• This is part of my "Kalevala series" in which I tell the epic folklore poetry collection 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 deal between Väinämöinen and Louhi, the Mistress of the North

---

Such was the graceful maiden of the North sitting on the beam of air, support of the sphere's arch above: In his white clothing he knitted golden fabric, titivated silver canvas.

Väinämöinen, riding back from the dark North, saw her above riding on a sparkling golden shuttle across the sky, leaving a rustling beautiful arched silver tail behind.

He stopped his horse and dictated towards the sky:

"Come my maiden help yourself here, descend down, adjust on my sleigh."

Väinämöinen wanted her as his wife, to be his baker, his waitress and his singer.

The maiden answered, so she chatted:

"When visiting down on the ground a bird sang a message for me,
had an answer for what bothered me": 'Cold is the iron in the North,
but colder for mother-in-law. Maiden's verdant, much more fertile,
mother-in-law more like damped dog, North barely gives love to a maiden,
none you'll get if a wife you shall come.'

Väinämöinen dismissed the bird's verses and still insisted her to ascend down to his sleigh.

Cleverly the maiden started to trick on Väinämöinen by asking him to complete impossible tasks to accept the proposal:

First she asked him to split a hair with a bladeless knife and to pull an egg into a knot.

But Väinämöinen wasn't to be underestimated:

He split a hair with a bladeless knife and pulled an egg into a knot fulfilling the maiden's request.

Still, she lingered and for a second quest she asked him to pull bark from stone and brake ice without a noise.

Väinämöinen wasn't jerked by this:

He pulled bark from the stone and broke ice without a noise.

Again, Väinämöinen asked her to ascend but she had another request:

"For you I shall become wife if you carve a boat, send it to seas,
from my spindle's crumbs, whorl's iotas, without raising a single finger,
without stamping your knee on the ground, with no turning your arm over,
with no stretching of your shoulder."

Thus, Väinämöinen took the spindle's crumbs and iotas and started carving:

He threatened, blustered and made an axe carve with a word.

---

But on the third day of his work a goblin twisted a stone, a demon threw a rock on the blade rebounding it to Väinämöinen's knee.

He damned his axe and started enchanting but he couldn't figure the words of the Iron to seal his wound cut by the hatchet.

His blood flowed like a river covering heathers of berries and he took a tussock from the bloody ground to stem his bleeding.

Väinämöinen harnessed his horse back to the sleigh and crying on his agony he began his search for help:

From the first house that he encountered he asked for help:

"Would there be someone in this house, to stop the blood rain from my knee?"

But a small boy answered that there was no healer in the house who could help Väinämöinen in his pain.

From the second house he asked the same thing from an old lady but neither was there anybody who could help him.

From the third house he finally got a wishful answer from an old man:

"More bigger flows have been shut down, rivers from orals, lakes from heads,
flows from necks, gulfs from thin noses."

---

---

• Part 9: The birth of the Iron

---

Pics: 1, 2