The wolf began to laugh, for on Rastekais the wolves can laugh. "Don't imagine that, dear Sampo," said he; "I will be the first to stick my claws into you. You are a fine fat boy; I see that you have been fattened on reindeer's milk and reindeer cheese. You will taste very good for an early breakfast."
Sampo wondered if it would not be as well to jump down from the wolfs back immediately, but it was too late; they had come to the top of the mountain, and he saw a wonderful sight. There sat the great mountain king on his throne of sky-high rocks, looking far out over mountains and valleys into the dark night. On his head he wore a cap of white snow-clouds; his eyes were like the full moon when it rises over the woods, his nose like a mountain top, his mouth like a mountain cleft, his beard like long icicles; his arms were as thick as the thickest fir-tree, his hands were like pine branches, his legs were like coasting-hills in winter, and his great fur coat like a snow mountain. If you ask how any one could see the mountain king and his people in the middle of the night, then you must know that the snow cast a light upon everything, and that over the sky the most beautiful Northern Lights played.
Around the mountain king sat millions of gray mountain trolls and brownies, so small that when they ran on the frozen snow they left no more trace after them than a squirrel leaves. They had collected here from the farthest ends of the earth, from Nova Zembla and Spitsbergen and Greenland and Iceland—yes, from the North Pole itself, to worship the sun, as savages from fear worship the devil; for the trolls do not like the sun and would prefer that it should never rise again after it has once set behind the barren mountains. Farther away stood all the animals of Lapland in long close rows—a thousand and again a thousand bears, wolves, and lynxes, the good reindeer, the little lemming, and the lively reindeer-fleas; but the gnats had not been able to come—they were frozen to death.
All this Sampo Lappelil saw with wonder. He climbed down quietly from the master-wolf's back and hid himself behind a great stone to see what would happen.
The mountain king raised his high head so that the snow flew around him; and the beautiful Northern Lights stood like a halo about his forehead, and shot in long star-shaped, pale-red rays out over the blue night sky; there was a crackling and a roaring like that a forest fire makes when its flames leap up against the crowns of the pine-trees; now the Lights spread themselves out, now they drew together again; now the brightness was very dazzling, now it grew pale, then one gleam of light after another shot like a sudden shower out over the snow-covered mountain. This pleased the mountain king. He clapped his icy hands, and the echo from the mountains sounded like thunder, and the trolls whistled with joy, and the animals round about screamed with fear. This pleased the mountain king still more, so that he called out, loud, over the wilderness:
"So shall it be! So shall it be! Forever winter and forever night! That is what I like."
"Yes, so shall it be, so shall it be!" cried the trolls as loud as they could, for they all liked winter and night better than summer and sunshine.
But among the animals there arose a murmur of talking, for all the beasts of prey and the lemmings thought as the trolls did, while the reindeer and the other animals would have found no fault with the summer, if they had not suddenly happened to think of the gnats in Lapland. It was only the little reindeer-flea who really wanted the summer; he cried as loud as he could: "Your Majesty, we came here to wait for the sun!"
"Will you be quiet, you wretched insect!" growled the white bear, close beside it. "It is only an old custom that makes us collect together here. But it will be pleasant; the sun will stay away forever. The sun is put out! The sun is dead!"
"The sun is put out! The sun is dead!" murmured all the animals, and a shiver went through all nature.