United States or Tokelau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Tuonetar then asked him why he had come, and he told her of his boat-building, and how he still needed the three magic words, and that he hoped to find them there. 'Tuoni will never reveal them, Tuonetar said; 'nor shalt thou ever leave these gates alive; and as she spoke she waved the slumber-wand over Wainamoinen's head, and he sank into a deep sleep.
If thou art from the winds, then return to the copper mountains where they live; if from the sea, return to it; if from the forests, then return to them, or I will drive thee to the bottom of the coal-black river of Tuoni, whence thou shalt never move again. 'I am well contented here, said Wainamoinen, 'in these roomy caverns. I can eat thy heart and flesh and for drink I will take thy blood.
But the maid replied: 'Had Tuoni brought thee, he would now be with thee, and thou wouldst be wearing his cap and gloves. So Wainamoinen answered again: 'I was slain by an iron weapon. But the maid would not believe him, because he had no bleeding wound. Then he said the third time, that he had been washed there by the river.
We are trodden under foot by beasts and men, and the heavy carts cut us in pieces. Next she asked the Moon, but the Moon replied: 'I have trouble enough of my own. I have to wander all alone in both summer and winter nights, and have no rest. Next she questioned the Sun, and he was kinder than the rest, and told her how her son had died in the gloomy river Tuoni.
Tell me the truth this time, or I will send plague and death upon thee. Then Louhi answered the third time: 'I will tell thee the truth. I sent him to fetch me the Hisi-reindeer, and then after the fire-breathing horse, and last of all, after the swan that swims the death-stream, Tuoni, that he might gain the hand of my fairest daughter.
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.
Arrived in the upper world, he warns men to 'beware of perverting innocence, of leading astray the pure of heart; they that do these things shall be punished eternally in the depths of Tuoni.
So Ilmarinen went to work and forged an eagle in his smithy: talons of iron, beak of steel and copper. And when the eagle was entirely made from iron and copper, he mounted on its back and bade it fly away to the river of Tuoni, there to catch the monster-pike. When they had reached the bank, Ilmarinen dismounted and began to search for the pike, while the eagle hovered over the water.
With this she sprang into the midst of the foaming waves, and found peace in Tuoni, and rest in the waters of forgetfulness. Then there was no word for Kullervo, but the bitter moan of the brother in the terrible Scotch ballad of the Bonny Hind, and no rest but in death by his own sword, where grass grows never on his sister's tomb. The epic now draws to a close.
We need not follow in detail his voyage; it will suffice to say that on his arrival, after a long parley with the maiden daughter of Tuoni, the king of the island, beer was brought to him in a two-eared tankard. "Wäinämöinen, old and trusty, Gaz'd awhile upon the tankard; Lo! within it frogs were spawning, Worms about its sides were laying.
Word Of The Day