"But a grey pike hurried forward,
And the salmon-trout he swallowed.
When a little time passed over,
Fire-pain seized on the devourer,
Anguish came upon the swallower,
Grievous suffering on the eater.
"Up and down the fish swam turning,
Swam for one day and a second, 300
Past the cliffs where flock the seagulls,
And the rocks where sport the seamews,
To the points of capes a thousand,
Bays among a hundred islands.
Every cape made declaration,
Every island spoke in thiswise:
"'Nowhere in these sluggish waters,
In the narrow Lake of Alue,
Can the wretched fish be swallowed,
Or the hapless one may perish 310
In the pain of burning fire,
In the anguish of its glowing.'"
Then the aged Väinämöinen,
Secondly, smith Ilmarinen,
Wove a net of bast constructed,
Which from juniper they gathered,
Steeped it in the juice of willow,
And of sallow-bark they made it.
Väinämöinen, old and steadfast
Sent the women to the drag-net; 320
To the net there went the women,
Sisters came to draw the drag-net;
And he steered, and glided onward
Past the capes and round the islands,
To the clefts where flock the salmon,
And along the powan's island,
Where the red-brown reeds are waving,
And among the beauteous rushes.
Eager now to make a capture,
Then he cast the net and sunk it, 330
But he cast the net out twisted,
And in wrong direction drew it,
And the fish they could not capture,
Though with eagerness they laboured.
In the water went the brothers,
To the net the men proceeded,
And they swung it and they pushed it,
And they pulled it and they dragged it,
Through the deeps, and rocky places,
Drew it o'er Kalevala's shingle; 340
But the fish they could not capture;
Not the fish so greatly needed.
Came the grey pike never near them,
Neither on the placid water,
Nor upon its ample surface;
Fish are small, and nets not many.
Now the fish were all complaining;
Said one pike unto another,
And the powan asked the ide-fish,
And one salmon asked another: 350
"Can the famous men have perished,
Perished Kaleva's great children,
They who drag the net of linen,
And of yarn have made the fish-net,
With long poles who beat the water,
With long sticks who move the waters?"
Old and famous Väinämöinen
Answered in the words which follow:
"No, the heroes have not perished,
Kaleva's great race has died not, 360
When one dies, is born another,
And the best of staves they carry,
Longer sticks to sound the water,
And their nets are twice as fearful."