Kullervo. Then they laid the fatherless infant in the cradle and began
to rock him, but he began at once to make the cradle rock without
assistance, and he rocked for three whole days, so hard that his hair
stood quite on end. On the third day he began to kick until he had burst
his swaddling clothes, and then he crept out of the cradle and broke
that also in pieces. When Kullervo was only three months old he began to
speak, and the first words which he uttered were these: 'When I have
grown big and strong I will avenge the murder of my grandfather
Kalerwoinen and his people.'
At this Untamo was greatly alarmed, and took counsel with his people as
to what should be done with the child. At length they hit upon a plan.
They took the child and bound him firmly in a willow basket and then put
him in the lake among the bulrushes. After three days had passed they
went to see if he were dead, but he had broken loose from the basket and
was sitting on the waves, fishing with a copper rod and a golden line;
so they took him back again to the house. Next Untamo ordered a great
heap of dried brushwood to be collected together, and a pile was made
higher than the tree-tops; on the top of this they set the boy and then
set fire to the pile. It burned three whole days, and then Untamo sent
men to see if the child was dead; but they found him sitting in the
middle of the fire raking the coals together with a copper rod, and not
a hair of his head was even singed.
Then they took him home and considered again how they should kill him,
and this time they took him and crucified him on an oak-tree. And on the
third day they came and found that he had painted an armed warrior on
every leaf, made fast though he was to the tree, and so they took him
down and brought him home again. This time they saw that they could not
harm him, so Untamo told him that he would take him as a servant, and
that if he did well he should be paid well.
When Kullervo had grown a little, he was set to take care of a baby, and
was given very careful instructions as to how to rock it and attend to
all its wants; but the cruel Kullervo treated it harshly, and in the
evening killed it and burned the cradle in the fire. So Untamo was
afraid to give him any further employment about the house, but bade him
go out and cut down the forest on the mountain side. Then Kullervo went
to the smith and bade him make a huge axe of copper, and when it was
ready he spent one day in sharpening it and another in making the
handle, and then hastened off to the forest. There he chose the biggest
tree on all the mountain side and felled it at one blow. Six more huge
trees were cut down just as easily, but then Kullervo grew disgusted
with the work, and pronounced a curse over the whole mountain, and
stopped working.
So when Untamo came in the evening to see how he was getting on, and
found only seven trees felled, he saw that he must set Kullervo to some
other task. The next day, therefore, he took him into a field and bade
him build a fence round it. As soon as Untamo was gone, Kullervo set to
work, using whole trees and raising the fence higher than the clouds;
and when he had finished there was no gate to enter by, and the fence
was so high that no one could climb over it. When Untamo came and saw
what he had done, and that no one could now get into the field, he told
Kullervo that he was unfitted for such work, and must go and thresh the
rye and barley.
Then Kullervo made a flail and set to work. And he threshed so hard that
all the grain was beaten to powder and the straw was broken up into
useless pieces. But when Untamo saw this, he grew very angry, and cried
out that Kullervo was a wretched workman who spoiled whatever he
touched, and the next day he took him off and sold him to the blacksmith
Ilmarinen in distant Karjala. And the price Ilmarinen paid was three old
worn-out kettles, seven worthless sickles, and three old scythes and
hoes and axes, surely quite enough for such a fellow as Kullervo.
[Illustration]
KULLERVO AND ILMARINEN'S WIFE
As soon as the purchase was completed, Kullervo asked Ilmarinen and his
wife to give him some work for the next day. So they decided to make him
a shepherd. But the wife, once the Rainbow-maiden, did not like the new
servant, so she baked him a cheat-loaf--a very thick loaf, half of
barley, half of oatmeal, and with a great flint-stone in the centre, and
around the flint-stone was melted butter. Then she gave it to Kullervo
and told him not to eat it until he was out on the pasture-ground.
The next morning Ilmarinen's wife showed Kullervo the cattle, and bade
him take them to the open glades among the forests, where they would
find food in abundance. Then she addressed a prayer to Ukko that he
would guard the flock in case the shepherd should neglect them. And she
sought the aid too of all the goddesses of the forest and the daughters
of summer and the spirits of the fountains and the brooks, to care for
her cattle and watch over them. And she also sang a spell to keep away
the bear from coming and devouring them. And when all these prayers and
spells were ended she sent Kullervo off with the herds.
Kullervo drove them off to their pastures in the woods, carrying his
lunch in a basket on his arm. And as he walked he sang of his hard lot
as a slave, and how he was given only the scraps and crusts to eat,
while his master and mistress fed on honey-cakes and wheaten biscuit. At
length the time came for him to eat his luncheon, and he sat down and
drew the cheat-loaf from the basket. But instead of eating it at once he
turned it carefully over and over in his hands, and thought: 'Many
loaves are fine to look at on the outside, but are nothing but chaff
inside,' and he drew out his knife to try the loaf.
This knife was the one thing that his mother had kept of all her
father's possessions, and Kullervo looked upon it as something sacred.
Now as he plunged it into the cheat-loaf it hit right upon the hard
flint in the centre and broke in several pieces. Then Kullervo sat down
and began to weep over his loss, and to ponder how he should revenge
it. But a raven was sitting in a tree near by and overhead him talking
to himself, and the raven said: 'Why art thou so distressed, Kullervo?
Drive the herd away, one half to the wolves' and the other half to the
bears' dens, so that they may all be devoured. And then when it is time
to return home call together the wolves and bears and make them look
like cattle, by thy magic art, and drive them home for thy mistress to
milk. Thus thou wilt repay this insult.'
At these words Kullervo jumped up and did as the raven had said. And
when the sun was setting in the west, Kullervo hastened homeward,
driving bears and wolves before him, but by a magic spell he made them
look like cattle. And as he went, he said to them: 'Seize my hateful
mistress when she comes to milk the cattle, and tear and rend her in
pieces.' And he took a cow-horn and made a bugle of it and blew till the
hills rang, to announce his return.
When he reached the cow-yard, Ilmarinen's wife greeted him joyfully, for
it was late and she had feared that something had happened. And she told
her oldest maid-servant to go and milk the cows as she herself was busy.
But Kullervo said: 'Thou shouldst go thyself, for the cows are in better
condition to-night than they have ever been before.' And so she went,
and when she saw them she cried out in wonder: 'Truly my cattle are
beautiful to-night, for their hair glistens like the fur of lynxes, and
is soft as ermine skin.'
With these words she seated herself to begin milking, but all at once
the wolves and bears appeared in their true shapes and began to tear her
to pieces. Then she cried out to Kullervo, when she saw what he had
done, but he answered: 'If I have done evil thou hast done still greater
evil, for thou hast baked a stone inside my bread, and I have broken on
it my knife, the only relic of my mother's people.'
Then Ilmarinen's wife began to beg him to aid her, and promised him the
best of everything to eat, and that he should never have to work again.
But Kullervo would not listen to her prayers, but rejoiced at her agony,
and then the wolves and bears made one more onset, and she fell and
died. Such was the end of the beauteous Rainbow-maiden, for whom so many
had wooed, and who had become the pride and joy of Kalevala.
[Illustration]
KULLERVO'S LIFE AND DEATH
Then Kullervo hastened off, before Ilmarinen should come home and find
out what had happened. And after he was at a safe distance he began to
play upon the bugle he had made, until Ilmarinen ran out of his smithy
to see who it could be, and there before him in the courtyard Ilmarinen
saw the body of his wife and learned what had happened: and he sat down
and wept bitterly, for all the joy of his life was now gone from him.
But Kullervo hastened on, and as he went he mourned his hard lot. When
he had gone a little way he met an old witch on the road, and she asked
him whither he was going. 'I shall journey to the dismal Northland,'
answered Kullervo, 'there to slay the wicked Untamo, who has killed all
my kinsfolk.' Then the witch said: 'Thou art wrong, for thy father and
thy sisters escaped from Untamo's wrath, and now thy mother has joined
them and they are living happily together on the distant borders of
Kalevala.' And when Kullervo begged her to tell him the way to them she
did so, and he hastened off to find them.
At length he reached his parents' abode, but at first they did not
recognise him. But when he spoke to his mother she knew him at once, and
embraced him and kissed him, and made him welcome in his new home. And
then they related to one another all that had happened in the years they
had been apart, and his mother ended by saying: 'Praised be Ukko that
thou hast come back to us; but there is yet one absent one--thy eldest
sister strayed away many years ago, hunting berries on the hills, and we
have never seen or heard of her since.'
So Kullervo settled down to live with his parents, and began to work
with the others. The first day they all went out to fish for salmon, and
Kullervo was put at the oars to row their boat. Then he asked whether he
should row with all his strength, or only a little part of it, and they
told him that he could not pull too hard. So he put forth all his
giant's strength, and in a minute the boat was all broken to pieces.
His father said: 'I see that thou art too clumsy to row; perhaps thou
wilt do better to drive the salmon into the nets.' And Kullervo asked
again whether he should use all his strength, and he received the same
answer as before. So he set to work beating the water to scare the fish
into the net; but he beat so hard that he mixed all the mud on the
bottom with the water, and pounded the salmon all to pulp and destroyed
all the nets.
Then his father saw that he was not fit for such work, so he sent him
off to pay the yearly taxes. Kullervo did so, and after he had paid them
he started off in his sledge to drive home again. He had not driven far
when he met a lovely maiden, whom he asked to get into his sledge and
come with him to his home and marry him. But she made fun of him, and he
drove off in anger. When he had driven still farther he met another
maiden, still more lovely than the first, and this one he at length
persuaded to get into his sledge and come home with him and marry him.
But when they had driven along for two days towards his home, the maiden
asked him about his kinsfolk, and he told her that he was Kalervo's son.
No sooner had the maiden heard this than she gave a great cry of anguish
and cried out: 'Alas, then, thou art my brother! For I am Kalervo's
daughter, who wandered off one day to pick berries and never returned,'
and with these words she jumped from the sledge and hastened weeping to
a river near by. There she plunged beneath the icy waters and was never
seen again alive, but her lifeless body floated down to the black river
of Tuoni.
But Kullervo unharnessed his steed from the sledge and galloped off home
and there related to his mother all that had occurred, and how he had
unknowingly been the cause of his sister's death, and when he had
finished his story, he added: 'Woe is me that I did not die long ago.
But now I must hasten off to gloomy Pohjola, there to slay the wicked
Untamo, and myself be also slain.' Having said this he also made ready
his armour and ground his broadsword until it was as sharp as a razor.
But before he went, he asked his father and brother and sister and
mother if they would grieve when they heard of his death. And all but
his mother told him that they would never sorrow over the death of such
an evil fellow. But his mother alone said that, in spite of all the evil
he had done, her mother's love was still strong and that she would weep
over him for years to come.
Thereupon Kullervo went forth on his journey to the icy Northland, but
before he had gone far a messenger came and told him that his father was
dead and asked Kullervo to come back and help bury him, but he would
not come. And a little later he was told of the death of his brother and
then of his sister, and last of all of his mother. Still he refused to
come to bury any of them, only, when the news of his mother's death
reached him, he mourned that he had not been with her in her last
moments, and bade the servants bury her with every possible honour and
respect.
Now as he neared the home of Untamo's tribe, he prayed to Ukko to endow
his sword with magic powers, so that Untamo and all his people might be
surely slain. And Ukko did as he had asked, and with the magic sword
Kullervo slew, single-handed, all Untamo's people, and burned all their
villages to ashes, leaving behind him only dead bodies and smoking
ruins.
Then he hastened home, and found that it was only too true that all his
family had died while he was away; and he went out to his mother's grave
and wept over it. But as he wept, his mother spoke to him from the grave
and bade him let their old dog lead him into the forest to the home of
the wood-nymphs, who would care for him. So Kullervo set off, led by the
faithful dog. But on the way they came to the grassy mound where
Kullervo had met his long-lost sister, and there he found that even the
grass and the flowers and the trees were weeping. Suddenly overcome with
sorrow, he drew forth his magic sword from out its scabbard, and,
bidding a last farewell to all the world, he thrust the handle firmly
into the earth and threw himself upon the sword-point, so that it
pierced his heart. Thus ended the evil life of Kullervo.
* * * * *
They were all silent for a moment when the sad story of Kullervo's life
and death was ended, and then Mimi said: 'I wish you'd tell us about
nice men like Ilmarinen and Wainamoinen, Pappa Mikko; Kullervo was real
hateful.'
'Well, then, I will tell you of what Ilmarinen did when he had lost his
wife, the Rainbow-maiden,'--and the old man began.
[Illustration]
ILMARINEN'S BRIDE OF GOLD
After Ilmarinen's wife had been so cruelly slain, he wept for three
whole days and nights without ceasing. And after that for three months
he did not go into his smithy nor even so much as lift his hammer from
the ground. And as he mourned he cried: 'Woe is me, for all is weariness
and sorrow now that my dear wife is slain, and there is no more rest for
me in my home.'
But after the three months of mourning were past, Ilmarinen went out and
dug up a great quantity of gold and silver and cut down thirty
sledge-loads of birch-trees, which he burnt to charcoal. Then he put the
charcoal in the bottom of his furnace and laid a large piece of gold and
a still larger piece of silver on top, and closing the furnace, he
started the fire and set the workmen to blowing the bellows; but the
men were lazy and let the fire go out. So Ilmarinen drove them all away
and began to blow the fire by magic spells alone. Three days he worked
the bellows by his magic spells, and on the evening of the third day he
looked inside the furnace, hoping to see an image rising from the melted
gold and silver. And there came forth a lovely lamb all gold and silver,
and every one admired its beauty save Ilmarinen, who said: 'Get back
into the furnace, for I only desire a beauteous bride, born of the
melted gold and silver.'
So he threw the lamb back into the furnace and added still more gold and
silver and other magic metals, and then set his workmen to blow the
bellows again. But they proved lazy this time too, and he had once more
to use his magic spells to blow the fire. Again he looked into the
furnace, on the evening of the third day, and this time there arose a
colt of gold and silver and with hoofs of shining copper. Every one
admired the beautiful colt save Ilmarinen, who threw it back into the
furnace.
Once more he added gold and silver and set the workmen to blow the
bellows, but they neglected their work this time too. Then he blew the
fire by magic, and cast other magic spells over the furnace, so that the
gold and silver should grow into a lovely maiden. When he looked into
the furnace on the evening of the third day, he saw at last the figure
of a maiden rising from the flames, but it had neither feet nor hands
nor ears. So Ilmarinen took her from the fire and forged unceasingly
until feet and hands and ears were all completed, and the maiden was now
the most beautiful that any one had ever seen, but yet she could not
walk, nor talk, nor see, nor hear.
But Ilmarinen carried the golden maiden out of the smithy and took her
to the bath-room where he washed the golden and silver image and then
took it and laid it in his couch, in his wife's place. That night he
heaped up bear-skins and rugs of all kinds on top of the bed, hoping
that the image would come to life from the warmth, but it was all in
vain, and Ilmarinen was almost frozen himself when he rose next morning.
Then he said to himself: 'Surely this lovely maiden was not meant to be
my bride. I will take her to Wainamoinen, and perhaps she may come to
life for him.'
So off he went and offered the beautiful image to Wainamoinen, telling
him that he had brought a lovely maiden to be Wainamoinen's bride now in
his old age. But Wainamoinen, after praising the image's beauty, said:
'My dear brother Ilmarinen, it is better to throw this image back into
thy furnace, and to forge from the melted metal a thousand useful
trinkets. For I will never wed an image made of gold and silver.'
And then Wainamoinen turned to those of his people who were standing
near by, and said to them: 'Never bow to any image made of gold or
silver, for they cannot see, nor hear, nor speak, and they will only
bring you sorrow.'
[Illustration]
ILMARINEN'S FRUITLESS WOOING
So Ilmarinen cast the maid of gold into a corner of his smithy and
harnessed up his sledge and drove off to the dismal Northland, to ask
Louhi to give him another of her daughters in marriage. Three days he
journeyed, and on the evening of the third he reached old Louhi's home.
Louhi asked him how her daughter, the Rainbow-maiden, fared, and
Ilmarinen, with hanging head and sorrowful face, told how his poor wife
had perished, and ended up his story by asking Louhi to give him her
next fairest daughter to be his wife. But Louhi grew angry and upbraided
him with not having guarded her other daughter, and thus being guilty of
her death, and she scornfully refused to give him another of her
daughters.
But Ilmarinen went into the house in great anger and there addressed
Louhi's next fairest daughter, begging her to come to his home with him
and become his wife. The maid replied: 'I will never marry the man who
has been the cause of my dear sister's death. And even if I were to
marry I would wish a nobler suitor than a mere blacksmith.' Then
Ilmarinen grew pale with anger, and seizing the maiden in his mighty
arms he rushed off to his sledge and drove off like the wind before any
one could stop him.
The poor maid wept and begged Ilmarinen to release her and to let her
die by the roadside, rather than to take her thus to his home. 'If thou
wilt not release me,' she said, 'I will change into a salmon and escape
thee.' But Ilmarinen told her that he would pursue her in the shape of a
pike. Then the maiden said, first, that she would become an ermine, but
Ilmarinen told her he would turn into a snake and catch her; and then
she said that she would become a swallow, but Ilmarinen threatened to
become an eagle.
So they drove on and on, and the maiden wept the whole time, and begged
Ilmarinen to let her go, even if it were only to die in the snow, but he
refused and grew more and more angry at her obstinacy. At length they
reached Ilmarinen's home and he took the maiden into the house. But
here, seeing there was no hope of escape, she determined to make him so
angry that he would kill her and thus she would be freed from him. So
she began to make fun of him and to scorn him and laugh at him, until at
length Ilmarinen was in such a rage that he scarcely knew what he was
doing, and drew his sword to kill her.
But the sword refused to do this cruel deed, saying: 'I was born to
drink the blood of warriors, but not of such a pure and lovely maid as
this.' So Ilmarinen, being unable to kill her, began to weave a magic
spell about her, and in a few minutes she changed all of a sudden into a
seagull, and flew off screaming towards the sea-cliffs.
And when he had done this, Ilmarinen went out and got into his sledge
and drove off to his brother Wainamoinen. When he arrived, Wainamoinen
asked him why he was so sad, and whether all was well in Pohjola. To
this Ilmarinen replied: 'Why should not all be well in Pohjola? They
have the Sampo there, and until it leaves them they will always
prosper.' And then Wainamoinen asked him of the maiden whom he had gone
to woo. 'I have turned that hateful maid into a seagull,' Ilmarinen
answered, frowning, 'and now she flies shrieking above the rolling
waves, and will never have another suitor.'
[Illustration]
WAINAMOINEN'S EXPEDITION AND THE BIRTH OF THE KANTELE (HARP)
Wainamoinen reflected on what Ilmarinen had said of the prosperity of
the Northland, and at length proposed that they should go and capture
the Sampo and bring it back to Kalevala. But Ilmarinen said: 'It will be
hard to carry off the Sampo, for Louhi has fastened it with nine great
locks, and around it grow three roots, beneath the mountain and the
waters and the sands.'
Still Wainamoinen persuaded him to go, and Ilmarinen went to his smithy
and began to forge a sword for Wainamoinen. And when it was finished, it
was so strong, by the power of the magic spells that had been used in
making it, that it would cut through the hardest flint stones.
Then the two heroes put on their armour and made their sledges ready,
and drove off along the seashore northward. But they had not gone far
before they heard a voice lamenting. They drove up to the spot whence
the voice seemed to come, and there they found a ship lying deserted on
the sands.
Wainamoinen asked the ship what it was lamenting over, and the ship
replied: 'Alas, I weep because I am obliged to remain here idle; for I
was built to be a warship, and I long to sail filled with warriors
against the foe, but I am left here to lie alone and rot to pieces.'
Then Wainamoinen said: 'Thou shalt lie here no longer, but we will sail
in thee against the men of Pohjola. But tell me whether thou art a magic
ship that can sail without wind, or oarsmen, or pilot.' 'Nay,' the ship
replied, 'I cannot sail if the wind or oars do not help me on and some
one guide me with the rudder. But give me these to help me, and I can
sail faster than any other ship in the world.'
Then they left their sledges and launched the ship and stepped aboard.
And Wainamoinen began to sing his wondrous spells, and in an instant one
side of the vessel was filled with bearded warriors, and the other with
lovely maids, and in the middle came powerful gray-bearded heroes. First
he set the young men at the oars, but however hard they strove they
could not budge the ship. And next the maidens tried, but they too
failed. Last of all the mighty gray-bearded heroes took the oars, but
yet the vessel did not move. Then Ilmarinen himself grasped the oars,
and in a moment the vessel was moving through the waters at full speed,
with old Wainamoinen at the helm.
They had not gone far when they came to an island, and on the shore was
a man working on a fishing-boat. As they drew nearer he looked up and
hailed them, asking whither they were bound. Wainamoinen answered: 'O
stupid Lemminkainen, dost thou not recognise us, and canst thou not
guess whither we are bound?' Then Lemminkainen, for it was really he,
said: 'I recognise you both now. It is Ilmarinen who is rowing, and thou
art Wainamoinen. But tell me whither ye are sailing?'