Then Wainamoinen took the pieces of her distaff and set to work. He took them to a mountain from which he got the iron for his work, and for three days he laboured with hatchet and hammer. But on the evening of the third day a wicked spirit, Lempo, caught his hatchet as he raised it up, and turned it as it fell, so that it hit a rock and broke in fragments, and one of the pieces flew into the magician's knee, and cut it, so that the blood poured out.
Then Wainamoinen began to sing a magic incantation to stop the blood from flowing, but his magic was powerless against the evil Lempo, and he could not stop the blood. Then he gathered certain herbs with wonderful powers, and put them on the wound, but still he could not heal it up, for Lempo's spell was too powerful for his magic. So he got into his sledge again, and drove off at a[p. 44] gallop to seek for help. Soon he came to a place where the road branched off in three directions. He chose the left-hand one, and galloped on till he reached a house. When he went to the door he found only a boy and a baby inside, and when he had told them what he wanted, the boy said, 'There is no one here that can help thee, but take the middle road, and perhaps thou wilt find help.'
So off he galloped to where the roads branched off, and then along the middle one to another house. There he found an old witch lying on the floor, but she gave him the same answer that the boy had done, and sent him to the right-hand road.
On this road he came to another cottage, where an old man with a long gray beard was sitting by the fire. And when Wainamoinen told him of his trouble, the old man replied, 'Greater things have been done by but three of the magic words; water has been turned to land, and land to water.' On hearing this answer Wainamoinen rose from his sledge and went into the cottage, and seated himself there. And all this time his knee was bleeding, so that the blood was enough to fill seven huge birchen pots.
Then the old man asked him who he was, and bade him sing to him the origin[4] of the[p. 45] iron that had wounded him so, and Wainamoinen related the following story of how iron was first made:
[4] For they believed that a magic song that told the origin of any trouble would also cure it.
Long ago after there were air and water, fire was born, and after the fire came iron. Ukko, the creator, rubbed his hands upon his left knee, and there arose thence three lovely maidens, who were the mothers of iron and steel. These three maidens walked forth on the clouds, and from their bosoms ran the milk of iron, down unto the clouds and thence down upon the earth. Ukko's eldest daughter cast black milk over the river-beds, and the second cast white milk over the hills and mountains, and the third red milk over the lakes and oceans; and from the black milk grew the soft black iron-ore; from the white milk the lighter-coloured ore; and from the red milk the brittle red iron-ore.
After the iron had lain in peace for a while, Fire came to visit his brother Iron and tried to eat him up. Then Iron ran from him and took refuge in the swamps and marshes, and that is how we now find iron-ore hidden in the marshes.
Then was born the great smith, Ilmarinen, and the next morning after he was born he built his smithy on a hill near the marshland. There he found the hidden iron-ore, and carried it to his smithy and put it in the furnace to be smelted. And Ilmarinen had[p. 46] not blown more than three strokes of the bellows before the iron began to grow soft as dough. But then Iron cried out to him, 'Take me from this furnace, Ilmarinen, save me from this cruel torture!' for the heat of the fire had grown unbearable.
'Thou art not hurt, but only a little frightened,' Ilmarinen replied; 'but I will take thee out, and thou shalt be a great warrior and slay many heroes.'