May 



1885.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGK 



383 







AN iLlJlST RATED 



MAGAZINE ofSCIENCE 

 PlainlyWorbed-ExactlyDescribed 



LOXDOX: Fi^rnAY, j/j )' s, issr 



OONTKNTS OP No. 184. 



PAGE 



The KaleraU. VI. By Edward Clodd 383 



Our Household Insecta. (Ilius.) By 

 E. A. Butler 331 



Meteors mnd Falling SUrs. By R. A. 

 Pnv'lor 336 



The Workshop at Home. {Illus.) 

 By a Working Man 336 



ET'^^ulion of ihe S^ns^ of Beauty. 

 Bt ConstanreC. W. Naden 387 



The Cocoon of a Spider 339 



Chapters on Modem Domestic Eco- 

 nomy 389 



The Oripn and Home of the Dia- 

 mond. Bt W. J. Harrison 390 



FAOR 



fieoree Eliot on Old Aee 391 



The Ele»-'lric Light at the Inventions 



Exhibitions 393 



Editorial Gossip 396 



UeTiews :* — Some Books on Our 



Table 39fl 



Face of the Sky. By F.R.A.S yJ»s 



Correspondence : Wave Measure- 

 ment — The Ruddy Eclipsed 

 Moon — Effect of Colour Upon 



Temperament, &c 398 



Our Inventors' Column 402 



Our Mathematical Column -iOJ 



Otir Chess Column 401 



THE KALEVALA. 



By Edward Clodd. 

 CONCLUSION. 



IN the middle of the twelfth century, Eric IX. of 

 Sweden, incensed at the piratical inroads of the 

 Finn?, waged war against theru, and effected, after a 

 fashion, their conversion to Christianity. How super- 

 ficial waa the change is evidenced by the complaint of 

 Pope Alexander III., that their pretence of conversion was 

 commonly given up when it had served the purpose of 

 saving them from danger. At the end of the fourteenth 

 century "it would seem to have hardly reached more 

 deeply than to the reception of baptism and of the priestly 

 benediction in marriage."* And from that time till the 

 present, although both Lutheran and Greek missionaries 

 have penetrated to the remoter parts, the old animistic 

 and shamanistic beliefs have survived, and are persistent 

 wherever ignorance or half-knowledge abounds. In fact, 

 the success of Christianity among the Finns, as among other 

 races, was in proportion to the tact which was exercised in 

 not violently uprooting the older faith, but in grafting it 

 into the exotic. The saa,e atmosphere of wonder and mystery 

 played around both Christian and Pagan religion at their 

 inception — the same needs created them, the same earth- 

 derived juices nourished them ; but varying conditions 

 quickened the growth of the one and left the other in its 

 rank and primitive wildness. And the wisdom of the 

 Church was shown in recognising what was common to 

 both, and in ennobling that which, however coarse and 

 crude, was consecrated by the lapse of time in the faiths of 

 races to whom her message came. Rome was content to 

 retain Wainamijinen and Ilmarinen hj the side of St. 

 Peter and other saints, so long as the people called them- 

 selves Christians and paid their tithes, and to her larger 

 tolerance is due the preservation of much of the old runic 

 lore which the ruthless zeal of the Lutheran priests would 

 have destroyed. 



Although a careful scrutiny may detect, notably in some 

 of the invocations to the Dii mnjores oi Finnish mythology, 

 a loftiness of sentiment which is foreign to the unadul- 



* Bobertson'g History of the Christian Church, VII., 418. 



teratcd Kalevala, it is not till wo reach the fiflicth rune 

 that tho Christitn inlluence, still lar:;ely infused with 

 native olenients, and witli wildest, ;ind often, to modern 

 ears, untranslatable details, is pirauumnt. In this closing 

 rune of the great ejiic, Marjatta is iiitroduci-d as dwelling 

 under her parent's roof in the innocence of a lovely maiden's 

 life, " pure as the dew, holy as the stainless stars." So 

 chaste in deed and thought was sho that she would 

 taste, touch, or Iiandle no living thing which had not a 

 virginal purity like her own. With the sheep which 

 it was her duty to tend, sho wandered over tho grassy 

 hill - slopes and through the woods, tho birds singing 

 above her, the golden cuckoo with silvery voice, wcl- 

 coniest of all, nor had she a care save to guard her flock 

 and herself from tho venomous reptiles that crept under 

 the trees and glided along tho grass. Ono day, as she was 

 listening to tho cuckoo's song, a red bilberry lifted its 

 voice and invited her to pluck it, telling her how many 

 maidens had in vain souglit to do so. She could not reach 

 it, but knocked it down with a stick, when it fell to the 

 ground, and at her bidding climbed from her feet to her lip 

 and from her lap to her lips. She swallowed it, and it 

 began to germinate.* Stealing home to her bath chamber, 

 after the ciistom of Finnish women,! with her robe in loose 

 folds about her, her movements gave her mother disquiet ; 

 but she could not find out the cause, although the child 

 spoke from within.:}; When the birth-hour drew near, 

 Marjatta asked her mother to give her shelter, but was 

 met with reproaches and shameful words. Defending her- 

 self in vain, she turned to her father, who likewise spurned 

 her, and called her foul names, when .she indignantly 

 asserted her purity, and boasted that she would give to the 

 world a hero before whom the heroes of her country would 

 quail — yea, before whom even Wainainiiinen himself would 

 be humbled. 



Then she sent her little maid to one Ruotus of Sariola, 

 to beg for a bath, and as the girl went thither all nature 

 travailed ; rocks, forest-trees, hill-slopes, quicksand^, all 

 vibrated, as it were, in sympathy. But the wife of 

 Ruotus bade the girl tell Marjatta to go to the top of 

 Kyto's mountain, and there lie down in a stable among the 

 beasts, and let the cattle Ijathe her with the warm vapour 

 of their breath. Then Marjatta repaired to a stable on 

 the hill of Tapio, the forest-god, and with tears and 

 prayers besought the Creator, of his rich mercy and grace, 

 to deliver her, and asked succour of the animals around her. 

 Then their breath cume upon her as a hot Vjath, as holy 

 water, and the child was born — brought forth in a stable 

 and cradled in a manger. But as she fondled him, her 

 " dear golden apple, her little silver staff," suddenly he 

 disappeared ; nor could the poor distracted mother, search- 

 ing for him far and near, tind his whereabouts § She 

 prayed to star and moon to tell her where he had gone, 

 but neither knew, each replying that their duty was only 

 to brighten the night. She asked the sun, and 



Wisely then the sun made answer : 

 Well I know thy child beloved ; 

 It was he alone who made me, 

 Lets me rush in gold through heaven, 

 Lets me beam in silver splendour 

 All the lovely days of summer. 

 Yea, I saw thy son beloved, 

 Him, thy babe, oh thou unh.appy. 

 There he stands, thy sou so little, 

 In the marsh up to his girdle 

 To his arms within the heather. 



* Cf. Mexican legend, in curious correspondence to the above, 

 quoted from Bancroft's Native, Races III., pp. 288-9, in Nadaillac's 

 Prehistoric America, p. 297. 



t ride " Le Due," p. 222, Note 1. J Lnke i. 44. § Luke ii., 43-45. 



