• This is part of my "Kalevala series" in which I tell the epic folklore poetry of Finns as a series of short stories, one rune at a time.

• Don't know what Kalevala is? Check my introduction post of it: Kaleva: An epic folklore of Finns - A source of inspiration for Tolkien's mythology

• Want to start from the beginning? Go to Part 1: The birth of Väinämöinen

• Previous part: The death of Lemminkäinen

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Back in home Lemminkäinen's mother was beginning to worry why his son's ventures have taken so long;
didn't know whether he was running up hills,
passing trough boreal forests,
sailing on the crests of waves,
or crawling through caverns.

Meanwhile Kyllikki, Lemminkäinen's wife, came to a horrific sight in the estate of her husband:

"My husband has disappear'ed, my beautiful Lemminkäinen
into lands without a shelter, into unknown roads with no aim:
blood is flowing from the sweeper, brush is coated, trickling with gore."

When her mother saw what Kyllikki did, she ran all the way to the North up the hills, down to the fells leaving only the shadows behind,
and stepped into the cabins of the North, to chat with the Louhi, the Mistress:

"Ohoy the Mistress of the North! Where have you sent Lemminkäinen,
walked my boy out, lost his spirit?"

Louhi:

"How'd I know where your son has gone? Maybe he has fallen on his death,
sank into moon, froze on a lake, eaten by a horrific bear."

Lemminkäinen's mother didn't swallow her rubbish:

"Already you woman lied to me! Wolf doesn't eat our family,
bear doesn't break Lemminkäinen: with his fingers he tramples on wolfs,
knocks down bears with his own bare hands."

Still, the Mistress tried fudging around, not getting it through the mother who fiercely in her anger threatened Louhi with death if she wasn't to tell the truth.

Louhi gave in and told about sending Lemminkäinen to the skiing of the Moose of Hiisi,
to the killing of the gelding of Hiisi,
for the shooting of the swan of Tuonela,
searching for the holy bird.

Hence, Lemminkäinen's mother went for the seeking of his son:
she withstood the great swamps as a wolf,
bouldered the rocks as a bear,
advanced under grass as an ant,
wandered as a wild rabbit through twigs,
onced herself in water as an otter,
wrecked the dead pine trees,
and kicked the logs into stairs in front of her way while looking around every ness where her son could be.

After a week for looking, she was desperate and asked for a tree if Lemminkäinen was seen there,
he wasn't, the tree answered being enough worried about it's own fate too as a logged firewood,
nor was he seen by the road, who was to be stomped by the dogs and people with wagons,
or Moon, who was created to light the dark night by itself, alone.

Then, she asked the Day who in her fortune had seen him being flushed into the river Tuoni, by the eternal waters to the back of Tuonela, underworld Manala.

Thus, Lemminkäinen's mother went crying to Ilmarinen to get a metallic rake done to pull his son from the river of Tuonela.

~

After getting his rake - hammered by Ilmarinen, forger eternal - she ran back and turned to the Day:

"Sunny Day created by God, here for brief moment lay your heat,
fatique all the folk of Tuonela, make them sweat under you shining,
heat the air in the underworld."

The creation of God, Day, flew over the leafs and laid its warmth onto Tuonela and exhausted the folk of underworld putting them into sleep,
by whose aid Lemminkäinen's mother took her metal rake and scrapped the bottom of the river of Tuonela.

After few attempts he finally caught and lifted Lemminkäinen, her beloved son, with her rake, crying over his dead remains:

"Should a man from this still become, a hero who could beat the death?"

A crown damned her question for Lemminkäinen's body parts being spread, eaten and carried by the river.

So once again she clawed the bottom and picked up the rest of her son's parts and put them together:
flesh to flesh,
bone to bone,
limb to limb,
tying veins together she preyed to a spirit of veins, for the maiden of air and God, of whom nobody would provide help for her.

She dialected, so she uttered:

"Where would curing salve be gotten, which I shall spread onto haggard,
heal the ill one, get back his hymns."

"Bee, our bird, the king of flowers! Fetch some nectar from Tapiola,
from bloom's crowns, from hey's canary grass,
for the sick one as a lotion, for the damned as a remedy."

The Bee flew to Tapiola, gathered nectar and delivered it back to Lemminkäinen's mother
who spread the grease onto her son,
without an effect;
the nectar from Tapiola wasn't proper so she sent the Bee over the sees,
which either didn't provide healing ointment,
but for the third time she sent the Bee to fly above the sky, over the moon, above the stars, to God's cellar where healing medicine from grease is being made.

Carrying it back to let Lemminkäinen's mother lubricate her son's body, along his limbs,
down to the cracks,
all the way to the bones,
and so she chatted:

"Raise up from lying eternal sleep, ascend, hapless from your death bed,
from these regions hostile, evil."

Lemminkäinen ascended from the dead back to life, and wondered how long he had been at sleep, telling his mother he had fallen into the river of Tuonela by the wethat, cow herder.

Her mother groaned how he hadn't known the words for a viper to escape the poisoning, getting him to return back to home with her, despite Lemminkäinen's desire to the beautiful braided maidens in the North whom would not be let go by the old hag of Louhi.

"Despise the swan in the black river, say good bye to ducks in Tuonela!
You shall now get back home with me, thank your God for his divine help,
sending help, waking you from death, from the cabbins of underworld,
without his mercy you'd be doomed, Manala would have been your stay."

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