x.—The Origin of the Wolf.
(a.)
O great hungry wolf, excessively fat 'dog'!
I know thy stock, I know, sly brute, thine origin.
A country girl, a dry-land lass, was travelling on her way,
Trod over swamps, trod over lands, trod over sandy heaths,
Trod over places trod before, trod over quite untrodden ground.
She plucked flowers from withered grass—pellicles from tufts of grass,
Wound them about her winding-cloth—into her tattered head-attire.
At last she sat upon a stone at a verdant thicket's edge.
There she combed her locks—she brushed her hair,
She caused her pearls to rattle—her golden ornaments to clink.
A pearl dropt down among the grass—a golden trinket with a crash,
From this the "crafty one" was born—the "hairy foot" was reared,
The "woolly tail" has thriven, the wolfish breed was bred.
(b.)
O everlasting "gad about", an evil son for all thy life,
Whence is thy stock, from what, "dread one", thine origin?
Is it from wind or from the sky—from a lake's deep eddy (F. navel)?
It's not from wind, not from the sky, not from a lake's deep eddy.
"Dread one," I know thine origin—thine upbringing, "horror of the land".
Syöjätär[1] spat on the waters—"defective shoulder"[2] on the waves,
