You, who are reading this story of Sampo Lappelil, did you ever sing: "Run, my brave reindeer"? Do you know the beautiful songs of the dear, good Bishop Franzén, whom all Sweden and all Finland love, and have you ever seen the title-page of the fourth volume of his songs? There you can see a Lapp boy driving with his reindeer over the snow, and that is just Sampo Lappelil. So he sat and sang to himself:
"So short is the day,
The road is so long,
Oh! hark to my song:
Let us hurry away!
The wolf pack lives here,
Rest not, little deer!"
As he sang he saw in the dark the wolves running like gray dogs around the pulk, and barking after the reindeer; but he did not mind that; he knew that no wolf could run as fast as his swift reindeer. Ha, how they went over stones and hills! The wind whistled in their ears! Sampo Lappelil only rushed on. The reindeer's hoofs snapped, and the moon in the sky raced with him, and the high mountains seemed to rebound, but Sampo Lappelil only rushed on. It was pleasant to drive; he thought of nothing else. Then it happened that in a sudden turn over a hill, the pulk upset and Sampo fell out and was left lying in a snow-drift.
But the reindeer did not notice that; it thought that he still sat in the pulk, and so ran on, and Sampo had got his mouth so full of snow that he could not call. There he lay, like a lemming that had lost a foot, in the dark night, in the midst of the desolate wilderness where no one lived for many miles around.
SAMPO WAS LEFT LYING IN A SNOW-DRIFT.
Sampo was frightened at first—that you cannot wonder at. He worked himself out of the snow, and found he was not hurt in the least, but what good would that do? As far as he could see in the pale moonlight, there were only snow-drifts and snow-fields and high mountains. But one mountain reached high above all the others, and Sampo guessed that he was now near Rastekais. Here lived the horrible mountain king, who ate a reindeer in one mouthful, and swallowed boys like gnats! Now Sampo Lappelil grew frightened indeed. Ah! how gladly would he have been at home with his father and mother in the warm hut. But how should he get there? Would not the mountain king come and swallow him with his trousers and mittens, as if he were but a poor little gnat?
Well, there sat Sampo Lappelil in the snow and the dark, on Lapland's barren mountain. It was so strange, so frightful to see the high black shadow of Rastekais, where the mountain king lived! But it did not help him to sit there and cry, for his tears froze in a moment, and ran like peas down on his furry reindeer-skin jacket. So Sampo got up from the snow-drift to run himself warm.
"If I stand here I shall freeze," said he to himself. "No, rather will I go to the mountain king. If he eat me, then he will eat me. But I will tell him that it would be better that he should eat the wolves here on the mountain; they are fatter than I, and he will have less trouble with their skin than he would with my furs."