Finnish Legends for English Children

by R. Eivind

Next she questioned the Sun, and he was kinder than the rest, and told her how her son had died in the gloomy river Tuoni.

Then she hastened to Ilmarinen, the wondrous smith, and bade him make a huge rake for her out of copper, with teeth a hundred fathoms long and the handle five hundred fathoms. Ilmarinen quickly forged a magic rake, and she hurried off with it to the gloomy river Tuoni, praying as she went: 'O Sun, whom Ukko hath created, shine for me now with magic power into the kingdom of death, into dark Manala, and lull all the evil spirits there to sleep.'

The Sun came and sat upon a birch-tree near the river of Tuoni, and shone upon the Deathland, Tuonela, until all the spirits fell asleep. Then he rose, and hovering over[p. 80] them, warmed them into a yet deeper slumber, and then hurried back to his place in the sky.

Meanwhile Lemminkainen's mother had raked a long time in the coal-black river, but could find nothing. Then she waded in deeper and deeper, until she could reach into the deepest caverns with her rake. First, she found his jacket, and then the rest of his clothing; and finally, the third time she swept her rake along, it brought up Lemminkainen's body, but the hands and arms and head were still missing. Still she went on with her search, and at length all the pieces were gathered together.

When she had laid them beside each other, in their proper positions, she began to pray to the goddess of the veins, Suonetar, and the maiden of the ether, to come and join the different parts together, and to sew up the wounds and make him whole. And then she prayed to the mighty Ukko to help them, and to heal every part that was wounded or bruised, to touch them with his magic touch, and restore Lemminkainen to life.

And Ukko did so, and Lemminkainen lived once more, but he was still blind and deaf and dumb. But his mother considered deeply how she might restore these senses to him, and at length she called the little bee to her, and bade it go out and[p. 81] collect honey from the healing plants in the meadows. So the bee flew away and returned very soon laden with honey from all the healing plants, and she anointed her son with this, but it only gave him his sight, and still left him deaf and dumb.

Again the mother sent off the bee, telling it to go across the seven oceans, and to alight on an enchanted isle in the eighth. There it would find magic honey to bring back. The bee did as it was told and found the magic honey-balm in tiny earthen vessels, and flew back with seven vessels in its arms and seven on each shoulder, all filled with the magic honey-balm. Lemminkainen's mother anointed him with this, and he could hear, but still remained speechless.

Then the mother bade the bee fly up to the seventh heaven and to bring down from thence the honey of Ukko's wisdom, which was so abundant there. When the bee declared that it could not fly so high, she told it the way and sent it off. So the bee flew up and up, and at the end of the first day it rested on the moon. At the end of the second day it reached the shoulders of the Great Bear, and on the third day it flew over the Great Bear's head and reached the seventh heaven of Ukko. There it found three golden kettles, and in the first was a balm that gave ease to the heart, and[p. 82] the balm in the second gave happiness, but the balm of the third kettle gave life. So the bee took some of the life-giving balm and hastened back to earth.

Then Lemminkainen's mother anointed him with this magic balm, speaking a magic spell as she rubbed him with it, and immediately he awoke, and his first words were: 'Truly I have been sleeping long, but yet my sleep was a sweet one, for I knew neither joy nor sorrow.'

When his mother asked how he had gone thither and who it was that had harmed him, he told her all—how Louhi had sent him for the swan, and how old Nasshut, the blind Northland shepherd, had sent the serpent against him and killed him, for he did not know the charm to cure the sting of serpents. Then his mother upbraided him for his ignorance, and told him how the serpent was born from the marrow of the duck and the brain of swallows, mixed with Suojatar's saliva, and she told him too what the spell was to use against them. Thus his mother brought him back to life and health, and he was wiser and handsomer than ever, but still he was downhearted.