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Updated: May 2, 2025
Then Louhi grew very angry and called together all the Northland warriors to slay them. But Wainamoinen began to play upon his kantele, and so wonderfully sweet were the tunes that he played, that the warriors forgot all about fighting and began to weep, and all the maidens of Pohjola began to dance. Still Wainamoinen played on and on, until a deep slumber came upon all the Northland folk.
No sooner had Wainamoinen heard this, than he made ready for a journey and started off for the dismal Northland. When he had travelled three days and was come to the borders of Pohjola, he found a wide river in the road and no boat to cross over in. So he built a huge fire on the shore, and soon such a dense column of smoke arose that Louhi sent some one to see what was the matter.
'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. 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 when he saw this, Lemminkainen said: 'O thou son of Pohjola, see how thy neck is shining like the ocean at dawn. The other turned without thinking, to see what it was, and quick as lightning Lemminkainen whirled his sword round his head, and with one blow cut off the host's head as easily as one cuts the top from a turnip, and the head rolled along on the ground.
In this 'mystic chain of verse' the serpent is not addressed as the gentle reptile, god of southern peoples, but is spoken of with all hatred and loathing: 'Black creeping thing of the low lands, monster flecked with the colours of death, thou that hast on thy skin the stain of the sterile soil, get thee forth from the path of a hero. After slaying the serpent, Lemminkainen reaches Pohjola, kills one of his hosts, and fixes his head on one of a thousand stakes for human skulls that stood about the house, as they might round the hut of a Dyak in Borneo.
And Hisi sent it off to Pohjola, telling it to lure Lemminkainen into the snow-covered mountains and there to wear him out with the cold and the fatigue of the chase. So the reindeer went forth to dismal Pohjola, and there it ran through the courtyards and the outhouses, overturning tubs of water, throwing the kettles from their hooks, and upsetting the dishes that were cooking before the fires.
As soon as it was safely on board they sailed away, leaving all the Pohjola folk sleeping. On they flew towards their homes in Kalevala; but Lemminkainen grew weary of the silence, and asked Wainamoinen why he would not sing to cheer them. But Wainamoinen answered that song would only disturb the rowers, and that it was best never to rejoice until all danger was past.
So she called one of her servants and said to her: 'Go, my trusted servant, and call together all the Pohjola people to the banquet. Go out into the highways too, and bring in all the poor and blind and cripples, the old and the young, that they may be merry at my daughter's wedding.
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.
So she called up the goddess of the fogs, and sent her out to delay Wainamoinen's vessel. And then she called on Iko-Turso a wicked monster living in the depths of the sea to swim to the ship and sink it, and to eat the men in it, but to bring back the Sampo to Pohjola once more.
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