When he hurried through the greenwood,
Or across the heath was hastening, 330
All the leaves called gaily to him,
And the heath was all rejoicing,
And the flowers breathed fragrance round him,
And the young shoots bowed before him.
Runo XLV.—The Pestilence in Kalevala
Argument
The Mistress of Pohjola sends terrible diseases to Kalevala (1-190). Väinämöinen heals the people by powerful incantations and unguents (191-362).
Louhi, Pohjola's old Mistress,
In her ears received the tidings
That in Väinölä it prospered,
And that Kalevala had flourished,
Through the fragments of the Sampo,
Fragments of the pictured cover.
Thereupon she grew most envious,
And for evermore reflected
On the death that she might fashion,
How she best might bring destruction 10
On the people in Väinölä,
And on Kalevala's whole people.
Then she prayed aloud to Ukko,
And she thus implored the Thunderer:
"Ukko, thou of Gods the highest,
Slay thou Kaleva's whole people,
Slay them with thy hail of iron,
With thy steely needles slay them,
Or by sickness let them perish,
Let the evil nation perish, 20
Let the men die in the farmyard,
On the cowshed floor the women."
Lived in Tuonela a blind maid,
Loviatar, an aged woman,
She the worst of Tuoni's daughters,
And of Mana's maids most hideous,
She, the source of every evil,
Origin of woes a thousand,
With a face of perfect blackness,
And a skin of hue most hideous. 30
Then this daughter black of Tuoni,
Ulappala's blind-eyed damsel,
Made her bed upon the pathway,
On the straw in evil country,
And her back she turned to windward,
Sideways to the bitter weather,
Backwards to the blast so freezing,
And the chilling winds of morning.