“O singer of Hero Land, why are you so sad?” asked the woman. “Have I not been kind to you? Why, then, do you weep and gaze towards the sea?”
“I weep for my own dear country; I am sick for my home,” answered the Minstrel. “I do not wish to remain in this Frozen Land. I am lonely and heart-broken.”
“Cheer up, cheer up!” said Dame Louhi, trying to look pleasant. “Beautiful Pohyola shall be your country. This comfortable house shall be your home. My fireside shall be your fireside, and my friends shall be your friends.”
But the Minstrel still wept.
“Stay here and be our honored guest,” continued the Mistress. “You shall sleep in the warmest corner, you shall sit at the head of our table. Good food we will give you—choice bacon, fresh salmon from the sea, white cakes of barley, hot from the oven. Stay with us and cheer us with your sweet songs.”
“Nay, nay!” moaned the sad Minstrel. “How can I sing in a strange land? My own country is the fairest; my own home is the dearest; my [[8]]own table is the sweetest. All that I can ever do in this Frozen Land is to sigh and weep; and I shall sigh and weep till my eyes are out and my voice is gone forever.”
“You are foolish,” then said the unlovely Mistress. “Pohyola is the fairest place in all the world, and you must learn to love it.”
The Minstrel still shook his head and sighed. All his thoughts were with his home land.
The summer passed swiftly, but to Wainamoinen the days were full of loneliness. He wandered over the silent meadows, he went out with the fishermen to catch salmon in the sea, he visited one place and another in the vast Frozen Land, vainly trying to forget his grief. And not once did he open his lips in song, for there was no music in his heart; and how shall a minstrel sing if his heart is empty?
At length Dame Louhi relented.