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KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



207 





"■TO, \. ^ * ^ ^^^ ^* — ' Jj ^^' 



4ti,j^ V^ "">?: iLLUSTRATED \> 



>^ MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE 

 PlainlyWorded-ExactlyDescribed 



LOS DON- FRIDAY, MARCH U, 1885. 



OuSTKNTB o» No. 176. 



The KmleviU. III. B>- Ea«ir,l 



Clodd 207 



How to Tri.ect an Angle. \^Hi'tf.) 



B}- A. Jukes Alren 2"8 



Life in Other Worlds. By K. A. 



Proolor 210 



Thought and Lanpiige, T. By 



Ada S. Ballin 211 



The Workshop at Home. {Itlus ) 



Bt a Wcrkiuj Slau 213 



Rambles with a Himm<*r. By W. 



Jrrome Harrison 213 



Rain. Br K. A. Proctor 2U 



Modem Domestie Economy. (IIU ) 215 



paGX 

 M-teoiic Stones. By J.imes R. 



tir^gory 216 



The Inter-Oceanic Ship Railnav. 



[niu$.) ;.. 217 



Editorial Gossip 219 



Revions 220 



Fac- of ihe Sky. By F.R.A.3 221 



The Fuilh.healinp Cases 221 



Mifce lauea 222 



Correspotidonce : Hylo- Idealism — 



Ne-.T Chromatics — Mean-time Sun- 



dials-Lunar Clow, ic 2S3 



Our Inventors* Column 227 



Onr Chess Colmnn 223 



THE KALEVALA. 



By Edward Clodd. 

 III. 



IN the opetiiag Rune, the sioger tells ho^ an impulse 

 beyond control drives him faster than tongue can 

 speak or teeth can open to chant the legends of olden days, 

 learned on his father's knee and at his mother's side as she 

 turned the spindle. 



Meeting a brother-bard in the dreary Northland, the 

 land of Pohja, he iuvites him, after the custom already 

 described, to friendly combat of song, to clasp hand in 

 hand, and join finger to finger, as they recite the runes 

 whose inspirations are the noble deeds of heroes a little less 

 than gods and more than men, and the all-surrounding 

 earth and sky. These beauteous songs are taken, the 

 Runaio tells us — 



From the belt of aerotl Wiiino, 

 From the foi^c of Iliiiarmcn, 

 From the sworJ of LomminkaineD, 

 From the bow of Joiikahaitien, 

 From the borders of Pohjola, 

 From the heaths of Kalevala ; 



nor from these alone. Thf^y are no hothou.se products, but 

 are watered by the stream and freshened by the breeze. 

 They were "gathered in the depths of the copses, blown 

 from the branches of the forest, culled among the plumes 

 of the pine trees. These lays cime to me as I followed 

 the flocks in a land of meadows honey-sweet, and of hills 

 crowned with golden flowers. The cold has spoken to me, 

 and the rain has told me her runes ; the winds of heaven, 

 the waves of the sea, have spoken and sung to me ; the 

 wild birds have taught me, the music of many waters has 

 been my master." Nor will the Runaio disdain more 

 prosaic stimulus. The song shall flow the faster for the 

 strengthening beer he quali'^, but, failing that, he will 

 make music the long night through " with water only." 



After this proem the story bfgin.». 



Luonotar, i.e., " Daughter of Nature," Virgin of the 

 Breezes, weary of htr long maidenhood, descended from 

 her dwelling in the " far-extending desert " of the vacant 

 air to the ocean, where the tempest recked her and the 



waves played round her for seveu hundred years. All 

 this time she bore within her the storm-begotten hero 

 Wiiiiiurniruen. Unable to give l)irth to him, she ciied to 

 Ukko, the Heaven-Father, for relii f from her burden and 

 her travail, but her prayer was not granted. Seeing a 

 wild duck Hying in search of a spot whereon to build its 

 nest, she raised her knee above the water, when thebiid, 

 thinking it was a grass-covert d hillock, alighted and laid 

 in it seven eggs, six of which were of gold and the seventh 

 of iron. As the duck brooded, the mystic Daughter felt 

 hot pain in her knee, which caused her to start, when the 

 ergs rolled into the sea and were broken. 



8iink in sslime they ilo not peri.sh, 

 But are heaufoouisly transfiirurcd, 

 Fair the forms of all tlio fraf,'monts. 



Some hiatus occurs here, for nothing is .said as to the 

 fate of more than one egg, which, divided, became the 

 heaven and the earth : 



Of the yolk was made the bct.nteoii3 



Snn that ligliteth up the daj'-tinie ; 



Of the white was made the pale clear 



Moon that shineth in tiie darkne.^s ; 



Of tlie bright fjjecks formed the stars were, 



-■Vndof black specks clouds uplifted. 



The great mundane, self-developing egg occurs a-nong 

 the Hindu and other Eastern ]ieop'es, but is not found 

 among the creation myths of Nurthern Europe, and its 

 presence in the Knlevala points to it as a primitive relic of 

 myth common to the Asiatic ancestors of the Mongol- 

 Tartaiic races — perhaps commcn to yet more remote 

 ancestors, from whom Aryan and non-Aryan are alike 

 descendeel. In the Indian cosmogony, Brahma, the 

 self-existent, " desiring to produce various creatures from 

 his own body, first, with a thought, created the waters, and 

 deposited in them a seed. This seed became a golden egg,. 

 resplendent as the stm, in which he himself was born as 

 Brahma, tlrs progenitor of all worlds.'* In Longfellow's 

 "Hiawa'ha," he describes the representation of Gitche 

 Manito, the Mighty, in picture-writing, as follows ; — 



He, the Master of Life, was painted 

 As an egg, with points projecting 

 To the four winds of the heavens. 

 Everywhere is the Great Spirit, 

 Was tlie meaning of this symbol t 



For ten years Luonotar floated on the " slum'ner-silent 

 billows," and the " misty ccean-barriers," before she began 

 to press the ocean billows and uplift the everlasting hills. 

 Then at the stretching forth of her harid the land arose, at 

 the planting of her foot the sea deepened, at her word the 

 ocean bights, the crags, the hidden reeft", the islands and the 

 plains appeared. 



In other, and perhaps older, versions of the epic the 

 creation is described to Wiiinuraijinen, who, like Vanne- 

 mutnen in the Kalevipijeg, old from hi.s birth, is described 

 throughout the Kalevala as Vaka Vanhn. Vanha is 

 " old," but Vakd has several meanings, of which, in view 

 of the characteristics of the hero, " steadfast " is perhaps 

 the best. In the Swedish translation he is sometimes 

 called " wise and aged " ; in tie German ' old and truth- 

 ful " (v-ahrhafl), which is wrong ; whilst the French 

 version chooses the more unsuitable and unrhythmic word, 

 " imperturbable." 



For thirty years more Wainiimoinen remained pent up 

 within Luonotar, fretting at the fate which hid him from 

 the sunlight, and devising way of escape. 



He besought the sun, moon, and the Great Bear in 

 turn to deliver him, but in vain ; whereupon he freed 



• Muir'B " Sanskrit Texts," iv., p. 27. 

 + Canto xiv., " Pieture-Writing." 



