Louhi was terribly alarmed at this, so she flew off to Pohjola and released the Sun and Moon from prison immediately, and sent them up to their places in the heavens. Then the silver sunlight and the golden moonlight returned once more to Kalevala, and Ilmarinen, and Wainamoinen, and all the people offered up a prayer that they might never again be deprived of the blessed Sun and Moon.
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'It would have served old Louhi right if Ilmarinen had made a steel collar and put it round her neck,' said Mimi. 'But I'm so glad that Wainamoinen always got the best of it,' she added.
'There was one time when he was defeated, however,' said Father Mikko, 'and now I shall tell it you. It is the last story, and is about Wainamoinen's departure from Kalevala.' So he began.
MARIATTA AND WAINAMOINEN'S DEPARTURE
THERE lived a fair and lovely maiden in Kalevala, called Mariatta. She was the loveliest and purest of virgins, and tended her parents' flocks upon the mountain sides. Here one day, as she was watching the sheep, she heard a voice calling to her, and on looking round she found that it was a bright red berry calling to her, and asking her to pluck it. Mariatta did not know that this was a magic berry, so she picked it and put it to her lips to eat it. But the berry rolled from her lips down into her bosom, and said to her: 'Thou shalt have a son, and he shall become a mighty man and drive forth the old magician Wainamoinen.'
Then Mariatta took the flocks home and was so silent and still that her parents[p. 211] noticed it and asked her what was the matter. So she told them what had happened, but they grew angry and would not keep her in their house, for they did not believe the story about the berry.
Poor Mariatta was now obliged to wander about without a shelter from the cold winds. At length she sent a servant, who had remained faithful to her and had accompanied her, to a village of Pohjola to ask for shelter from an old man named Ruotus. The maid, Piltti, went to Ruotus and told him of Mariatta's hard lot, but Ruotus and his wife would not have her in their house, but only grudgingly consented to let her go to a stable in the forest, where the Fire-horse of Hisi was kept.