Finnish Legends for English Children Part 11

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 b.u.t.ter. 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 G.o.ddesses 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 sc.r.a.ps 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.

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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 gra.s.sy mound where Kullervo had met his long-lost sister, and there he found that even the gra.s.s 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.

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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 quant.i.ty 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.'

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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.