Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/32

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26
Magic Songs of the Finns.

From there was he let down to earth—into a honeyed thickets' edge,
To be well nursed by Hongatar[1]—well rocked by Tuometar,[2]
Close to a stunted fir-tree root, under an aspen's branching head,
At the edge of "Forest-castle",[3] at the 'golden' forest home.
Then was "broadforehead" christened, the "dark grey-haired one" was baptised
Upon a honeyed knoll,
At the mouth of Sara-joki[4] sound, in the arms of Pohja's[5] daughter.
There he swore his oath on the knee of Pohja's dame,
In the presence of the well-known[6] God, under the Blessed's beard,
To do the innocent no harm—no injury to harmless folk,
To walk in summer properly, to trudge along beseemingly,
To live a life of joyousness
Upon a swamp, on rising knolls, at the farthest end of rutting
[v. playing] heaths,
To rove shoeless in summer—in autumn stockingless,
In the worst season to abide—pass the winter's cold in laziness
Within an oaken room near "Firbranch castle's"[3] edge,
Beside a handsome fir-tree's root (F. shoe), in a recess of junipers.


(c.)

A maiden walked along the air's edge—a girl along the 'navel' of the sky,
Along the outline of a cloud, along the heaven's boundary,
In stockings of a bluish hue, in shoes with ornamented heels,
A wool-box in her hand, under her arm a hair-filled pouch.
She flung the wool on the waters—cast the hair upon the waves,
Upon the clear and open sea, on the illimitable waves.


  1. Fir's daughter, or Mrs. Fir.
  2. Wild bird-cherry's (Primus padus) daughter.
  3. 3.0 3.1 =Metsola, the Forest home. "Golden", as an attribute of the forest, means "abounding in game".
  4. Sedge River.
  5. Pohja means the north. Pohjola, the northern home.
  6. Or manifest.