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Updated: May 23, 2025
Now just at that time the old witch Lowjatar, Tuoni's daughter, came to Louhi and asked for shelter from the storms and cold, and Louhi took her in and treated her like an honoured guest. And while Lowjatar was there, nine children were born to her, all horrible diseases, and she named them Colic, Fever, Plague, Pleurisy, Ulcer, Consumption, Gout, Sterility, and Cancer.
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 Tuonetar, Tuoni's wife, gave him a golden goblet filled with beer, saying: 'Drink Tuoni's beer, O wise and ancient Wainamoinen! But he carefully inspected the liquor before he tasted it, and saw that it was black and full of the spawn of frogs and poisonous serpent-broods; and he said to Tuonetar: 'I have not come hither to drink Tuoni's poisons, for they that do so will surely be destroyed.
A most remarkable coincidence with the description of Tuoni's beer occurs in a curious story told on one of the Hervey Islands, concerning a Mangaian Dante. Being apparently near death, this man directed that, as soon as the breath was out of his body, a cocoa-nut should be cracked, and its kernel disengaged from the shell and placed upon his stomach under the grave-clothes.
But Wainamoinen soon freed himself from Tuonetar's slumber-spell, and knowing in how great danger he was, he instantly transformed himself into a serpent, and wriggled his way to the river, and through the nets that had been set to catch him, until at length he came out safe into the land of the living again; and the next morning, when Tuoni's wizard son went to look at his nets, he found all kinds of evil fish and serpents, but not the wise old magician.
Then Wainamoinen told her that he had been building a boat by magic, but that he yet lacked one spell, and had come thither to seek it. When he had said this, Tuoni's daughter came across and rowed him to the opposite side, having first tried to dissuade him from coming. But Wainamoinen was not afraid; and when he had landed he walked straight up to the abode of Tuoni.
But Louhi told him she would not give him her daughter until he had killed the swan that swam on Tuoni's river, which flows between the land of the living and the dead. Then Lemminkainen started off fearlessly to seek the graceful swan of Tuoni, and journeyed on and on until at length he came to the coal-black river.
Words in this wise then he utter'd: 'Not to drink have I come hither From the tankard of Manala, Not to empty Tuoni's beaker; They who drink of beer are drowned, Those who drain the can are ruin'd." The hero's concluding words might form a motto for our teetotallers; and in any case his abstinence enabled him to succeed in his errand and return.
And to make sure of his not escaping, Tuoni's son, a hideous wizard with only three fingers, wove nets of iron and of copper, and set them all through the river, to catch Wainamoinen if by any chance he should get so far.
Do not forget how thou once fared in Pohjola, that had I not saved thee thou wouldst now be at the bottom of Tuoni's river. Yet after she had warned him of all this, Lemminkainen would not be persuaded to remain at home, but put on his magic armour of copper and took his father's sword, and his own strongest bow.
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