“O master! Why may we not sing?” cried Ahti, always restless and in the way. “Before us is the Land of Heroes, and we have won the glorious Sampo. Let us sing and be glad.”
“Nay, nay,” again said Wainamoinen. “It is too early to rejoice. When we hear our own home doors creaking behind us, then will be the time to sing and rejoice. When we see the fire burning on our own hearth-stones, then we may be glad because of victory.” [[339]]
“Well, then,” answered the long-armed, thoughtless one, “I, at least, feel like rejoicing this very hour. If no one else will sing, I will. I will give you a song of my own composing.”
He stood in the stern beside the Minstrel. He turned his face toward the prow and pursed up his mouth to sing. His voice was hoarse, his tones were discordant, there was no music in his song. He opened his mouth till his beard wagged and his long chin trembled. He waved his arms and shouted—he shouted so loudly that the sound was heard far across the water. In many villages it was heard, alarming all the people and filling their hearts with terror.
By the long white shore a blue crane was wading, looking down to count his toes in the clear sea-water. Suddenly he heard the noise of Ahti’s singing—a noise most strange, most unlike any other that had ever broken the silence of the sea. The crane, alarmed, spread his wings and leaped upward. He screamed in terror and flew rapidly up, up to the sheltering sky. He flew rapidly and paused not till he had reached the distant shores of Pohyola. There below him he saw the fields and the meadows and the old familiar places where he [[340]]and his mate had oftentimes nested and reared their young. Then, to his great wonder, he saw all the people lying asleep on the ground and the mighty Mistress slumbering in their midst, her eyelids pinned together with magic needles.
This sight gave new alarm to the blue crane. His terror was too great to be described. He screamed, not once only, but ten times, loudly, harshly, terrifically. The noise awoke Dame Louhi the Mistress; it awoke all her slumbering people. They shook the sleep-needles from their eyes and looked around, dazed, bewildered, wondering what had happened to them. The armed men formed themselves in battle array, waiting for commands; the old men and the married women hastened to their homes, ashamed of their weakness; the children, too, sought their own firesides, for night was approaching.
Up rose Dame Louhi, angry and apprehensive. She saw that the Minstrel and his heroes had disappeared, and anxious forebodings filled her heart. She ran to her treasure-room; her chests of gold and silver had not been disturbed. She hastened to the barnyard; all her favorite cattle were there, not one was missing. She [[341]]looked into the barns; they had not been plundered, not an ear of corn had been taken.
“But the Sampo, the Sampo!” she cried. “It was the Sampo that the robbers demanded. Have they carried it away?”
Then came an old serving-man with trembling limbs and with tears in his eyes, who knelt in the dust before her and begged her mercy.
“Yes,” he said, “they have carried away the Sampo and its pictured lid. While we were all drowned in slumber they broke into the cavern beneath the copper mountain, they drew back the bolts and opened the mighty doors. Then they lifted the Sampo from its place and bore it away, but whither I cannot tell.”