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'Now, wicked Lempo heard what Ukko had said, and he himself breathed into it the breath of life, and shaped it to the form of a serpent, adding to the spittle all manner of evil things, every poisonous plant and thing from the Deathland. This was thine origin, O Serpent, vilest thing of all creation; therefore clear the pathway that I may enter the halls of the hostess Louhi.

So he went off to the maid again, and told her what old Louhi had demanded of him. The lovely maiden instructed him how to prepare a muzzle for the bear, forging it of steel on a rock beneath the water, at a spot where three currents met together, and the straps were to be of steel and copper mixed. And Ilmarinen made a muzzle as she had directed, and set off for Manala, the dismal Deathland.

The Sun came and sat upon a birch-tree near the river of Tuoni, and shone upon the Deathland, Tuonela, until all the spirits fell asleep. Then he rose, and hovering over them, warmed them into a yet deeper slumber, and then hurried back to his place in the sky. Meanwhile Lemminkainen's mother had raked a long time in the coal-black river, but could find nothing.

And Nasshut cast his body into the dismal river Tuoni, where it was washed down through the rapids to the Deathland, Tuonela. There the son of the ruler of the Deathland took the body, and cutting it into five portions, cast them back into the stream, saying: 'Swim there now, O Lemminkainen! float for ever in this river, so that thou mayst hunt the wild swan at thy leisure.

'Well, you see, said Father Mikko, 'the main thing was to build the boat by magic, and we'll see now how he did that. Wainamoinen had failed to find the three magic words in the Deathland, and now he sat and pondered whither he should go next to seek them.

But Wainamoinen considered the case and then said: 'Is there any one here who will go to Tuonela, to the Deathland, for the auger of Tuoni, that I may mend my sledge with it? But no one would venture on so perilous a journey, so at length Wainamoinen went himself and obtained Tuoni's magic auger, and with its aid, on his return, he put together his magic sledge again.

There he called out in a voice like thunder: 'Bring a boat, O daughter of Tuoni, and ferry me over this black and fatal river. Tuoni's daughter, a wee little dwarf, but very wise and ancient, bade him first say why he wished to come into the Deathland while he was still alive. And first Wainamoinen answered that Tuoni himself, the death-god, had sent him.

And thus the handsome Lemminkainen died, and was cast into the river of Tuoni, that flows along the Deathland. Lemminkainen's mother began to grow uneasy at his long absence, and to fear that some trouble had befallen him. At last one day, as his wife, the fair Kyllikki, was in her room, she noticed that drops of blood had begun to flow from the bristles of Lemminkainen's hair-brush.

When they had brought the seed from the Deathland, they planted it on the shore, in the ashes of a ship that had been burnt there, and in a single night the flax had grown up and ripened. Then they pulled it, and washed and dried and combed it, and took it to the Kalevala maidens to spin. Soon the spinning was done and the net was woven.

Then he said to himself: 'I will seek the lost words in the kingdom of Manala; there are countless words to be found there in the Deathland. So off he went, travelling for three weeks over hill and dale, through marshes and thickets, until at length he came to the river of Tuoni.