great bear of Manala, and bring him to her. So he went off to the maid
again, and told her what old Louhi had demanded of him. The lovely
maiden instructed him how to prepare a muzzle for the bear, forging it
of steel on a rock beneath the water, at a spot where three currents
met together, and the straps were to be of steel and copper mixed. And
Ilmarinen made a muzzle as she had directed, and set off for Manala, the
dismal Deathland. As he went he prayed to the goddess of the mists to
send a fog where the great bear of Manala was, so that he might not see
Ilmarinen as he approached. And the goddess sent the fog, and Ilmarinen
was able to creep up to the bear and throw the magic muzzle over his
head, and then to lead him to Louhi without any trouble.
When he had brought the bear to her, he asked her again for her lovely
daughter's hand. But Louhi said to him: 'Thou must perform one more task
still, and then, when that is done, thou shalt have my dear daughter.
Catch for me the monster-pike that lives in the river of Tuoni, but thou
may not use hook, nor line, nor nets, nor boat. Hundreds have been sent
to catch it, but all have died in Tuoni's dark waters.'
And now Ilmarinen was deeply discouraged, and went off to tell the
maiden of this third task, which he thought it was impossible to do. But
she told him to forge an eagle in his magic furnace, and that the eagle
would catch the monster-pike for him. So Ilmarinen went to work and
forged an eagle in his smithy: talons of iron, beak of steel and copper.
And when the eagle was entirely made from iron and copper, he mounted
on its back and bade it fly away to the river of Tuoni, there to catch
the monster-pike. When they had reached the bank, Ilmarinen dismounted
and began to search for the pike, while the eagle hovered over the
water. While Ilmarinen was searching, a huge monster rose from the
depths and tried to seize him, but the eagle swooped down, and with one
bite of his mighty beak, wrenched off the monster's head. Still
Ilmarinen continued his search, until at last the monster-pike itself
rose up to seize him. But as it came to the surface, the giant-eagle
swooped down upon it, and buried its talons in the pike's flesh. Then
the fish, maddened with the pain, rushed down to the deepest caverns,
dragging the eagle with it until the bird had to loose its hold and soar
aloft again. A second time the eagle swooped down and struck deep into
the pike's shoulders; but the pike dived to the bottom again and
escaped. At last the eagle made a third descent, and this time grasped
the pike firmly with his beak of steel, and planted his talons firmly on
the rocks, and this time he succeeded in dragging the pike from out the
river.
Then the eagle flew off with the pike to the top of a tall pine-tree,
and there ate the body of his victim, leaving the head for Ilmarinen.
But the eagle himself soared up into the air, up beyond the clouds, and
at length disappeared behind the sun.
Ilmarinen returned to Louhi with the pike's head and again claimed her
daughter in marriage. Louhi answered him: 'Thou hast performed this last
task but badly, since thou only brought me the worthless head. But
still, since thou hast completed the other tasks also, I will give thee
my fair daughter. Thou hast won the Maid of Beauty, to be the help and
joy of all thy future life.'
But while Ilmarinen was rejoicing in his good fortune, the aged
Wainamoinen wandered sorrowfully homewards, bewailing his sad lot, thus
to be compelled to live without a wife to cheer his home. 'Woe is me,'
he sang, 'that I did not woo and marry in my youth, for the old men
cannot hope to conquer the young ones when they go a-wooing.'
* * * * *
When this story was ended, Father Mikko stopped a while to rest, and the
others discussed the stories that he had just told. All were pleased
that the Rainbow-maiden had chosen Ilmarinen instead of the aged
Wainamoinen, and little Antero asked 'Pappa' Mikko what they had had to
eat at the wedding--he was rather more deeply interested in things to
eat than anything else--so Father Mikko continued, after he had rested a
while.
[Illustration]
THE BREWING OF BEER
Great preparations were now made in Louhi's home for her daughter's
wedding with Ilmarinen. In distant Karjala, a part of Kalevala, was a
great ox, the largest in the world. It took a weasel seven days to
travel round his neck and shoulders; the swallow had to fly a whole day
without resting, to get from one horn-tip to the other; the squirrel
travelled thirty days, starting from the tail, before he reached the
shoulders. This great ox was led by a thousand heroes to Pohjola, to
Louhi's house, but when he had come thither, no one could be found to
kill him.
Then there came an aged hero from Karjala, and went up to the ox to kill
him with his war-club. But the ox turned and gave him one fierce glance,
and the old warrior dropped his club and ran away and hid in the
forest. Then they sent forth far and near to find some one to kill the
ox, but no one came. At last there arose from the sea a tiny dwarf, who,
when he stepped on land, grew suddenly into a giant, with hands of iron,
a copper-coloured face, a hat of flint upon his head, and sandstone
shoes upon his feet. As soon as this sea-spirit saw the ox, he rushed at
it and killed it with one blow of his golden sword. Thus was the meat
provided for the feast.
The banquet-hall was so large that when a dog barked at one door no one
could hear him at the opposite side, and when a cock crowed on the roof
no one on the ground could hear him. Louhi went in thither, to see that
all was being put in readiness, but while she was there she said aloud
as if to herself: 'Whence will I get the liquor for my guests, for I
know nothing of the secret of beer-brewing?'
An old man was sitting beside the fire, and he answered her: 'Beer comes
from barley, hops, and water. The seed of the hops were scattered
loosely over the earth, and from them arose the graceful hop-vine,
climbing over everything. The barley was planted in the land of
Kalevala, and it grew and flourished there.
'Then the hops, clinging to the trees, began to hum, and the barley and
the water in the wells to sing, saying: "Let us join our forces
together, that we may live united, for that is far better than to be
separated as we now are." So the ancient maiden Osmotar took six golden
grains of barley, seven hops, and seven cups of water, and set them in a
caldron on the fire. There she let them steep and boil during the warm
summer days, and at length poured off the liquor into tubs made of
birch-wood. Now she pondered long how she should make the liquor ferment
and cause it to foam and sparkle.
'Then Osmotar called one of the Kalevala maidens and bade her step into
the birchen tub. The maiden did so, and on looking around she saw a
splinter of wood lying on the bottom. She picked it up, thinking it was
worthless, but nevertheless she took it to Osmotar. Osmotar rubbed her
hands upon her knees and turned the bit of wood into a white squirrel.
As soon as she had made the squirrel, she sent it off to Tapio's
kingdom, to the great forest, and commanded it to bring her cones from
the magic fir-trees and young shoots from the magic pines. And the
squirrel hurried off and travelled through the forest until it came to
Tapio's home. There it found three magic pine-trees growing, and three
fir-trees beside them, and having taken the young shoots and the cones
and stowed them in its pouch, it came back again to Osmotar. But when
she put the cones and pine-shoots into the beer, it still refused to
ferment.
'So Osmotar made the Kalevala maiden get into the birchen tub once more,
and this time the maiden found a chip upon the bottom. When she took it
to Osmotar, the latter rubbed her hands upon her knees again, and turned
the chip into a magic golden-breasted marten. Then she sent the marten
off to the dens of the mountain bears, to gather the foam from their
angry lips as they fought with one another. The marten flew away, and
soon returned with the foam that it had gathered from the mouths of the
raging bears. But when Osmotar added it to the liquor there was no
effect, and the beer remained as still as ever.
'For a third time, then, the maid of Kalevala stepped into the tub, and
this time found a pod on the bottom. Osmotar took the pod and rubbed it
between her hands and knees, and there flew out of it a honeybee. She
sent the bee off to the Islands of the Sea, telling it to go to a meadow
there, where a maiden lay asleep, and growing by the maiden's side there
were honey-grasses and fragrant flowers. From these the bee was to
collect the honey and bring it back. The bee flew off straight over the
ocean, and on the evening of the third day reached the Isles of the
Sea, where it found the maiden fast asleep amongst the flowers, clad in
a silver robe, with a girdle of copper. By her grew the loveliest and
sweetest of flowers and grasses, and the bee loaded itself down with
their honey and returned to Osmotar with it. This time, when the honey
was placed in the beer it began to ferment and rise and bubble and foam
until it filled all the tubs and ran over on the sands.
'When the beer was ready, all the heroes of Kalevala came to drink it,
and Lemminkainen drank so much that he became intoxicated. But Osmotar,
now that she had made the beer, did not know how to keep it, for it was
still running out of the tubs and over everything. While she was sitting
and grieving over this, the robin sang to her from an aspen, and told
her to put it into strong oaken barrels bound with copper hoops, and
thus the last difficulty was overcome.
'Thus was beer first brewed from hops and barley,' continued the old
man, 'and the beer of Kalevala is famed to strengthen the feeble, to
cheer the sad, to make the old young, and the timid brave. It makes the
heart joyful and puts wise sayings on the tongue, but the fool it makes
still more foolish.'
Thus the old man ended his account of the origin of beer, and Louhi,
who had listened to him carefully, took all the tubs she had and put
hops and barley in them, and water on top, and then lit huge fires to
heat stones, that she might drop them in the mixture and make it boil.
She made such a great quantity of beer that the springs were emptied and
the forests grew small, and such a vast column of smoke went up as
filled half of Pohjola and was seen even in distant Karjala and
Lemminkainen's home. And all the people there thought it arose from some
mighty battle between great heroes. But Lemminkainen pondered over it,
and at last he found out that it was the fires for Louhi's beer-making
for the wedding feast, and he grew bitterly angry, for Louhi had refused
_him_ her daughter's hand, and now had given her to Ilmarinen.
But now the beer was ready and was stored away in casks hooped with
copper, and thousands of delicate dishes were made ready for the feast.
But when all was nearly ready the beer began to grow impatient in its
casks, and cried out for the guests to come that songs might be sung in
its honour. So Louhi sent first for a pike and a salmon to sing its
praises, but they could not do it. Next she sent for a boy, but the boy
was too ignorant to sing the praises of the beer, and all this time the
beer was calling out more and more loudly from its prison. Then Louhi
determined to invite the guests at once, lest the beer should break
forth from the casks.
So she called one of her servants and said to her: 'Go, my trusted
servant, and call together all the Pohjola people to the banquet. Go out
into the highways too, and bring in all the poor and blind and cripples,
the old and the young, that they may be merry at my daughter's wedding.
And ask all the people of Karjala and the ancient Wainamoinen, but be
sure thou dost not invite wild Lemminkainen.' At this the servant asked
why she was not to ask Lemminkainen, and Louhi answered: 'Lemminkainen
must not come, for he loves war and strife, and would bring disturbance
and sorrow to our feast, and scoff at our maidens.'
And the servant, having learned from Louhi how she should recognise
Lemminkainen, set off and invited rich and poor, old and young, the
deaf, the blind, and the cripples in all Pohjola and Karjala, but did
not ask Lemminkainen.
[Illustration]
ILMARINEN'S WEDDING FEAST
At length the guests began to arrive, and Ilmarinen came escorted by
hundreds of his friends, driving a coal-black steed, and with the same
birds singing on his sledge as when he came to woo the Rainbow-maiden,
Louhi's fairest daughter. When he alighted from his sledge, Louhi sent
her best servants to take the steed and give him the very best of food
in a manger of pure gold. But as Ilmarinen advanced to enter the house,
they found that he was too tall to pass through the doorway without
stooping, which would have been very unlucky: so Louhi had to have the
top beam taken away before he could enter.
Inside the dwelling was so changed that no one would have recognised it.
Louhi had cast a magic spell over it, and all the beams and door and
window-sills were made from bones that gleamed like ivory; the
windows were adorned with trout-scales, and the fires were set in
flowers; and the seats and tables and floors were of gold and silver and
copper, with marble hearth-stones and silken carpets on the floors.
Louhi bade Ilmarinen welcome when he came into the guest-hall, and
calling up her servant-maidens, she gazed at her daughter's suitor. The
maidens bore wax tapers, and by their light the bridegroom looked
handsomer than ever, and his eyes sparkled like the waves of the sea.
[Illustration: LAPP WOMAN IN HOLIDAY COSTUME.]
Then Louhi bade the maidens lead Ilmarinen to the seat of honour at the
table in the great hall, and then all the other guests took their
places, and the feast began. First of all the daintiest dishes of every
sort were served by Louhi to the bridegroom--honey-biscuits,
river-salmon, butter, bacon, and every delicacy one can think of--and
after he was served, the servants took the dishes around to the others.
After this the foaming beer was brought in silver pitchers, and all were
served in the same order.
All the heroes and magicians assembled there began to grow merry, and
Wainamoinen said that some one should sing the praises of the beer. But
no one else could be found to do it, and all pressed Wainamoinen to
sing, so at last he arose and began. He sang of the beer first, and
then from his great stock of wisdom he sang them one song after the
other of the days of old, until every guest grew happy from his magic
power of song. But when Wainamoinen had finished his singing, he added:
'Yet I am but a poor singer. For if great Ukko should sing his perfect
songs of wisdom, he would sing the oceans into honey and the sands to
berries, and the pebbles into barley, the rivers into beer, the fruit to
gold, and the mountains into bread. Grant thy blessing, great Ukko, upon
this feast of ours. Send joy and health and comfort to all those here,
that we may ever look back with pleasure to Ilmarinen's marriage with
the fair Maiden of the Rainbow.'
Thus Wainamoinen, the great singer, ended his singing, and the time had
come for the bride and bridegroom to leave for their distant home in
Kalevala. But first must Osmotar, the wise maiden, instruct the bride as
to her future life. Osmotar told her that she must henceforth be
thoughtful and not foolish, that she must love her husband's kinsfolks
as her own. Osmotar told her, too, never to be idle, and then instructed
her in all the many household duties of the wives of Kalevala, but at
the same time impressed it upon her how wicked she would be if with all
this she were to forget her own parents. After this Osmotar turned to
the bridegroom and bade him ever love his bride and honour her, nor ever
treat her ill.
Thus she advised them both, and they made ready to leave. But the Maiden
of the Rainbow wept, because she was leaving all the joys and pleasures
of her youth, and those she loved, to go to a distant land, where all
would be new and strange, and perhaps, too, hard for her. Yet at length
all the farewells had been said, the last goodbye was spoken, and the
two got into their sledge and the next instant the swift black steed
flew off like an arrow, rushing on toward the land of Kalevala, leaving
far behind them the gloomy Northland, which was yet so dear to the
Rainbow-maiden, and which she was never to see again.
Three days they journeyed onward over hill and valley without stopping,
and the third evening brought them in sight of Ilmarinen's smithy, and
they could see the smoke rising from the chimneys of their home. There
they found that they had been expected for a long time, and there was
great rejoicing when their sledge drove up, with the birds singing
merrily on its front, and all bright and happy.
Lakko, Ilmarinen's mother, received them at the door and welcomed the
fair Rainbow-maiden most heartily, and when the bridal pair had taken
off their furs, she served them with the very best of food and
drink--choicest bits of reindeer, wheaten biscuit, honey-cakes, and fish
of all sorts, and the best of beer. And while they ate, the others, who
had been old Louhi's guests, began to arrive, and soon there was a great
feast going on, almost as great a one as there had been before at
Louhi's.
While they were all feasting, Wainamoinen arose and began to sing again.
This time he sang the praises of the bridegroom's father and mother, and
the bride and groom, and ended up with praising the guests that were
assembled there. Then he and many of the guests took their leave and
journeyed off together to their homes. Three days they drove on
together, and Wainamoinen kept on singing all the time, until suddenly
his song was cut short, for his sledge ran into a birch-tree and was
broken into pieces. But Wainamoinen considered the case and then said:
'Is there any one here who will go to Tuonela, to the Deathland, for the
auger of Tuoni, that I may mend my sledge with it?' But no one would
venture on so perilous a journey, so at length Wainamoinen went himself
and obtained Tuoni's magic auger, and with its aid, on his return, he
put together his magic sledge again.
Then he harnessed up his steed once more and galloped off to his home.
Thus ended Ilmarinen's wedding and the feasts that followed it.
* * * * *
These two stories took Antero's fancy, and he begged that 'Pappa Mikko
would tell about some more times when they had good things to eat.'
But Father Mikko said: 'People can't be eating all the time, Antero, and
I think the others would rather hear about what Lemminkainen did, when
he heard of the feast and was not invited himself.'
Mimi cried 'Yes, yes!' and so the old man began.
[Illustration]
THE ORIGIN OF THE SERPENT
As Lemminkainen was ploughing his fields one day, he heard the noise of
sledges as if a vast number of people were on their way past. At once he
guessed the reason, for they were the guests going to Ilmarinen's
wedding, while he alone had not been invited. Then his face turned pale
with anger, and he left his ploughing and hastened off to his house.
When he arrived there, he asked his mother to give him a hearty meal,
and after that he went to the bath-house and after the bath put on his
finest garments, as if going to a feast.
His mother asked him where he was going and he told her that he was
bound for the great feast that Louhi had prepared. But his mother tried
to keep him from going, telling him that they did not want him there, or
else they would have invited him, but he answered: 'This sword with its
sharp edges constantly reminds me that I am needed in distant Pohjola.'
His mother spoke again, saying: 'Do not go, my dear son, for Death will
meet thee thrice upon the way.' Lemminkainen replied that he did not
fear Death, but would overcome him, but at the same time asked his
mother what the first danger would be.
'When thou hast travelled for one day,' she replied, 'thou wilt come to
a stream of fire, with a fiery cataract, and in the fire-fall a rock,
and on the rock a fiery hill, and on its top an eagle made of flames,
who devours all that approach him.'
Lemminkainen answered that he would easily pass this danger, and asked
to know the second. His mother told him: 'When thou hast travelled two
days, thou wilt come to a fiery pit filled with red-hot stones, and no
one has ever been able to pass over it.'
But Lemminkainen thought but little of this second danger, and asked his
mother to tell him what the third one was. She replied: 'When thou hast
gone one day farther, and hast come to Pohjola, the wolf and the black
bear will attack thee, and many hundred men have perished in their
jaws.' But he told her how easily he would overcome them and then have
conquered all the dangers of the journey. Then his mother added: 'There
are three things still to conquer. When thou reachest Louhi's dwelling,
thou wilt find walls built of iron rising up to the sky, and surrounded
by railings of spears on which are serpents and all manner of venomous
creatures twisting and creeping about; and right before the gateway lies
the largest of them all, longer than the rafters of a house. And beyond
all this, thou wilt find great hosts of armed warriors, who have grown
angry over their beer and they will certainly kill you. And if thou
shouldst come into the courtyard, thou wilt find it full of sharp
stakes, to hold the heads of those that go thither unbidden. Do not
forget how thou once fared in Pohjola, that had I not saved thee thou
wouldst now be at the bottom of Tuoni's river.'
Yet after she had warned him of all this, Lemminkainen would not be
persuaded to remain at home, but put on his magic armour of copper and
took his father's sword, and his own strongest bow. Then he had his
steed hitched to a sledge and went out into the courtyard to drive off.
There his mother bade him farewell and gave him some last words of
advice, telling him that if he should come to the feast, to drink but
half of his goblet of beer, for there were serpents in the other half,
and to behave modestly and not to try to take the best of everything for
himself.
When she had ended, Lemminkainen jumped upon his sledge, cracked his
whip, and drove off like the wind. He had not gone far before a flock of
wild birds flew across his road and dropped a few feathers on the
ground. Lemminkainen stopped and picking them up put them carefully in
his leather pouch, 'for,' he thought, 'no one knows what may happen.' As
soon as he had picked up the feathers he was off again, but he had not
gone far when his steed stopped in terror, for there, right in front of
them, was a broad river of fire, and a fire-fall with a rock in the
middle, and on the rock a fiery hill, and on the hill a flaming eagle.
The Eagle asked him whither he was going, and Lemminkainen replied that
he was hurrying to Louhi's feast and begged the Eagle to let him pass.
'Truly thou shalt pass,' the Eagle answered, 'but only through the
flames and down my throat.' But Lemminkainen was not dismayed. He took
out the feathers from his pouch and rubbed them between his fingers, and
presently there arose a whole flock of birds and flew straight down the
eagle's mouth so that its hunger was satisfied, then Lemminkainen was
able to pass over the river by the help of his magic, and to drive on
his way.
He drove for another day and then his horse suddenly stopped again in
terror, for there was a huge pit full of fire right in front, which
stretched as far as one could see to east and west. Yet Lemminkainen was
not discouraged, but prayed to great Ukko, that he would send a great
storm from all the four points of the compass, and fill the pit with
snow. And the snow came and as it fell into the seething pit of fire it
melted and formed a lake; and Lemminkainen quickly cast a spell upon
this lake so that a solid bridge of ice was formed over it, and he drove
over in perfect safety.
Thus the second danger was passed and he drove on more swiftly than
ever. After another day's journey, when he had come near to Louhi's
abode, his horse stopped again, trembling with fear. This time there
were a fierce wolf and a great black bear in the road. But Lemminkainen
put his hand into his leathern pouch and pulled out a tuft of wool. This
he rubbed between his hands and breathed on it, and it changed into a
whole flock of sheep, on which the bear and the wolf jumped and left
Lemminkainen to pursue his journey in peace.