CHAPTER XXVI
THE WEDDING FEAST
Who shall find tongue to tell of the wonderful feast at Ilmarinen’s wedding? Who shall invent words to describe its vastness, its grandeur, its joy?
Dame Louhi, the wise, the cunning Mistress, planned it. She it was who provided the food and the drink; she it was who directed the cooks, the butchers, the brewers, the bakers, the serving maidens; and she it was who invited the guests.
First, she built in Pohyola a house so roomy and large that even minstrels blushed to tell its dimensions, and story-tellers feared to speak the truth. It was so long that when a dog barked at one end the sound of his voice could not be heard at the other. The roof was so high that when a cock crowed on the ridge-pole the hens on the ground below could not hear him. In this house the fires were kindled, the tables were set up, and the feast was prepared. Here, back and forth upon the planking, the aged Mistress [[243]]walked, pondering, planning, instructing, commanding.
“We must have roast meat and plenty of it,” she said. “So, bring hither the great bull of Carelia and let him be slaughtered. No finer beef was ever fattened; no nobler beast was ever butchered.”
The great bull was quickly brought—a ship’s rope around his horns, a hundred strong men tugging at the rope. A stupendous ox he was, larger by far than any that grows in our degenerate times. Six fathoms long were his horns; and his back was a highway where squirrels frisked and birds built their nests as in the branches of a tree.
Think you he yielded much meat for the feast, much food for the hungry? Of roasts and steaks there were certainly a hundred barrels; of sausages in large round links they made a hundred fathoms. Seven boat loads of blood flowed from the great beef’s veins. Six strong sledges could scarcely hold the fat that was rendered from him.
“Surely now we have meat in plenty,” then said the Mistress; “but what shall we do for pleasant drinks to give joy to our guests? How [[244]]shall we brew enough ale for the multitude that will come to the wedding feast?”