This was the ransom that Wainamoinen had been waiting for, for Aino was famous for her beauty and loveliness of character, and so he released poor Youkahainen and gave him back his sledge and everything just as it had been before. And when it was all ready Youkahainen jumped into it and drove off home without saying a word.
When he reached home he drove so carelessly that his sledge was broken to pieces against the gate-posts, and he left the broken sledge there and walked straight into the house with hanging head, and at[p. 19] first would not answer any of his family's questions. At length he said: 'Dearest mother, there is cause enough for my grief, for I have had to promise the aged Wainamoinen my dear sister Aino as his bride.' But his mother arose joyfully and clapped her hands and said: 'That is no reason to be sad, my dear son, for I have longed for many years that this very thing should happen—that Aino should have so brave and wise a husband as Wainamoinen.'
So the mother told the news to Aino, but when she heard it she wept for three whole days and nights and refused to be comforted, saying to her mother: 'Why should this great sorrow come to me, dear mother, for now I shall no longer be able to adorn my golden hair with jewels, but must hide it all beneath the ugly cap that wives have to wear. All the golden sunshine and the silver moonlight will go from my life.'
But her mother tried to comfort her by telling her that the sun and moon would shine even more brightly in her new home than in her old, and that Kalevala was a land of flowers.
·····
'I think Aino was very stupid not to want to leave that horrid Lapland,' said Mimi; 'but then I suppose she didn't know[p. 20] what a beautiful country ours is,' she added thoughtfully.
Here Antero, who only cared for the stories, mustered up enough courage to ask Pappa Mikko to go on, which the old man did at once.
AINO'S FATE
