second goal that I had: I tried to make the English translation singable, too. By this I mean simply that I tried to get the same number of syllables into each line of English as there are in the Finnish text. That was a bit of challenge; consider, for example, the fact that the often repeated Finnish word for “goblin,” which is two syllables, is “menninkäinen” – a four syllable word (men-nin-käi-nen).

In any case, here goes, hope you like this:

“The Sunbeam and the Goblin” (Päivänsäde ja menninkäinen)

Finnish lyrics by Reino Helismaa, 1949 ; copyright (C) Reino Helismaa
(English translation by T. Piiroinen, 2017)

It happened as the Sun set down

That a sunbeam, for a moment
Of its sisters left behind.
The dusk it crept in already
And the beam, with her golden wings
Was about to fly from underfoot
When she detected this littlest goblin approaching
That had only just emerged from its den.
For goblins cannot roam the earth until after sunset
They do not live in daylight, no.


Peeping there at one another
The goblin, in chest felt rather
Strange kind of flame and ardor
Said he: “Burn my eyes, this you do
But never in my life have I
Seen anything as wonderful!
It matters not that your shine will blind my eyes forever –
In darkness I trudge with ease wherever.
Stay with me, please, and I’ll show you the way to the home den –
Keep you as my precious own then!”


The beam answered: “Gremlin, darling,
Darkness would be my undoing
And I have no wish for death.
Away I must now forthwith fly
If I’m not back in daylight soon
Then I will live not a moment more.”
Thus left the sunbeam that beautiful
But to this day still
As the goblin plods alone in the dark
He wonders why one of us here a child of light should be
And the other, he loves the night.