JUSSI AND UNNAS.
There was something so attractive about the monk Ambrose that everybody
liked him. The old, white-haired Superior, Gurij, loved him as if he
had been his son, and the other monks had a high regard for him. His
pale, handsome and manly face not only inspired feelings of confidence,
but called forth even warmer feelings. The better he was known, the
more certain did it appear that he was a man who might be thoroughly
trusted, and would respond to trust in times of peril, when courage and
energy were demanded. He very seldom smiled, but, in spite of this, he
was invariably cordial, considerate, obliging, and lenient in his
judgment of others. He was ever ready to defend the weak, and was
generous towards his opponents.
All the work-people connected with the monastery were anxious to merit
his approval, and to have him with them, whatever their work might be.
There were two of the work-people who were specially attached to him:
little Unnas, who has been described in the previous chapter, and a
Kvaen named Jussi. Unnas Ambrose had rescued from death. With Jussi
Ambrose had made acquaintance in quite a different way.
He had on a certain occasion come upon Jussi out in the country, as
Jussi was in the very act of maltreating a woman. Ambrose spoke sharply
to him; and when the Kvaen became insolent, he had lifted him up to
throw him aside. Then the Kvaen’s blood boiled over, and he struck at
Ambrose. Thereupon a struggle ensued between the two men, both of whom
were unusually strong. The Kvaen was one of those strongly-built men
belonging to that nation who, if they are provoked, do not shun any
peril, and do not give in until they have either lost their life, or
have come off victorious. The same characteristic rests upon their
ordinary daily work, be it manual labour, navigating or fighting. If
the Kvaen has begun anything in earnest, no power on earth can restrain
him until he has accomplished what he has taken in hand. In good or in
evil, in friendship or in enmity, the Kvaen is persevering and
constant. In that respect he is quite different from the Finn, who for
a short time can be eager enough; but the energy is only a spurt, and
never lasts long. The Kvaen, on the other hand, is tough and true as
steel, and can even be cold-blooded and cruel, and as heartlessly
ferocious as a wolf.
The monk and the Kvaen fought in earnest; but if the Kvaen was as
physically strong as Ambrose, the latter was his superior in the
expertness with which he administered his blows with the closed fists,
and on this occasion no other weapons were employed. Unnas was not
present; had he been, he would assuredly have fixed his teeth firmly in
the Kvaen’s leg, even at the risk of being kicked to death. A fearful
blow on the forehead caused the Kvaen to stumble, and then Ambrose
felled him to the ground and knelt upon his chest.
‘Do you give in?’
‘No, never.’
Ambrose took him roughly by the throat, and almost strangled him.
‘Well, will you give in, and ask for grace?’
‘No,’ the Kvaen hissed out, and struggled to get free.
‘Very well, get up again,’ said Ambrose who was now beginning to get
angry himself, as the scar in his forehead got red, ‘and I will let you
know that I am master.’
The Kvaen jumped up, and the fight was continued; but at last he
received a stunning blow, and fell backwards on the ground, with
Ambrose on top of him.
‘Will you now give in, and sue for peace?’
The Kvaen made no reply.
‘You are a wild creature, Jussi; but I believe that you have good in
you, after all, and that you won’t make a bad companion. Now let us two
from to-day be friends—friends in life and death—enemies no longer.
Will you?’
‘Yes,’ groaned the Kvaen softly. He was conquered, and tears fell from
his eyes.
‘Get up again, then, and shake hands,’ said Ambrose.
From that day forward, Jussi was the monk’s friend, and this
intercourse gradually produced an ennobling effect upon him, so that
he, too, began to realize what it is to be chivalrous. By this means,
also, the behaviour of Unnas and Jussi towards each other became better
than it had been. Jussi might still strike Unnas for some trick or
other which Unnas had played upon him, but it was now with more or less
of good-nature and laughter that he treated the little dwarf.
The following story will afford a good insight into Jussi’s character,
and give some idea of the coarseness and roughness of a Kvaen. I am
very reluctant to relate it, for the reader of it will not think the
better of Jussi, but rather the worse. Still, I must tell the truth,
and show both the good and the bad sides of his nature.
Jussi had his own house, and a little bit of land just opposite the
monastery. One spring it happened that a wild goose settled on the
field close to the houses. It was one of a flock of geese which were
making their way to the north, but it had injured one of its wings, and
could not fly any further. Jussi’s children, a boy and a girl, caught
the goose, and shut it up in a hay-loft. There they gave it food and
water to drink, and took such good care of it that in a short time it
became quite tame, so that they let it out into the field, where it
followed them wherever they went, and would even walk straight into the
kitchen to get a few delicacies. It let the children stroke it on the
neck and back, and of course they became very fond of it, treating it
almost as if it had been their own sister. They even decorated it with
a red ribbon, and called it Hanhi or Hanhiseni. It stayed with them the
whole winter, and roosted at night on some hay in the loft.
The following spring a flight of wild geese again passed over the
houses. Hanhi, or the tame goose, was in the yard with the children at
the time, and it called out to the other geese. One of them called back
again, and the whole flight swooped round the enclosure. Then they came
hovering over the houses, and were evidently enticing the tame goose to
join them. It responded by trying its wings, which had been unused for
so long a time. The trial was successful: the wings carried it, and
away it flew with the other geese, to the dismay and grief of both the
children, who kept standing there, and shouting in vain, ‘Hanhiseni!
Hanhiseni!’ They saw no more of it during the whole of that summer. But
late in the autumn, when numbers of migratory birds began to return
southwards again, a flight of geese one day passed over the place. They
swooped round over the houses, and suddenly, before the children were
aware of it, the entire flock settled on a field not far from them.
There were eleven of them, and they came walking together towards the
enclosures. At the head walked a large goose, with a red band round its
neck. It cackled, ‘Kah! kah! kah!’ as if to say, ‘How do you do? Here I
am again, and all my children with me;’ and so it waddled with the
others following it, straight into the enclosure, and into the little
barn. The children rushed in and told Jussi that their beloved Hanhi
had at last come back, that it had gone into the barn, and that it had
a whole flock with it.
‘Leave them alone, leave them alone,’ said Jussi; ‘don’t frighten
them.’
The goose had told her family, on their way from the North Pole or
somewhere in that region, that she knew of a spot on their way where
they would do well to alight and rest awhile. They had no reason to be
in the least afraid. She knew all the people very well, they were all
kind, particularly the children. They would do them no harm, but, on
the contrary, give them food, and they would have plenty to eat, and
could rest for a night in a barn, where she herself had been sheltered
and made comfortable for a whole winter. For the matter of that, any of
them who did not care to go over to Africa could remain at that place.
None of the young geese had ever seen human beings before, and were not
afraid of them, but went on confidently, following their mother.
As soon as the last goose had got inside the door, Jussi jumped up and
fastened the door, remaining inside himself.
And what did he do? Did he fondle them, or stroke the old goose who
stood so fearlessly in the centre of the flock, looking up at Jussi as
if she expected him to pet her? Instead of that he did something so
shameful, so unmercifully brutal, so cruel, that one would rather not
tell the story.
He set to work to wring their necks, one after the other, and killed
all of them, even the old goose with the red band round its neck—Hanhi,
the children’s pet. The children, who were standing outside, began to
suspect mischief. There was such a screaming inside that they
themselves began to scream and cry, and to stamp on the ground, and to
shout through a chink in the door, ‘Father, father, don’t kill them!
don’t kill Hanhi! Let us have her, let her live! Hanhi is our sister,
father!’
Presently, with bloody hands, Jussi came out; he had killed every one
of them, and the next day he sold them to the monks in the monastery.
He would not tell them how he had obtained them, for he was afraid of
what Ambrose would say concerning his cruelty.
Unnas would not have done such a thing as this. He would, at least,
have spared the life of the old goose, either from compassion, or from
calculation, hoping that it might at some other time bring him another
haul of the same kind.
But if Jussi was cruel to helpless animals, he was no coward in front
of a bear. He showed his bravery when these three men, Ambrose, Jussi,
and Unnas—men as different in appearance and in character as three men
could be—were out on an expedition in snow-shoes, and this story I must
now narrate:
Jussi had a large scar, evidently left from the blow of an axe, on his
right hand, between the thumb and forefinger. This was a souvenir of
Ambrose. On one of their excursions they suddenly came upon a bear. On
seeing them, it raised itself on its hind-legs, and made straight for
Ambrose, who had no weapon with him except an axe. Jussi sprang behind
the bear, and seized it with his powerful arms by the neck, and
squeezed it with all his might against himself, and then, being half
throttled, it struck out violently with its fore-paws. Ambrose raised
the axe, and endeavoured to hit the bear on the forehead; but either
the axe was blunt, or he missed the middle of the forehead, for the axe
slid off on to Jussi’s right hand, with which he was squeezing the
bear’s neck. Still, Jussi did not let go. He was not a man who in a
struggle for life and death would give in readily. Even if his hand
itself had been cut off, he would have held fast with the stump. ‘Lyö
kirveen tallala!’ (Hit him with the blunt end!), he cried; and he
hugged the bear against himself still tighter, shielding his own head
behind the bear’s shaggy neck.
A heavy blow with the blunt end of the axe from Ambrose’s strong arm
stunned the bear, and it sank to the ground; at the same moment Unnas
rushed in with his long Finn’s knife, and plunged it in the bear’s side
up to the hilt. Another blow on the top of its head finished it; but
Jussi ever after bore the frightful scar on his right hand as the
result of the first blow of the axe.
This encounter united these three men more than ever to one another.
As affording a little insight into the character of a Finn, the
following incident may be of service. According to the legend, it took
place precisely as it is here related:
Unnas was an only son. His mother died young, and his father, Andrew,
was exceedingly fond of his only son. There was nothing in the world
for which he cared except his son. But when Unnas was twenty years old,
he had a very serious illness, and it was not thought possible that he
could recover from it.
Unnas had been baptized by one of the priests of Petschenga Monastery,
but his father, Andrew, was still a heathen. He would not consent to be
baptized; he declared that he would live and die believing in his old
gods. He was not a mere heathen, but was an active sorcerer (a ‘Noide’)
or wiseman. He had, therefore, his sorcerer’s or magician’s drum, which
he consulted whenever anything of particular importance was to be taken
in hand, or to be prevented.
When Unnas was taken ill, his father sought at once, by means of
sacrifice, to come to terms with one of his chief gods, who, in the
form of a weather-worn stone, was standing a long way up by the side of
the Kujasuga River, in a birch-wood, and was surrounded by a fence made
of reindeer horns. But it was of no avail. His son grew worse and
worse. The old man fretted terribly, and began to be afraid that the
illness had no natural origin. According to the opinion of the old
Finns, dangerous illnesses often proceeded from the fact that one or
other of the sick person’s deceased relatives wanted to have his or her
help and companionship in the other world. In that world the Finns,
according to their notion, lived with their herds of reindeer, much in
the same way as they had done upon earth, only, of course, they were
free from their worst enemies, the wolves and the husbandmen.
Whenever, therefore, anybody was stricken by a serious illness, which
had no very distinctive symptoms, it became an urgent question whether
by sacrifice a person might reconcile, or come to terms with, the
deceased relative, or at least obtain some postponement of the death of
the sick person.
Andrew consulted the sorcerer’s drum, and tried different sacrifices in
order to excite the compassion of the deceased relative, but in vain.
His son lay writhing with pain, and wandering in his talk. Then Andrew
sent for his brother-in-law, who was a still greater sorcerer than he
was himself, so that he might also consult the magic drum, and perhaps
discover a conciliatory sacrifice.
The brother-in-law came, and different sacrifices were tried, until at
last a whole reindeer was offered up; but even that did not succeed. A
black cat was purchased—for offerings of black animals were considered
the most acceptable—and the cat, too, was sacrificed, but all in vain.
The father knelt down beside his son’s bed terrified and in despair,
while the brother-in-law lay upon his knees, and beat the sorcerer’s
drum; but the movable ring on it insisted on moving to the place which
pointed to the Kingdom of Death, and stopped there, however much he
struck, and knocked, and made promises of sacrifices. Nothing seemed to
be of any avail; neither prayer nor payment sufficed.
At last the brother-in-law was compelled to have recourse to the last
and most desperate remedy. He must himself cross over to the Kingdom of
the Dead, in order to converse with the deceased relative. After a
variety of ceremonies and charms, as well as taking some stupefying
drink, he fell into a trance, and lay as if dead for half an hour,
during which time his spirit was supposed to visit the other world.
Andrew watched him with anxiety, and when he again recovered
consciousness, he asked him in great fear:
‘What does Jabmek, the dead one, demand?’
‘He demands either the immediate sacrifice of a horse on this spot, or
the surrender of some other man’s life,’ answered the brother-in-law.
These were hard terms. To procure a horse at once was impossible; and
who was likely to volunteer to give his own life in order to save that
of the boy?
Then the legend says that the old father determined, out of love for
his son, to offer his own life, and to die himself, that his son might
live.
‘If my son dies,’ he said, ‘then the fire on my hearth goes out. I
should have no more pleasure in anything in this world. I am old, and
have not many years to live. Therefore let me die, so that these years
may be given to my only begotten son, and his life may be long and
happy in this world.’
When he had taken this resolution, he kissed his son’s forehead, and,
with the firm resolution of sacrificing his life, the old man went out
in the darkness of the night to the idol, and fell on his face at its
feet.
And the legend says that, wonderful to relate, the son was better in
the morning, and regained his health, but the father lay dead before
the altar of the idol. The firm belief in the truth of the
brother-in-law’s message, and his own self-sacrificing resolution, had
broken his old heart, and probably the message about it caused a change
for the better in the son’s illness, and practically saved his life.
Unnas sacrificed, as was the custom at that time, a full-grown draught
reindeer (a ‘Kjöre-ren’) at his father’s grave. For the Finns, who
belong to the Greek Church, have a beautiful belief that every person,
man or woman, young or old, even the greatest malefactor, is shown such
mercy from our Lord that his soul, after death, is allowed to drive
about for seven days with the reindeer which have been sacrificed at
his burial. He is thus enabled once again to revisit all the places to
which he had travelled during his life. He thus lives again, for a
short time, the whole of his previous life. He is reminded of
everything (that has happened) from the earliest days of his childhood.
He recalls all the sorrows and joys which he has ever known, the love
and hatred which he may have nourished, the friendship and enmity and
the good and evil (which have made up the experiences of his past
life). As a dragon-fly over a pool, his soul flutters from place to
place, even to the most distant and hidden by-places, and lingers at
each for a moment, so that he can have an opportunity for sorrowing,
forgiving, conciliating, making good again, or begging forgiveness for
what he has done; and then, when all has been revisited and briefly
lived over again, he is set before the judgment-seat of the Most High,
and receives his unalterable sentence—guilty or not guilty.