"It is a very expensive thing to get married," she continued, "and my son had to give many presents to the Appi (father-in-law), Anoppi (mother-in-law), Morsianpiiat (bridesmaids), Sulhasrengit (groomsmen), etc."
Knowing the poverty of the place and the distance from a town where goods could be purchased, we enquired the sort of presents he gave.
"To all the bridesmaids," she said, "he gave Sukat (stockings), that being the fashion of the country, to the groomsmen he gave paita (shirts), to his mother-in-law, the Anoppi, he gave vaatteet (dress), and to the Appi he gave a vyö (belt). Then to various other friends he distributed huivit (head handkerchiefs)," and altogether the wedding became a very serious drain on the family resources.
"But oh! it was a lovely time," she exclaimed rapturously. "A wedding is a splendid thing. We had a feast all that day and the next day, and then the priest came and they were married."
"Did many friends come to the wedding?" we ventured to ask.
"Oh yes, certainly, every one we knew came from miles round. Some brought a can of milk, and some brought corn brandy, and others brought gröt (porridge), and Järvinen had been to Iisalmi, so he brought back with him some white bread. Ay, it was a grand feast," and she rubbed her hands again and again, and positively smacked her lips at the recollection of the festival. "We danced, and ate, and sang, and made merry for two days, and then we all walked with my son and his bride to that little torp on the other side of the wood, and left them there, where they have lived ever since."
"Do you generally stay long in the same house in Finland?"
"Of course," she replied, "I came here when I was a bride, and I shall never leave it till I am a corpse."
This led to her telling us of the last funeral in the neighbourhood. A man died, and, according to custom, he was laid out in an outhouse. The coffin, made by a peasant friend, was brought on a sledge, and, it being March with snow on the ground—"to the rumble of a snow sledge swiftly bounding," as they say in Kalevala. The corpse on the fourth day was laid in the coffin, and placed in front of the house door. All the friends and relatives arrived for the final farewell. Each in turn went up to the dead man; the relations kissed him (it will be remembered the royal party kissed the corpse of the late Tzar before his funeral in the Fortress Church at St. Petersburg), and his friends all shook him by the hand. Then the coffin was screwed down, laid across a pony's back, to which it was securely strapped, and away they all trudged to the cemetery to bury their friend.
She went on to tell us of a curious old fashion in Finland, not altogether extinct. During the time that a corpse is being laid out and washed, professional women are engaged to come and sing "the corpse song." This is a weird melancholy chant, joined in by the relations as far as they are able, but chiefly undertaken by the paid singers. This confirmed what two of the Runo singers at Sordavala had told us, that they were often hired out to perform this lament, and, as we were much interested in such a quaint old custom, we asked them at the time if they would repeat it for us. They seemed delighted. The two women stood up opposite one another, and each holding her handkerchief over her eyes, rolled herself backwards and forwards, slowly singing the melancholy dirge the while. They had a perfect fund of song these Runo women, of whom our friend at the Savupirtti constantly reminded us; we told her that they had recited how Wäinämöinen had made himself a Kantele out of the head of a pike, and how he had played upon it so beautifully that the tears had welled to his own eyes until they began to flow, and as his tears fell into the sea the drops turned into beautiful pearls.