RUNE XXXIV.
KULLERVO FINDS HIS TRIBE-FOLK.
Kullerwoinen, young magician,
In his beauteous, golden ringlets,
In his magic shoes of deer-skin,
Left the home of Ilmarinen
Wandered forth upon his journey,
Ere the blacksmith heard the tidings
Of the cruel death and torture
Of his wife and joy-companion,
Lest a bloody fight should follow.
Kullerwoinen left the smithy,
Blowing on his magic bugle,
Joyful left the lands of Ilma,
Blowing blithely on the heather,
Made the distant hills re-echo,
Made the swamps and mountains tremble,
Made the heather-blossoms answer
To the music of his cow-horn,
In its wild reverberations,
To the magic of his playing.
Songs were heard within the smithy,
And the blacksmith stopped and listened,
Hastened to the door and window,
Hastened to the open court-yard,
If perchance he might discover
What was playing on the heather,
What was sounding through the forest.
Quick he learned the cruel story,
Learned the cause of the rejoicing,
Saw the hostess dead before him,
Knew his beauteous wife had perished,
Saw the lifeless form extended,
In the court-yard of his dwelling.
Thereupon the metal-artist
Fell to bitter tears and wailings,
Wept through all the dreary night-time,
Deep the grief that settled o’er him,
Black as night his darkened future,
Could not stay his tears of sorrow.
Kullerwoinen hastened onward,
Straying, roaming, hither, thither,
Wandered on through field and forest,
O’er the Hisi-plains and woodlands.
When the darkness settled o’er him,
When the bird of night was flitting,
Sat the fatherless at evening,
The forsaken sat and rested
On a hillock of the forest.
Thus he murmured, heavy-hearted:
“Why was I, alas! created,
Why was I so ill-begotten,
Since for months and years I wander,
Lost among the ether-spaces?
Others have their homes to dwell in,
Others hasten to their firesides
As the evening gathers round them:
But my home is in the forest,
And my bed upon the heather,
And my bath-room is the rain-cloud.
“Never didst thou, God of mercy,
Never in the course of ages,
Give an infant birth unwisely;
Wherefore then was I created,
Fatherless to roam in ether,
Motherless and lone to wander?
Thou, O Ukko, art my father,
Thou hast given me form and feature;
As the sea-gull on the ocean,
As the duck upon the waters,
Shines the Sun upon the swallow,
Shines as bright upon the sparrow,
Gives the joy-birds song and gladness,
Does not shine on me unhappy;
Nevermore will shine the sunlight,
Never will the moonlight glimmer
On this hapless son and orphan;
Do not know my hero-father,
Cannot tell who was my mother;
On the shore, perhaps the gray-duck
Left me in the sand to perish.
Young was I and small of stature,
When my mother left me orphaned;
Dead, my father and my mother,
Dead, my honored tribe of heroes;
Shoes they left me that are icy,
Stockings filled with frosts of ages,
Let me on the freezing ice-plains
Fall to perish in the rushes;
From the giddy heights of mountains
Let me tumble to destruction.
“O, thou wise and good Creator,
Why my birth and what my service?
I shall never fall and perish
On the ice-plains, in the marshes,
Never be a bridge in swamp-land,
Not while I have arms of virtue
That can serve my honored kindred!”
Then Kullervo thought to journey
To the village of Untamo,
To avenge his father’s murder,
To avenge his mother’s tortures,
And the troubles of his tribe-folk.
These the words of Kullerwoinen:
“Wait, yea wait, thou Untamoinen,
Thou destroyer of my people;
When I meet thee in the combat,
I will slay thee and thy kindred,
I will burn thy homes to ashes!”
Came a woman on the highway,
Dressed in blue, the aged mother,
To Kullervo spake as follows:
“Whither goest, Kullerwoinen,
Whither hastes the wayward hero?”
Kullerwoinen gave this answer:
“I have thought that I would journey
To the far-off land of strangers,
To the village of Untamo,
To avenge my father’s murder,
To avenge my mother’s tortures,
And the troubles of my tribe-folk.”
Thus the gray-haired woman answered:
“Surely thou dost rest in error,
For thy tribe has never perished,
And thy mother still is living
With thy father in the Northland,
Living with the old Kalervo.”
“O, thou ancient dame beloved,
Worthy mother of the woodlands,
Tell me where my father liveth,
Where my loving mother lingers!”
“Yonder lives thine aged father,
And thy loving mother with him,
On the farthest shore of Northland,
On the long-point of the fish-lake!”