Thus, all through the wintry weather, Ilmarinen dispensed wisdom to the inquiring men who desired it, and there was no question which [[76]]he could not answer, no want which he could not satisfy. And at length, when every mind was filled with knowledge, and every stomach with food from Dame Louhi’s bountiful stores, the visitors departed. Singly, or by twos and threes, in sledges, on snowshoes, on foot, they returned to their respective haunts and homes. “We have seen him, and there is nothing more to be desired,” they said.
And now the snow was melting, the grass was green on the hillsides, the reeds were springing up in the marshes, and the birds were twittering under the eaves.
Forthwith, brave Ilmarinen sallied out to find a smithy. Ten men, willing and strong, followed him, prepared to do any sort of labor, to undergo any sort of privation. Long did he seek, and far and wide did he travel, and many were the vain inquiries which he made; but nowhere in all the Frozen Land could he discover forge or chimney, bellows or tongs, anvil or hammer. In that dismal, snowy country men had never needed iron; they had no tools save tools of fish-bone; they had no weapons save sticks and stones and fists and feet. What wonder, then, that they had no smithy? [[77]]
Some men would have given up in despair, but not so Ilmarinen. “Women may lose their courage,” he said; “fools may give up a task because it is hard; but heroes persevere, wizards and smiths conquer.”
So, still followed by his serving-men, he set out to find a fit place in which to build a smithy. For nine days he sought—yes, for ten long summer days he wandered over the brown meadows and among the gloomy hills of Pohyola. At length, deep in the silent forest he found a great stone all streaked and striped in colors of the rainbow.
“This is the place,” he said, never doubting; and he gave orders to build his smithy there.
The first day’s task was to build the furnace and the forge with yawning mouth and towering chimney. On the second day he framed the bellows and covered it with stout reindeer hide. On the third he set up his anvil, a block of hardest granite heavy for ten men to roll.
Then he made his tools. For a hammer he took a smooth stone from the brook; for tongs he cut a green sapling and bent it in the middle, forcing the two ends together. Thus his smithy was completed; but how was he to forge the [[78]]magic Sampo? With what was he to form its iridescent lid?
“Only weaklings say, ‘I cannot,’ ” said he. “Only want-wits say, ‘It is too difficult.’ Heroes never give up. Nothing is impossible to a true smith.”
Then from a secret pocket he drew the things most needful for his forging. He counted them over, giving to each a magic number—two tips of white swan feathers, a bottle of milk from a young red heifer, a grain of barley grown in a land beyond the sea, and the fleece of a lambkin not one day old. These he mixed in a magic caldron, throwing upon them many bits of precious metals, with strange wild herbs and rank poisons and sweet honey dew. And all the while, he kept muttering harshly the spells and charms which none but smiths and skilful wizards understand.