This personage is generally chosen from among the intended bridegroom's best friends, as in the days of Kalevala, and usually is possessed of a ready tongue. The puhemies still plays a very important rôle, for not only does he ask for the girl's hand (while the suitor sits like a mute), but he is obliged to help at the wedding ceremony and feast, and also has to provide, from his own purse, brandy and coffee for all the guests.
After the proposal was accepted, our old friend told us there was an exchange of rings, her son got his bride such a splendid wide gold band—much wider than hers—and it was arranged that they would marry when the man had collected enough goods, and the girl had woven sufficient linen and stuffs to stock the little home.
"Of course," exclaimed the voluble old lady, "my son gave the kihlarahat."
"What is that?" we asked.
"Why, it is a sort of deposit given to the girl's father to show he really means to marry the girl. A cow, or something of that sort, denotes he is in earnest, and my son also gave money to the girl herself to buy things for their future household."
"How long were they engaged?"
"Two years—for we are poor, and it took that time to collect enough to get married. Ah, but the marriage was a grand thing, it was," and the old hag chuckled to herself at the remembrance.
All these things and many more the proud mother told us, till at last she became completely engrossed in the tale of her son's wedding. He was her only boy, and she talked of him and of his doings with as much pride as if he had been the greatest hero of this or any century. She informed us how, a month before the wedding, the young couple had gone to the pastor dressed in their best, the puhemies, of course, accompanying them, and there arranged to have the banns read three Sundays in the bride's district. We were struck by this strange resemblance to our own customs, and learnt that the publication of banns is quite universal in Finland.
"The wedding was here," she went on, warming to her narrative, "for, naturally, the wedding always takes place at the bridegroom's house."
Looking round at the extremely small two-roomed hovel, we wondered how it was possible to have läksiäiset or polterabend, as our German friends call the festival before the wedding, at this bridegroom's house, for the one little sitting-room and the one little bedroom combined did not cover a larger space of ground than an ordinary billiard table.