THE RAINBOW-MAIDEN
THE fair Rainbow-maiden, Louhi's daughter, sat upon a rainbow in the heavens, and was clad in the most splendid dress of gold and silver. She was busy weaving golden webs of wonderful beauty, using a shuttle of gold and a silver weaving-comb.
As Wainamoinen came swiftly along the way which led from the dark and dismal Northland to the plains of Kalevala, before he had gone far on his way he heard in the sky above him the humming of the Rainbow-maiden's loom. Without thinking of old Louhi's warning, he looked up and beheld the maiden seated on the gorgeous rainbow weaving beauteous cloths. No sooner had he seen the lovely maiden than he stopped, and calling to her asked her to come to his sledge.[p. 42]
The Rainbow-maiden replied: 'Tell me what thou wishest of me.'
'Thou shalt come with me,' Wainamoinen replied, 'to bake me honey-biscuit, to fill my cup with foaming beer, to sing beside my table, to be a queen within my home in the land of Kalevala.'
But the maiden replied: 'Yesterday I went at twilight to the flowery meadows. There I heard a thrush singing, and I asked him, "Tell me, pretty song-bird, how shall I live most happily, as a maiden in my father's home or as a wife by my husband's side?" And the bird sang in reply, "The summer days are bright and warm, and so is a maiden's freedom; the winter is cold and dark, and so are the lives of married women. They are like dogs chained in a kennel, no favours are given to wives."'
But Wainamoinen answered the maiden: 'The thrush sings only nonsense. Maidens are treated like little children, but wives are like queens. Come to my sledge, O maiden, for I am not the least among heroes, nor am I ignorant of magic. Come, and I will make thee my wife and queen in Kalevala.'
Then the Rainbow-maiden promised to be his wife if he would split a golden hair with a knife that had no edge, and take a bird's egg from the nest with a snare that no one could see. Wainamoinen did both these things, and then begged her to come to[p. 43] his sledge, for he had done what she asked.
But she set another task for him, telling him she would marry him if he could peel a block of sandstone and cut a whip-handle from ice without making a single splinter. And Wainamoinen did both these things, but still the maiden refused to go until he had performed a third task. This was to make from the splinters of her distaff a little ship, and to launch it into the water without touching it.