"Still I hardly comprehend it,
Do not comprehend the reason,
How thou, Hiisi, here hast wandered,
Why thou cam'st, thou evil creature,170
Thus to bite, and thus to torture,
Thus to eat, and thus to gnaw me.
Art thou some disease-created
Death that Jumala ordains me,
Or art thou another creature,
Fashioned and unloosed by others,
Hired beforehand to torment me,
Or hast thou been bribed with money?
"If thou art disease-created,
Death by Jumala ordained me,180
Then I trust in my Creator,
And to Jumala resign me;
For the good the Lord rejects not,
Nor does he destroy the righteous.
"If thou art another creature,
And an evil wrought by others,
Then thy race would I discover,
And the place where thou wast nurtured.
"Once before have ills assailed me,
Plagues from somewhere have attacked me,190
From the realms of mighty sorcerers,
From the meadows of the soothsayers,
And the homes of evil spirits,
And the plains where dwell the wizards,
From the dreary heaths of Kalma,
From beneath the firm earth's surface,
From the dwellings of the dead men,
From the realms of the departed,
From the loose earth heaped in hillocks,
From the regions of the landslips,200
From the loose and gravelly districts,
From the shaking sandy regions,
From the valleys deeply sunken,
From the moss-grown swampy districts,
From the marshes all unfrozen,
From the billows ever tossing,
From the stalls in Hiisi's forest,
From five gorges in the mountains,
From the slopes of copper mountains,
From their summits all of copper,210
From the ever-rustling pine-trees,
And the rustling of the fir-trees,
From the crowns of rotten pine-trees,
And the tops of rotten fir-trees,
From those spots where yelp the foxes,
Heaths where elk are chased on snowshoes,
From the bear's own rocky caverns,
From the caves where bears are lurking,
From the furthest bounds of Pohja,
From the distant realms of Lapland,220
From the wastes where grow no bushes,
From the lands unploughed for ever,
From the battle-fields extended,
From the slaughter-place of heroes,
From the fields where grass is rustling,
From the blood that there is smoking,
From the blue sea's watery surface,
From the open sea's broad surface,
From the black mud of the ocean,
From the depth of thousand fathoms,230
From the fiercely rushing torrents,
From the seething of the whirlpool,
And from Rutja's mighty cataract,
Where the waters rush most wildly,
From the further side of heaven,
Where the rainless clouds stretch furthest,
From the pathway of the spring-wind,
From the cradle of the tempests.
"From such regions hast thou journeyed
Thence hast thou proceeded, Torment,240
To my heart of evil guiltless,
To my belly likewise sinless,
To devour and to torment me,
And to bite me and to tear me?
"Pine away, O hound of Hiisi,
Dog of Manala the vilest,
O thou demon, quit my body,
Pest of earth, O quit my liver,
Let my heart be undevoured,
Leave thou, too, my spleen uninjured,250
Make no stoppage in my belly,
And my lungs forbear to traverse,
Do not pierce me through the navel,
And my loins forbear to injure,
And my backbone do not shatter,
Nor upon my sides torment me.
"If my strength as man should fail me,
Then will I invoke a greater,
Which shall rid me of the evil,
And shall drive away the horror.260
"From the earth I call the Earth-Queen,
From the fields, the Lord primeval,
From the earth I call all swordsmen,
From the sands the hero-horsemen,
Call them to my aid and succour,
To my help and aid I call them,
In the tortures that o'erwhelm me,
And amid this dreadful torment.
"If you do not heed their presence,
And you will not shrink before them,270
Come, O forest, with thy people,
Junipers, bring all your army.
Come, O pinewoods, with your household,
And thou pond with all thy children,
With their swords a hundred swordsmen,
And a thousand mail-clad heroes,
That they may assail this Hiisi,
And may overwhelm this Juutas!
"If you do not heed their presence,
And you will not shrink before them,280
Rise thou up, O Water-Mother,
Raise thy blue cap from the billows,
And thy soft robe from the waters,
From the ooze thy form of beauty,
For a powerless hero's rescue,
For a weakly man's protection,
Lest I should be eaten guiltless,
And without disease be slaughtered.