THE GREAT PIKE
“Ah! Who is this?” cried the Wise Woman, rising quickly. Surprise
leaped from her narrow eyes, disappointment sat in her loveless face.
“Is this the young man who went out to plough our field?”
“The field is ploughed,” humbly answered Ilmarinen. “I have performed
my task and now I come to claim my own—the Maid of Beauty for whom I
have waited and toiled.”
“Who saw you plough the field of serpents? Who saw you perform the
dreadful task? Am I to believe your word alone?” And wise Dame Louhi
spoke harshly, gruffly, as one who has never been defeated or denied.
Then, from the dark corner beyond the hearth-stones, suddenly a voice
croaked like the voice of a sea-bird breasting the storm. And out of
the gloom emerged the dwarfish form of old Sakko, the last and the
wisest of all earth women.
“I will be the hero’s witness,” she croaked. “Unknown to him, I was
hidden close beside the field of deadly serpents. I saw the young man
perform his task, and he performed it well. Twelve broad furrows he
made towards the east, towards the west; twelve other furrows he made
towards the north, towards the south. The ground was heaped up, deep
trenches were made. The serpents reared their heads, they ran out of
their holes, hissing and dismayed; they were overwhelmed and destroyed;
not one remains. Give the hero his prize. Give him the duckling for
whom he has risked so much.”
“No, no!” answered Dame Louhi, graver, grimmer than ever before. “Any
man can kill snakes. Shall this poor Smith have my daughter for
performing so paltry a task as that? No! no! But there is another task
which perhaps he would like to try—an undertaking worthy of a hero,
although I fear too difficult for this young man!” She spoke
tauntingly, bitterly, unkindly.
Then Ilmarinen’s boastfulness returned, and he answered proudly,
fearlessly: “Never yet was there anything too difficult for me. Did I
not hammer out the sky and set the stars where they belong? Did I not
find Iron in his hiding places and subdue him? Did I not forge the
Sampo and shape its lid of rainbow colors? Harder things than these
will I do if only you will surely give me your daughter.”
“Listen then,” said the cunning Mistress. “In the dark and sluggish
river that surrounds the land of Tuonela there lives a monstrous fish,
a pike so huge, so scaly, so fierce that all the fishes of the sea obey
him. Hundreds of brave fishermen have sought to snare him, but not one
has lived to tell his story. Go, now, and capture this king of fishes.
Take him without using net or tackle and bring his head to me. Then I
will surely give you my daughter; you shall have the blue-winged
duckling; you shall wait no longer, toil no longer, but be at once
rewarded with your prize.”
The hero heard and deep dejection came upon him. He hung his head, he
turned away and walked slowly, silently out into the darkening
twilight. He sat down on the rocks by the shore and looked out over the
cold and pitiless sea.
“Now, I may as well die,” he said. “This last task is impossible. For
how can any one, without net or tackle, catch and subdue the Great
Pike? and how can I hope to drag him from the sluggish water and bring
his head hither to the Mistress of Pohyola? Vainly have I lived, vain
have been all my valiant deeds, vain indeed is life with all its empty
victories; there is naught that is worth the doing.”
Suddenly he heard light footsteps behind him, suddenly the darkness was
dispelled and the smiling Maid of Beauty laid her hand upon his
shoulder.
“O Ilmarinen, prince of wizards, smith of all smiths!” she said. “Why
are you so despondent? The task is not so hard as you imagine.”
“But I cannot perform it,” said the hero. “I dare not attack the Great
Pike in the dismal stream of Tuonela.”
“Only women say, ‘I cannot,’ only cowards say, ‘I dare not,’” laughed
the maiden cheerily. “You see I have learned a lesson from your elder
brother, the prince of minstrels. Now I will tell you how to catch the
Great Pike of Tuonela. Go at once to your magic smithy and forge a
fiery eagle with flaming wings and iron talons. Then sally forth upon
your errand; have no fear, but be wise and valiant.”
Ilmarinen would have replied, but she had vanished. He buckled his
armor about him and with right good courage hastened to his smithy.
There for many days he toiled at his forge; for many days he watched
the magic caldron in the midst of his glowing furnace; for many days he
tried all his wizard arts, singing strange songs and reciting secret
runes which only the wisest may ever know. At length one morning he
drew the caldron from the fire and lifted the lid.
“Art thou there, my eagle?” he cried.
Quickly from the clouds of scalding vapor a wonderful bird leaped into
being. Her wings were as large as the sails of a ship, her claws and
beak were of the hardest iron, her eyes were like flaming fire.
“Here I am, my master, what will you have me do?”
“O, my eagle,” answered the Smith, “carry me swiftly towards the land
of Tuonela, fly with speed and pause not till the sluggish, silent
river is beneath you. Then find for me the Great Pike, so huge, so
scaly, the king of all the fishes. Help me take the slippery monster
from its lair beneath the waters.”
The wonder bird spread her wings and Ilmarinen leaped up between them
and seated himself upon her back. The bird screamed and began her
flight. Up, up, up into the high air she soared. Then, swifter than the
wind, she sailed straight onward, towards the mystic island and the
dark and dismal river. How far did she fly? No man can tell; for none
can know whether Tuonela be in this place or in that, whether it is one
day’s journey distant or an hundred. From the graybeard it is only a
step, a stone’s throw, a short walk at most; from the babe upon the
floor it may be a thousand weary leagues removed.
At length, however, the goal was reached and the flaming eagle stayed
her flight. She swooped down and perched herself upon a rock which
overhung the shore. Beneath it flowed the sluggish river, dark and
dismal and deathlike; beyond lay the shores of the silent land where
Tuoni reigns; above it was the ashy-gray sky where no bird flies and no
star has ever twinkled. Upon this rock the eagle sat and watched for
her prey, and Ilmarinen waited patiently beside her.
By and by from the black mud at the river’s bottom a water sprite
arose. It rose quickly, it leaped high into the air and with its long
fingers clutched at Ilmarinen. Then, indeed, would the hero have met
his death had not the eagle saved him. She seized the fearful sprite by
the head; with her iron talons she twisted the creature’s neck and
forced it to hide again in the slimy, pitch-like ooze in the bed of the
murky stream.
Suddenly from amid the darkness the Great Pike came swimming. No small
fish was he, for his back was seven times longer than the longest boat,
his teeth were like great spears set round the entrance to a cavern,
and his eyes glowed like two flaming fires on the summit of a mountain.
Fiercely he dashed through the water, high into the air he leaped,
thinking to seize and swallow Ilmarinen.
But now the eagle rushed to the rescue. No small eagle was she, for her
beak was six times longer than the longest boat oar, her talons were
like the sharpened scythes of the mowers in the meadows of Hero Land,
and her eyes glittered like two great suns glaring down from the top of
the sky. Terrible indeed was the fight that followed. Dashing swiftly
upward the fish sought to seize the eagle with his spear-like teeth; he
caught the tip of her right wing, he drew it into the water and with
might and main strove to pull the giant bird into the depths. But the
eagle, with one foot gripping the rock, struck fiercely at her foe;
with her iron beak she tore the scales from the fish’s back, she forced
him to retreat into the murky deep.
Not long, however, was the fight delayed, for soon the furious fish
rose again and, swift as lightning, leaped upward to the combat. The
bird of iron, her wings all glowing as with fire, was ready for him.
She struck with her scythe-like talons; she seized him midway behind
his gills; with a mighty effort she drew him from the water and bore
him, struggling, helpless, dying, to the topmost branch of a
wide-spreading oak. There she sat, screaming with joy and anon tearing
her prey and feasting upon it. She ripped the scales from the Great
Pike’s glistening sides; she tore the fins away; she devoured the long
breast and the jointed tail; she sundered the head from the mighty
shoulders, cleaving the gills with her iron beak.
And under the tree stood Ilmarinen, helpless, imploring, angrily
remonstrating, “O faithless bird! O wicked eagle! Why do you devour the
fish that you were created to capture? What shall I say to the pitiless
mother at Pohyola when I return empty-handed? What proof shall I offer
that the Great Pike has indeed been taken?”
The eagle screamed until the sky seemed rent in twain by the shrill
echoes of her voice. Then she threw the fish’s head from her—it fell at
Ilmarinen’s feet. She flapped her fiery wings until the sun glowed hot
above her; she leaped from her perch; she soared upward, higher and
higher, above the treetops, above the desolate mountains. Into the land
of clouds she soared. The thunder rolled; the lightning flashed; the
rainbow-bridge, Jumala’s bridge of many colors, was shivered and
broken. Not for a moment did the bird of iron pause, nor did she rest
in her flight until she reached the distant moon. There, folding her
fiery pinions, she alighted, content to make her home on that
changeable orb. And there, on clear summer nights, you may often see
her pecking at the stars and scarring the sky with her scythe-like
talons.
Ilmarinen, wondering at the might of his own invention, lifted the head
of the Great Pike from the ground. With much labor he laid it across
his shoulders and adjusted it upon his sturdy back. Then, with hope in
his heart and courage in his feet, he turned his face once more towards
distant Pohyola and the Frozen Land.