Wainamoinen replied: 'Formerly I was honoured as a great singer and magician: I was called the "Singer of Kalevala," the wise Wainamoinen.'

Then Louhi said: 'Rise, O hero, from thy lowly couch among the willows, come with me to my home and there tell me the story of thy adventures.' So she took the starving hero into her boat and rowed him to the shore, and took him to her house. There she gave him food, and the warmth[p. 39] and rest and shelter soon restored to him all his strength. Then Louhi asked him to relate his adventures, and he told her all that had happened to him.

When he had finished Louhi said to him: 'Weep no more, Wainamoinen, for thou shalt be welcome in our homes, thou shalt live with us and eat our salmon and other fish.'

Wainamoinen thanked her for her kindness, but added: 'One's own country and table and home are the best and dearest. May the great god, Ukko, the Creator, grant that I may once more reach my dear home and country. It is better to drink clear water from a birchen cup in one's own home, than in foreign lands to drink the richest liquors from the golden beakers of strangers.'

Then Louhi asked him: 'What reward wilt thou give me, if I carry thee back to thy beloved home, to the plains of Kalevala?'

Wainamoinen asked her what reward she would consider sufficient, whether gold or silver treasures, but Louhi answered: 'I ask not for gold or silver, O wise Wainamoinen, but canst thou forge for me the magic Sampo, with its lid of many colours, the magic mill that grinds out flour on one side, and salt from another side, and turns out money from the third? I will give[p. 40] thee, too, my daughter, as a reward, to be thy wife and to care for thy home.'

But Wainamoinen answered sadly: 'I cannot forge for thee the magic Sampo, but take me to my country and I will send thee Ilmarinen, who will make it for thee, and wed thy lovely daughter. Ilmarinen is a wondrous smith; he it was who forged the heavens, and so perfectly did he do it that we cannot see a single mark of the hammer on them.'

Louhi replied: 'Only to him who can forge the magic Sampo for me will I give my daughter.' Then she harnessed up her sledge and put Wainamoinen in it and made him all ready for his journey home. And as he started off she spoke these words to him: 'Do not raise thy eyes to the heavens, do not look upward while the day lasts, before the evening star has risen, or a terrible misfortune will happen to you.'

Then Wainamoinen drove off, and his heart grew light as he left the dismal Northland behind him on his way to Kalevala.