“Do not make her cry under the rod or under the stick; teach her gently, in a soft voice, with closed doors.
“The first year by words, the second year by a frown, the third year by gently pressing her foot. Be patient!
“If, after three years, she is unwilling to learn, O husband, brother of my brothers, take a few slender reeds, take a little broom-sedge, chastise her, but with a rod covered with wool.
“If she still resists, well; cut a twig in the woods, a willow branch, not too stout, and hide it beneath your garment. Let no one guess what is going to happen.
“Above all, do not strike her hands nor her face; for her brother might well ask you: Has a wolf bitten her? Her father might well say to you: Has a bear torn her thus?”
Does not this Saga, with all its harsh allusions, breathe a most touching tenderness? It seems that the most delicate sentiments were preserved intact amid the coarsest manners and the most violent passions. What was your name, O naïve muse of Finland, who inspired the good hostess of Pohjola? Were you not perhaps a daughter of those beautiful Indian gandharvas, who said,—
“The elephant is led by a rope, the horse by a bridle, and a woman by her heart.”
And does it not remind us of our humble and simple-minded neighbors, when we hear how this Eternal Blacksmith, this first-class god who has made heaven and earth, who buys a wife and beats her, expresses his fear of the reproaches of his brother-in-law and his father-in-law?
After this pause we must go on describing the other armies of gods who had hastened to the banks of the Rhine in order to resist a common enemy.
By the side of the heavenly representatives of Scythia and Sarmatia, of Prussia and Finland, we find other gods belonging to the different Slavonic races. But why should we repeat here a complete list of all this multitude of allies, whose curious names the most retentive memory could not possibly retain?