“All that may be true,” said the Maid of Beauty, “but your cuckoo is not my cuckoo, and so how could I welcome it in the springtime? All things in Wainola would be strangers to me, while all things in Pohyola are friends. The North Country, the Frozen Land as you call it, would be very lonely if I were to leave it; the meadows would be joyless, the hills would be forlorn, the shores would be desolate. Were I not here to paint the rainbow, the storm clouds would never vanish. Were I not here to note the change of seasons, the songbirds would surely forget to come, the flowers would neglect to bloom, the cranberries would perish ungathered. No, Ilmarinen, I must not go with you. You are skilful, you are wise, you are brave, you are the prince of wizards and of smiths—but I love my native land. Say no more; I will not go with you.”
The Smith was speechless; his tongue was motionless, and he could not make reply. He [[101]]turned slowly away, and with head bowed down and cap pulled over his eyes, he sought his favorite place by the side of the smouldering hearth-fire.
All day he sat there, pondering, wondering how now by any makeshift he could escape from Pohyola and return to his native land. The longer he thought, the larger his troubles appeared. He had no boat to sail by sea, no sledge nor reindeer to travel by land, no money in his purse, no knowledge of the road. Would not magic avail him? Could he not call upon the winds to carry him, as they had once done against his will? Alas, no! All his magic lore, all his magic power, had been exhausted in the forging of the Sampo; he was utterly bankrupt.
While he sat thus, homesick, disappointed, and forlorn, Dame Louhi came suddenly into the hall. She was white with flour and laden with silver, and she wore a look of triumph on her grim and unlovely face.
“Ha! forger of the Sampo!” she cried. “Why do you sit here moping day after day? What ails you—you, who hammered out the sky and set the stars in their places—you, the prince of wizards, the king of boasters?” [[102]]
Ilmarinen groaned and pulled his cap still lower over his eyebrows; but he answered not a word.
The Mistress went on with her bantering; she laid salt on the poor man’s wounds and briskly rubbed it in. “Why do you groan so like an ice-floe breaking up at the end of winter? Why do you weep salt tears, extinguishing the fire on my hearth? Have you the toothache, ear-ache, heartache, stomach-ache? Did you eat too much at dinner? Surely, the prince of wizards ought to curb his appetite.”
The Smith’s heart was filled with anger; his brain burned, his cheeks were flushed with shame. Much had he suffered from this woman’s greed and cunning; painfully was he stung by her bitter words. Yet he answered her with becoming gentleness—for was she not the mother of the Maid of Beauty?
“I have no ache nor bodily pain,” he said; “but I am sick of this wretched country, this Frozen Land. I am sick of its mists, of its storms, of its long nights and its cheerless days. And, most of all, I am sick of its thankless people.”
“Ah! I understand,” answered the woman; [[103]]and she closed her toothless jaws tightly, restraining her anger. “In other words, you are homesick; your heart is filled with longing for your own country and your own fireside.”