ornaments are sometimes very pretty, and the girls always sleep there in summer. There are other store-houses for food.” (A. M.)
121. According to Speke, Central African women are compelled to drink large quantities of milk, to make them inordinately fat, which is considered a great beauty.
206. Fuligala glacialis.
295. Prof. Krohn thinks the sea and not a lake is here intended.
308. This passage is hardly intelligible. “I have heard some people suggest that Aino perhaps took a birch branch to be used as a bath-whisk.” (A. M.)
377. There are many popular tales in Finnish relating to animals, especially the bear, wolf, and fox, but this is the only illustration of the true “beast-epos” in the Kalevala.
413. “The sauna, or bath-house, is always a separate building; and there Finnish people take extremely hot baths almost every evening.” (A. M.) It is also used for confinements.
RUNO V
220. Here a human mother, rather than Ilmatar, seems to be ascribed to Väinämöinen. Visits to parents’ graves for advice and assistance are common in Scandinavian and Esthonian literature. Commentators have also quoted the story of Achilles and Thetis, but this is hardly a parallel case.
RUNO VI
120. This passage is again inconsistent with the legend of Väinämöinen being the son of Ilmatar.
RUNO VII
19. The word used here is “poika,” which literally means a boy, or a son.
51, 52. The original admirably expresses the hovering motion of the bird:
Lenteleikse, liiteleikse,
Katseleikse, käänteleikse.
142. In the original “the song of a cock's child.”
177, 178. Weeping appears no more disgraceful to the heroes of the Kalevala than to those of the Iliad. Still, Väinämöinen not unfrequently plays a very undignified part when in difficulties.
241. Louhi recognized him, though he would not mention his name.
286. “Virsu is a shoe made of birch bark.” (A.M.)
311. It appears that the magic mill called a Sampo could only be forged by a competent smith from materials which Louhi alone possessed, and which, perhaps, she could not again procure. Otherwise
