Beware the more if he is old.”
[[17]]
“That was a very silly bird,” said Wainamoinen, “and I wonder that his mate listened to such foolish chatter.”
“But his song was very pretty,” laughed the maiden.
“I too can sing,” said Wainamoinen. “I am the sweet singer of Hero Land. I am a great wizard. I am a hero. Come with me to my dear home land and be my queen.”
The Maid of Beauty looked down from her rainbow throne, and the mountains echoed with her laughter.
“If you are indeed a wizard,” she said, “show me some of your magic arts. Can you split a hair with a knife which has no edge? Can you snare a bird’s egg with a thread too small to be seen?”
“Nothing is easier to one skilled in magic,” answered the hero. And thereupon he picked up a golden hair which the maiden had let fall, and with a blunted knife he split it into halves and quarters. Then from a bird’s nest on the side of the cliff he drew up an egg with a snare too fine for eyes to see.
“Now I have done what you wished,” he said. “Come and sit in my birchwood sledge. [[18]]Swiftly will we speed to Hero Land, and great honor shall be yours, for you shall be a minstrel’s queen.”
“Not yet, not yet, O matchless hero,” she answered, still laughing. “Let me see some more of your wonderful magic. Split this cliff of sandstone with your bare fingers. Then cut a whipstock from the ice in the gorge below you and leave no splinter.”