Chapter 8

His mother, when she heard his intention, besought him earnestly not to go to war and break his oath to her, for some great misfortune would surely come upon him. But he paid no heed to her, and went to seek his friend Kura to accompany him on his expedition. When he came to the isle on which Kura lived, he went up to the house and said: 'O my dear friend Kura, dost thou not remember the time when we fought together long ago against the men of dismal Northland? Come with me now and be my companion in another war against them.'

Now Kura's father was sitting by the window, whittling out a javelin, and his mother was near the door skimming milk, and his brother and sisters were also working near by. And all of them cried out that Kura could not go to war, for he was but lately married, and they bade Lemminkainen leave him.

But Kura himself jumped up from where he was lying before the fire, and began to put on his armour in great haste. On his helmet were wolves of bronze, and a horse on each javelin. Then Kura took his mighty spear, and going forth into the court he hurled it towards the north; and it flew on and on, whistling through the air, until at length it fell upon the earth of the distant Northland. And after this Kura touched his javelin against Lemminkainen's spear and promised to be his faithful comrade in the expedition. So the two great warriors made all needful preparation and set forth to sail to dismal Pohjola.

But Louhi knew by magic art that they were coming, and she called the Black-frost to her, and gave him these commands: 'Hasten forth, O Black-frost, and freeze all the wide sea. Freeze Lemminkainen's vessel fast in the ice, and freeze the magician himself in his vessel, so that he may never more awaken from his icy sleep until I myself may choose to free him.'

So the Black-frost hastened off to do her bidding. And first he stripped the leaves off the trees and took all the colour from the flowers on his way to the seashore. When he reached the shore, the first night he froze all the rivers that empty into the sea and the waters along the shore, but he did not touch the open sea that night. But on the second night he froze all the sea, and the ice kept growing thicker and thicker all around Lemminkainen's vessel, until at last the Black-frost even began to freeze Lemminkainen's hands and feet and ears.

But when Lemminkainen felt this he began to sing an incantation against the Black-frost, saying: 'Black-frost, evil child of the Northland and only son of Winter, thou mayst freeze the trees and waters and the very stones,--but let me be in peace. Freeze the iron mountains till they burst in sunder; freeze Wuoksi and Imatra, but do not try to harm me, for I will sing thine origin and make thee powerless. For thou wert born on the borders of the ever-dismal Northland, and wert fed by crawling snakes. The Northwind rocked thee to sleep in the marshes, and thus thou grew, a thing of evil, and at last the name of Frost was given thee. And as thou became larger, thou didst learn to rend the trees in winter and to cover all the lakes with ice. But if thou wilt not leave me now, I will cast thee into Lempo's fiery hearth, and will lay thee on the anvil, that Ilmarinen may pound thee to pieces with his mighty hammer.'

Now the Frost-fiend knew how great a magician Lemminkainen was, and therefore he agreed that he would leave the two warriors unharmed, but keep their ship frozen up as it was. And so Ahti and Kura had to leave their vessel and journey over the ice to land. At length they reached the country called Starvation-land, and there they found a house, but there was no food in it. So they went on still farther, over hill and valley, and as they went, Lemminkainen gathered soft moss from the tree-trunks and made stockings of it to keep their feet warm.

On and on they went, seeking for some pathway to guide them, but all was one snow-covered wilderness. Then Kura said: 'Alas, O Ahti; we came hither to take vengeance on the men of Pohjola, but I fear that we shall leave our own bones here, and our flesh be food for eagles and ravens. We shall never learn the pathway that can guide us to our homes. My poor mother will never know what has become of me--whether I have perished in the heat of battle, or on some lonely hill, or in some dismal forest. She can only mourn me as one dead, and sit and weep bitter tears.'

Then Lemminkainen said: 'My aged mother, think of our former happy days, when all went well and all was joy and happiness. But now sorrow and misfortune are come upon me, yet shall we not despair; for we are young and strong, and will give way neither to hunger nor to evil sorcerers, but will use the prayer my father used to pray, saying: "Guard us, O thou great Creator; shield us in thine arms, and give us of thy wisdom. Be our guardian and our Father, that thy children may not wander from the path which thou hast given them."'

Then when Lemminkainen had finished speaking, he took his cares and made fleet coursers of them, and the reins he made of days of evil, and from his pains he made the saddles. Then he and Kura galloped off each to his own home, and thus Lemminkainen was once more returned to his aged mother's arms. Now let us leave him there, and Kura with his bride and kinsfolk, and speak hereafter of other heroes.

* * * * *

Thus Father Mikko ended, adding: 'And I think we must stop now for the night, for it is getting late.' Then they had supper, and it was not long before all of them had gone to bed and were sound asleep.

Early the next morning they were all awakened by a dull thud and a smothered shout. Erik and Father Mikko jumped up and lit a lantern, and then hurried to the door, which stood open. They had dug a passage-way out through the snow the day before, and they saw that the walls of snow had just caved in, and sticking out of the middle of the heap was a pair of small legs waving about wildly in the air.

The next minute they had pulled out the owner of the legs, and little Antero stood before them, looking very much frightened and very foolish too. He had his snow-shoes and some meat with him, and managed to explain, between his sobs, that he had intended to go and hunt for reindeer in Lapland, the way Lemminkainen did in the story, but his snow-shoe had caught in the wall and disaster had overtaken him. The would-be hero was promptly taken in charge by Mother Stina, and soon all was quiet again.

When they went out the next morning, they found that the snow had long since stopped, but the wind was blowing so hard and it was so bitterly cold, that Father Mikko was easily persuaded to stay another day.

After dinner they settled down exactly as the day before, Mimi in 'Pappa' Mikko's lap again, and in a few minutes he began to tell them some more of his wonderful stories.

'I will tell you about some one you have not heard of yet,' Father Mikko said; 'about _Kullervo_, though I am sure you will none of you like Kullervo himself--but yet the story itself may be interesting.' So he began.

KULLERVO'S BIRTH

Many ages ago there was a mother who had three sons, and one of them grew up to be a prosperous merchant, but the other two were carried off--one to distant Pohjola and one to Karjala. And the one in Pohjola was named Untamo, but the one in Karjala was called Kalerwoinen.

One day Untamo set his nets near Kalerwoinen's home to catch salmon, but in the evening Kalerwoinen came by and took all the fish out of the nets and carried them off home. When Untamo found it out he went to his brother, and soon they fell to blows; but neither could conquer the other, though they gave one another sound beatings. After this had happened, Kalerwoinen sowed some barley near Untamo's barns; and Untamo's sheep broke into the field and ate the barley, and then Kalerwoinen's dog killed the sheep. This made Untamo so angry that he collected a great army and marched against his brother to put him and all his tribe to death. And when they reached Kalerwoinen's home they burned all the houses and killed every one except Kalerwoinen's daughter Untamala.

Now not long after this a child was born to Untamala, and she named him 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.

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.

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.

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.'