Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



These parallels do not suggest the derivation 

 of one god from the otherj nor of one legend 

 from the other, but a provenance from some 

 early universal stock. Vaino and Orpheus 

 visit the under-world, Vaino to obtain three 

 words of magic in the belly of Antero Vipunen 

 wherewith to build a boat — the Finnish Argo 

 perhaps. Orpheus made his ever-memorable 

 trip to hell to regain his wife, as Vaino and 

 Ilmarinen go to the shadow land to obtain 

 spouses. Like Vaino, Orpheus was soothsayer, 

 enchanter, instructor of his people, inventor of 

 the lyre ; and his name seems to come from the 

 notion of the father-and-motherless one, the 

 " orphan," in which respect he resembled not 

 Vaino alone, but Arthur, but Kullervo and 

 Kalevipoeg, Merlin the old Briton, Fion and 

 Cuchullaind of the Irish. 



Vaino's intended wife went off with Ilma- 

 rinen ; the wife of Orpheus was pursued by 

 Aristaeus, another son of Apollo, until she 

 found refuge in Hades, under which form of 

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