These two stories took Antero's fancy, and he begged that 'Pappa Mikko would tell about some more times when they had good things to eat.'
But Father Mikko said: 'People can't be eating all the time, Antero, and I think the others would rather hear about what Lemminkainen did, when he heard of the feast and was not invited himself.'
Mimi cried 'Yes, yes!' and so the old man began.
THE ORIGIN OF THE SERPENT
AS Lemminkainen was ploughing his fields one day, he heard the noise of sledges as if a vast number of people were on their way past. At once he guessed the reason, for they were the guests going to Ilmarinen's wedding, while he alone had not been invited. Then his face turned pale with anger, and he left his ploughing and hastened off to his house. When he arrived there, he asked his mother to give him a hearty meal, and after that he went to the bath-house and after the bath put on his finest garments, as if going to a feast.
His mother asked him where he was going and he told her that he was bound for the great feast that Louhi had prepared. But his mother tried to keep him from going, telling him that they did not want him there, or else they would have invited[p. 125] him, but he answered: 'This sword with its sharp edges constantly reminds me that I am needed in distant Pohjola.' His mother spoke again, saying: 'Do not go, my dear son, for Death will meet thee thrice upon the way.' Lemminkainen replied that he did not fear Death, but would overcome him, but at the same time asked his mother what the first danger would be.
'When thou hast travelled for one day,' she replied, 'thou wilt come to a stream of fire, with a fiery cataract, and in the fire-fall a rock, and on the rock a fiery hill, and on its top an eagle made of flames, who devours all that approach him.'
Lemminkainen answered that he would easily pass this danger, and asked to know the second. His mother told him: 'When thou hast travelled two days, thou wilt come to a fiery pit filled with red-hot stones, and no one has ever been able to pass over it.'