“I want no golden maiden!” cried the Minstrel half angrily, sternly. “For what is gold without sense, without soul? I have heard of young fools who wedded silly maidens, brainless women, soulless ladies, just for gold. But think you that one in my position would stoop to such folly?”
“I know that you are wise, my brother,” said the Smith, “and you are the master of all magic. Perhaps you might endow this Golden Maiden with sense, with warm blood, with a noble soul.”
“Jumala alone has that power,” answered Wainamoinen, “and to Jumala let us give all praise. Carry this image back to your smithy, thrust the Golden Maiden into your furnace, and then you may forge from her all sorts of objects, beautiful, useful, precious. For never will your Maid of Beauty return from Tuonela to dwell in a body so base and worthless.” [[291]]
Sorrowfully, regretfully, Ilmarinen obeyed. Back to his smithy he carried the golden image; he thrust it into his furnace; he watched it melt and disappear in the terrible heat. Then he turned himself about and walked out silently into the darkness. And for many a sad day the people of Wainola sought him in vain and then mourned him as dead. [[292]]
CHAPTER XXXI
THE FAMINE
Sad were the days and joyless were the months in the Land of Heroes. The sky was cloudless and gray and the ground was parched and dry for long lack of rain. In the fields the crops failed and the cattle died. In the forest there was no game for the huntsmen. In the sea the fishes had fled to other waters, leaving the fishermen to toil in vain. In Wainola the children were crying for food and the men and women were sitting on their doorsteps, silent, with stony faces, hopeless, helpless, despairing.
Then one day a little boat came creeping into the harbor with but one man on board. Many of the people saw the lone sailor as he moored his vessel to the shore, but none had the courage to go and meet him. He walked slowly up the deserted pathway to the village, looking at the barren fields and the fruitless trees, the empty barns and the gloomy houses, the many [[293]]signs of poverty and distress. His eyes wandered onward to the ruined farmhouse, and past it to the smokeless smithy which had once been the joy and the pride of the hero, Ilmarinen.
“Ah, me! Can this be Wainola, the village once so happy and prosperous?” he said to himself. “Can this be the smithy, can this be the home which echoed to the merry sounds of love and peace?”