April 24, 1865.] 



♦ KNOV/LEDGE ♦ 



349 



a quarter, and refused it, at the same time warning 

 younger men never to marry a wifo of gold and silver. 



In the thirty -eighth rune Ilmariueu betakes himself to 

 Pohjola to woo by sweet persuasion, or seize by ruthless 

 force, his deceased wife's sister. Whether or not a union 

 ■of that kiod was within the " prohibited degrees " in 

 Pohjola we are not told ; but the maiden refused his suit, 

 and was c.trried off by force. Ilmarineu, however, soon 

 repented of his rashness, and, incensed by her taunts and 

 -ceaseless naggings, uttered some magic words whereby she 

 was changed into a seagull. 



This is the last of the business of love-making and bride- 

 lifting that we have in the Kalevala. The brother.s cease 

 their rivalry for women's hearts, and unite in a different 

 ■quest When Ilmarinen returned, Wainiimuinen asked 

 the cause of his sadness, why his head huug down, and 

 why he wore his cap on one side in token of grief! 

 Ilmarinen told him all that had happened, and then 

 described the prosperity and plenty which the wonder- 

 working Sampo had brought to Pohjola. This made 

 Wainamoiuen covet it, and he proposed to his brother that 

 they should try to get it Ilmarinen dwelt ou the difficulty 

 of this, for the Sampo was kept in a copper mountain, and 

 secured by nine bolts and nine locks ; moreover, its roots 

 stretched nine fathoms deep, one in the earth, one in the 

 water, and one on the brink of the sky. However, in 

 the end he agreed to go, and after forging swords 

 and armour for both, sought for horses. These were 

 not forthcoming, and whilst they were debating what 

 to do, Wiiiniimoinen heard a boat sighing and bewailing to 

 itself, " The house of the man is the longing of the 

 maiden ; the billows of the sea are the longing of the 

 boat" So the heroes unloosed it, singing it into the 

 billows, but a crew was lacking to set the sails and man 

 the oars. WaiDiimliinen gathered these, curly-haired 

 youths ; hard-handed, booted men ; by the power of song, 

 .and took the helm himself : 



Joy is heard upon the ocean, 

 Joyous singing on the waters, 

 Beanteons song like this ne'er sounded, 

 Snch sweet singing ne'er was dreani'd of. 

 Aged Wainiimoinen's own hand 

 Steers his ship between the breakers, 

 Steers between the lofty mountains, 

 Onward through the sounding billows, 

 Between cliffs in seething waters. 

 Never struck the hero's tcssl'1, 

 Tarried not, nor stayed its sailing. 



As they voyaged, they saw Lemminkilinen, alias Ahti, god 

 of the sea, sitting on a headland, and he gladly joined 

 them, having an old score to pay against the Northlanders. 

 They came to a waterfall, and Wainamciinen prayed to the 

 Ifaiad who dwelt by it for leave to force the boat through 

 the rock over which the water broke ; but, although he 

 prayed to Ukko also, the boat grounded, not on the rock, 

 but on the shoulders of a big pike, which Wiiiniimoinen 

 killed and hauled on board. Then with its bones the old 

 singer made a wondrous harp, the strings for which were 

 hairs taken from the tail of the horse of Hiisi, and on which 

 he invited Ilmarinen and Lemminkiiinen, the young and 

 ■old, yea, even the hostess of Pohjola herself, to play, but 

 none of them could bring forth sweet sounds as their 

 fingers swept the strings. Then the immortal singer took 

 the harp and played so divinely that Tapio, the forest- 

 god, came forth with his wife, Miellikki, in her blue 

 stockings and shoes tied with red ribbons ; Ahti, god 

 of the waters, rose between the leaves of water-lilies 

 to listen ; the wolf awoke in its cave, the bear danced 

 on the heath, the eagle flew down from the sky, the 

 hawk from the cloud, the duck rose from the sea, the 



swan from the river, the fishes with their six fins, the 

 salmon and the pike, not a bird of the air, not a beast of 

 the forest, not a lish of the waters, but camo and listened 

 to the lovely .strains evoked by the " old and steadfast." 

 The daughters of the sun and moon, Kuntar and Piiivatiir, 

 seated on the rainbow and on rosy clouds, stopped weaving 

 their golden web ; the water-nymphs forgot to comb their 

 loose locks; no heroes were so iiillc.xible but that they 

 were moved and wept ; men and maiden,'^, the married and 

 the unmarried, the aged and the little children, all wept 

 for very joy, and the harper himself shed tears " big as 

 berries and numberless as the feathers of a swallow." The 

 great drops rolled down hin breast and knees, tliey wetted 

 his '• five woollen jackets, his six golden belts, his seven ' 

 blue shirts, his eight flannel waistcoats," and, falling into 

 the sea, were changed into pearls. A blue duck 



Hastens then to seek the tears that , , ,, 



Wept by aged Wiiiniimiiinon 



Sank beneath the water's clcarncas, 



Down into the depths of oee.an ; • ' 



' " Gathers all the tears togetlier; 



:: . Lays them in the hand of Waino ; 



But they all have been transformed, ,_. 



Been all gloriously changed ; 



Changed into pearls are tear-drops, 

 J . Shining pearls of wondrous clearness, ' 



Destined for the joy of heroes 



And to deck the crowns of rulers. 



• 1 \ 



Arrived in the Northland, Wiiiniimoinen told Louhi his 

 busine,?s, and demanded that the Sampo be divided between 

 them. " No," said Louhi, " you cannot part a minever, 

 and the squirrel is too little for three." On this refusal, 

 Wiiiniimoinen, who saw that her soldiers were marshalled 

 for the fight, took his harp and lulled all the people of 

 Pohjola to sleep. As he jilayed, the bolts of the door.s that 

 shut-in the Sampo moved, and Ilmarinen greased them 

 with butter and pushed back the locks, but could not 

 reach the Sampo. Then he took an ox with a thousand 

 heads and a hundred horns wherewith to plough up the 

 ground till he could seize the Samjio, which done, he 

 carried it to the boat. As they sailed away, Wiiiniimoinen 

 sang so triumphant a strain that he awoke Louhi and her 

 people from their three days' trance. Furious at the loss 

 of tlie talisman, she sent a driving mist, and raised a 

 hurricane so violent that it blew Wain.aaioinen's harp into 

 the sea. Then, with a boat manned by a thousand hands 

 to pull the oars and a thousand to work the sails, she started 

 in pursuit, but Wiiiniimoinen destroyed her boat by magic. 



Undaunted by this she changed herself into an eagle 

 with claws of scythes (reminding us of the Harpies of 

 Greek myth, storm-goddesses with pointed claws), and bore 

 upon her wings a hundred armed men, upon her tail a 

 thousand, and ten upon each feather. Swooping down 

 upon the heroes, she seized the Sampo with her claws, nor, 

 although Ilmarinen and Lemminkiiinen attacked her with 

 swords, and although Wiiiniinuiinen maimed her with the 

 rudder, could they recover the treasure. At last, too 

 wounded and exhausted to hold it longer, yet determined 

 not to surrender it, she threw it into the sea, where it was 

 dashed into fragments. Of these, the larger number fell 

 to the bottom and brought treasures to enrich the palace 

 of Ahti, the ocean-god, the rest were drifted to the shores 

 of Kalevala, also bringing good-luck with them, while' 

 Louhi secured only the cover. There is a good deal of con- 

 fusion in the epic about this cover, some descriptions of 

 the Sampo representing it as the many-coloured, ornamented 

 lid or cover, as if it were a disc, or a shield ; in one account 

 of it, gathered from the Finns in Verenland, it is spoken of 

 as a flying thing, but, as shown in the remarks in a previous 

 paper on its likeness to the famous quern, the several foreign 



