Kalevala (Kirby 1907)/Runo 31
Runo XXXI.—Untamo and Kullervo
Argument
Untamo wages war against his brother Kalervo, overthrows Kalervo and his army, sparing only a single pregnant woman of the whole clan. She is carried away to Untamo's people, and gives birth to her son Kullervo (1-82). Kullervo resolves in his cradle to take revenge on Untamo, and Untamo attempts several times to put him to death, but without success (83-202). When Kullervo grows up, he spoils all his work, and therefore Untamo sells him as a slave to Ilmarinen (203-374).
’Twas a mother reared her chickens,
Large the flock of swans she nurtured;
By the hedge she placed the chickens,
Sent the swans into the river,
And an eagle came and scared them,
And a hawk that came dispersed them,
And a flying bird dispersed them.
One he carried to Carelia,
Into Russia bore the second,
In its home he left the third one.10
Whom the bird to Russia carried
Soon grew up into a merchant;
Whom he carried to Carelia,
Kalervo was called by others,
While the third at home remaining,
Bore the name of Untamoinen,
For his father’s lifelong anguish,
And his mother’s deep affliction.
Untamoinen laid his netting
Down in Kalervo’s fish-waters:20
Kalervoinen saw the netting,
In his bag he put the fishes.
Untamo of hasty temper
Then became both vexed and angry,
And his fingers turned to battle,
With his open palms he urged it,
Making strife for fishes’ entrails,
And for perch-fry made a quarrel.
Thus they fought and thus contended,
Neither overcame the other,30
And though one might smite the other,
He himself again was smitten.
At another time it happened,
On the next and third day after,
Kalervoinen oats was sowing,
Back of Untamoinen’s dwelling.
Sheep of Untamo most reckless
Browsed the oats of Kalervoinen,
Whereupon his dog ferocious
Tore the sheep of Untamoinen.40
Untamo began to threaten
Kalervo, his very brother;
Kalervo’s race vowed to slaughter,
Smite the great, and smite the little,
And to fall on all the people,
And their houses burn to ashes.
Men with swords in belt he mustered,
Weapons for their hands provided,
Little boys with spears in girdle,
Handsome youths who shouldered axes,50
And he marched to furious battle,
Thus to fight his very brother.
Kalervoinen’s son’s fair consort
Then was sitting near the window,
And she looked from out the window,
And she spoke the words which follow:
“Is it smoke I see arising,
Or a gloomy cloud that rises,
On the borders of the cornfields,
Just beyond the new-made pathway?”60
But no dark cloud there was rising,
Nor was smoke ascending thickly,
But ’twas Untamo’s assemblage
Marching onward to the battle.
On came Untamo’s assemblage,
In their belts their swords were hanging,
Kalervo’s folk overwhelming,
And his mighty race they slaughtered,
And they burned his house to ashes,
Like a level field they made it.70
Left of Kalervo’s folk only
But one girl, and she was pregnant;
Then did Untamo’s assemblage
Lead her homeward on their journey,
That she there might sweep the chamber,
And the floor might sweep from litter.
But a little time passed over,
When a little boy was born her,
From a most unhappy mother,
So by what name should they call him?80
Kullervo his mother called him,
Untamo, the Battle-hero.
Then the little boy they swaddled,
And the orphan child they rested
In the cradle made for rocking,
That it might be rocked to lull him.
So they rocked the child in cradle,
Rocked it till his hair was tossing,
Rocked him for one day, a second,
Rocked him on the third day likewise,90
When the boy began his kicking,
And he kicked and pushed about him,
Tore his swaddling clothes to pieces,
Freed himself from all his clothing,
Then he broke the lime-wood cradle,
All his rags he tore from off him.
And it seemed that he would prosper,
And become a man of mettle.
Untamola thought already
That when he was grown to manhood,100
He would grow both wise and mighty,
And become a famous hero,
As a servant worth a hundred,
Equal to a thousand servants.
Thus he grew for two and three months,
But already in the third month,
When a boy no more than knee-high,
He began to speak in thiswise:
“Presently when I am bigger,
And my body shall be stronger,110
I’ll avenge my father’s slaughter,
And my mother’s tears atone for.”
This was heard by Untamoinen,
And he spoke the words which follow:
“He will bring my race to ruin,
Kalervo reborn is in him.”
Thereupon the heroes pondered
And the old crones all considered
How to bring the boy to ruin,
So that death might come upon him.120
Then they put him in a barrel,
In a barrel did they thrust him,
And they pushed it to the water,
Pushed it out upon the billows.
Then they went to look about them,
After two nights, after three nights,
If the boy had sunk in water,
Or had perished in the barrel.
In the waves he was not sunken,
Nor had perished in the barrel,130
He had ’scaped from out the barrel,
And upon the waves was sitting,
In his hand a rod of copper,
At the end a line all silken,
And for lake-fish he was fishing,
As he floated on the water.
There was water in the lakelet,
Which perchance might fill two ladles,
Or if more exactly measured,
Partly was a third filled also.140
Untamo again reflected,
“How can we o’ercome the infant,
That destruction come upon him,
And that death may overtake him?”
Then he bade his servants gather
First a large supply of birch-trees,
Pine-trees with their hundred needles,
Trees from which the pitch was oozing,
For the burning of the infant,
And for Kullervo’s destruction.150
So they gathered and collected
First a large supply of birch-trees,
Pine-trees with their hundred needles,
Trees from which the pitch was oozing,
And of bark a thousand sledgefuls,
Ash-trees, long a hundred fathoms.
Fire beneath the wood they kindled,
And the pyre began to crackle,
And the boy they cast upon it,
’Mid the glowing fire they cast him.160
Burned the fire a day, a second,
Burning likewise on the third day,
When they went to look about them.
Knee-deep sat the boy in ashes,
In the embers to his elbows.
In his hand he held the coal-rake,
And was stirring up the fire,
And he raked the coals together.
Not a hair was singed upon him,
Not a lock was even tangled.170
Then did Untamo grow angry.
“Where then can I place the infant,
That we bring him to destruction,
And that death may overtake him?”
So upon a tree they hanged him,
Strung him up upon an oak-tree.
Two nights and a third passed over,
And upon the dawn thereafter,
Untamo again reflected:
“Time it is to look around us,180
Whether Kullervo has fallen,
Or is dead upon the gallows.”
Then he sent a servant forward,
Back he came, and thus reported:
“Kullervo not yet has perished,
Nor has died upon the gallows.
Pictures on the tree he’s carving,
In his hands he holds a graver.
All the tree is filled with pictures,
All the oak-tree filled with carvings;190
Here are men, and here are sword-blades,
And the spears are leaning by them.”
Where should Untamo seek aidance,
’Gainst this boy, the most unhappy?
Whatsoever deaths he planned him,
Or he planned for his destruction,
In the jaws of death he fell not,
Nor could he be brought to ruin.
And at length he grew full weary
Of his efforts to destroy him,200
So he reared up Kullervoinen
As a slave beneath his orders.
Thereupon said Untamoinen,
And he spoke the words which follow:
“If you live as it is fitting,
Always acting as is proper,
In my house I will retain you,
And the work of servants give you.
I will pay you wages for it,
As I think that you deserve it,210
For your waist a pretty girdle,
Or upon your ear a buffet.”
So when Kullervo was taller,
And had grown about a span-length,
Then he found some work to give him,
That he should prepare to labour.
’Twas to rock a little infant,
Rock a child with little fingers.
“Watch with every care the infant,
Give it food, and eat some also,220
Wash his napkins in the river,
Wash his little clothes and cleanse them.”
So he watched one day, a second,
Broke his hands, and gouged his eyes out,
And at length upon the third day,
Let the infant die of sickness,
Cast the napkins in the river,
And he burned the baby’s cradle.
Untamo thereon reflected,
“Such a one is quite unfitted230
To attend to little children,
Rock the babes with little fingers.
Now I know not where to send him,
Nor what work I ought to give him.
Perhaps he ought to clear the forest?”
So he went to clear the forest.
Kullervo, Kalervo’s offspring
Answered in the words which follow:
“Now I first a man can deem me,
When my hands the axe are wielding.240
I am handsomer to gaze on,
Far more noble than aforetime,
Five men’s strength I feel within me
And I equal six in valour.”
Then he went into the smithy,
And he spoke the words which follow:
“O thou smith, my dearest brother,
Forge me now a little hatchet,
Such an axe as fits a hero,
Iron tool for skilful workman,250
For I go to clear the forest,
And to fell the slender birch-trees.”
So the smith forged what he needed,
And an axe he forged him quickly;
Such an axe as fits a hero,
Iron tool for skilful workman.
Kullervo, Kalervo’s offspring,
Set to work the axe to sharpen,
And he ground it in the daytime,
And at evening made a handle.260
Then he went into the forest,
High upon the wooded mountains,
There to seek the best of planking,
And to seek the best of timber.
With his axe he smote the tree-trunks,
With the blade of steel he felled them,
At a stroke the best he severed,
And the bad ones at a half-stroke.
Five large trees at length had fallen,
Eight in all he felled before him,270
And he spoke the words which follow,
And in words like these expressed him:
“Lempo may the work accomplish,
Hiisi now may shape the timber!”
In a stump he struck his axe-blade,
And began to shout full loudly,
And he piped, and then he whistled,
And he said the words which follow:
“Let the wood be felled around me,
Overthrown the slender birch-trees,280
Far as sounds my voice resounding,
Far as I can send my whistle.
“Let no sapling here be growing,
Let no blade of grass be standing,
Never while the earth endureth,
Or the golden moon is shining,
Here in Kalervo’s son’s forest,
Here upon the good man’s clearing.
“If the seed on earth has fallen,
And the young corn should shoot upward,290
If the sprout should be developed,
And the stalk should form upon it,
May it never come to earing,
Or the stalk-end be developed.”
Then the mighty Untamoinen,
Wandered forth to gaze about him,
Learn how Kalervo’s son cleared it,
And the new slave made a clearing.
But he found not any clearing,
And the young man had not cleared it.300
Untamo thereon reflected,
“For such labour he’s unsuited,
He has spoiled the best of timber,
And has felled the best for planking.
Now I know not where to send him,
Nor what work I ought to give him.
Should I let him make a fencing?“
So he went to make a fencing.
Kullervo, Kalervo’s offspring,
Set himself to make a fencing,310
And for this he took whole pine-trees,
And he used them for the fence-stakes,
Took whole fir-trees from the forest,
Wattled them to make the fencing,
Bound the branches fast together
With the largest mountain-ashtrees;
But he made the fence continuous,
And he made no gateway through it,
And he spoke the words which follow,
And in words like these expressed him:320
“He who cannot raise him birdlike,
Nor upon two wings can hover,
Never may he pass across it,
Over Kalervo’s son’s fencing!”
Then did Untamo determine
Forth to go and gaze around him,
Viewing Kalervo’s son’s fencing
By the slave of war constructed.
Stood the fence without an opening
Neither gap nor crevice through it,330
On the solid earth it rested,
Up among the clouds it towered.
Then he spoke the words which follow:
“For such labour he’s unsuited.
Here’s the fence without an opening,
And without a gateway through it.
Up to heaven the fence is builded,
To the very clouds uprising;
None can ever pass across it,
Pass within through any opening.340
Now I know not where to send him,
Nor what work I ought to give him.
There is rye for threshing ready.”
So he sent him to the threshing.
Kullervo, Kalervo’s offspring,
Set himself to do the threshing,
And the rye to chaff he pounded,
Into very chaff he threshed it.
Soon thereafter came the master,
Strolling forth to gaze around him,350
See how Kalervo’s son threshed it,
And how Kullervoinen pounded.
All the rye to chaff was pounded,
Into very chaff he’d threshed it.
Untamoinen then was angry.
“As a labourer he is useless.
Whatsoever work I give him,
All his work he spoils from malice.
Shall I take him into Russia,
Shall I sell him in Carelia,360
To the smith named Ilmarinen,
That he there may wield the hammer?”
Kalervo’s son took he with him,
And he sold him in Carelia,
To the smith named Ilmarinen,
Skilful wielder of the hammer.
What then gave the smith in payment?
Great the payment that he made him;
For he gave two worn-out kettles,
And three halves of hooks he gave him,370
And five worn-out scythes he gave him,
And six worn-out rakes he gave him,
For a man the most unskilful,
For a slave completely worthless.