[ [91] ] Asking riddles of this kind was a common amusement in Northern Europe. Compare Prior's Danish Ballads, i. 185, 334.
[ [92] ] Baring-Gould ingeniously suggests that this country is Greenland, and that the Dog-men are Esquimaux, clad in furs, and riding in dog-sledges. The end of this canto is inconsequential, for the hero should have reached his goal during this voyage, not by a land-journey afterwards.
[ [93] ] Linda's bosom, now Revel.
[ [94] ] The bells of the dwarfs are often of great importance in Northern fairy mythology.
[ [95] ] This incident is common in Esthonian tales.
[ [96] ] This song will be included in a later section of the book.
[ [97] ] Some of the commentators regard this book as a palladium on which the independence of Esthonia depended; and the thoughtlessness of the Kalevide in parting with the book which contained the wisdom of his father as a sacrilegious action which precipitated his ruin.
[ [98] ] These are identified by the commentators with the Teutonic Knights of the Sword, who conquered Esthonia in the eleventh century.
[ [99] ] Here we have a reminiscence of the Giallar horn of Heimdall, and of the horn of Roland (or Orlando).
[ [100] ] Compare the much longer story in the 9th Runo of the Kalevala.