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Updated: June 2, 2025
So Ilmarinen promised, and his sister said: 'O Ilmarinen, if thou hopest ever to wed the fair maid of Pohjola, thou must hasten and make thy sledge ready, for Wainamoinen is now sailing thither in a magic boat to win her before thee. Then Ilmarinen bade his sister prepare a magic soap and make a bath ready for him while he was forging the gold and silver ornaments that she had bargained for.
No sooner had he heard this than off he flew over the snow, and as he went he sang a spell, calling on the powers of Pohjola to enable him to catch the Hisi-beast. After he had sung, he gave three huge strides with his snow-shoes, and at the end of the third he caught up with the Hisi-reindeer, and in another moment had it bound fast.
Next day he was sent to gather pebbles, that he might be attacked and eaten by the king of the fishes. Once more the young man, like the Finnish Ilmarinen in Pohjola, subdued the mighty fish, and went back triumphant. The third adventure, as in 'Nicht Nought Nothing, was to climb a tree of extraordinary height in search of a bird's nest.
In the war with Pohjola the heroes were victorious, but the sampo was broken in the fight, and lost in the sea, and that, perhaps, is 'why the sea is salt. Fragments were collected, however, and Loutri, furious at the success of the heroes of Kalevala, sent against them a bear, destructive as the boar of Calydon.
The maiden of Pohjola loses her heart to Ilmarinen, and, by her aid, he bridles the wolf and bear, ploughs a field of adders with a plough of gold, and conquers the gigantic pike that swims in the Styx of Finnish mythology.
The bridal party sets out for home, a new feast is spread, and the bridegroom congratulated on the courage he must have shown in stealing a girl from a hostile tribe. While all is merry, the mischievous Lemminkainen sets out, an unbidden guest, for Pohjola. On his way he encounters a serpent, which he slays by the song of serpent-charming.
Then the Ether-maiden told them what had happened, saying: 'After the Fire-child had begun to grow, he escaped from us one day and bursting through the clouds he came down to Pohjola. There he killed youths and babes and old people, until he was driven away by a magic spell.
And the servant, having learned from Louhi how she should recognise Lemminkainen, set off and invited rich and poor, old and young, the deaf, the blind, and the cripples in all Pohjola and Karjala, but did not ask Lemminkainen.
He then flees to the isle of Saari, whence he is driven for his heroic profligacy, and by the hatred of the only girl whom he has not wronged. This is a very pretty touch of human nature. He now meditates a new incursion into Pohjola. At this part of the epic there is an obvious lacuna. The story goes to Kullervo, a luckless man, who serves as shepherd to Ilmarinen.
Wainamoinen and Ilmarinen now go together to Pohjola, but the fickle maiden of the land prefers the young forger of the sampo to his elder and imperturbable companion. Like a northern Medea, or like the Master-maid in Dr. Dasent's 'Tales from the Norse, or like the hero of the Algonquin tale and the Samoan ballad, she aids her alien lover to accomplish the tasks assigned to him.
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