Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/39

Rh inhabit a mountain; and in one couplet, given below, Hiisi stands as a parallel word to mountain, just as we have seen above that Tapio can be used as a synonym of forest. Indeed, in the middle of the sixteenth century, Bishop Agricola uses the plural of hiisi in the sense of "heights, wood-grown heights, grove", though in his metrical epitome of Finnish mythology occurs the line, "Hiisi procured profit from the forest", that is, he aided a hunter in obtaining game. In course of time we shall find "Hiisi's dog" or cat used as an epithet for disease in general and for toothache in particular; "his seal" (phoca) is rickets, atrophy; "his fungus" is a tumour or a boil; "his bird" is the wagtail—Lempo's is the raven; he is the ancestor of the wolf; from his l00-horned ox with 1,000 nipples on its breast magic salves and ointments are obtained. This wonderful animal must surely be a pine or fir-tree, with its innumerable projecting points like nipples.

In several riddles Hiisi's horse, or simply a horse, means thunder and lightning, or fire and flame, fire and smoke. For instance:

A horse neighed from Hiisi's land; the knocking of its collar, the shaking of the harness was heard here?

Answer.—Thunder in the clouds, and lightning.

A horse neighed in Hiisi's land, the collar shoke, the harness gleamed in this direction? Thunder and lightning.

A horse is in its stall, its tail is above the door? The fire in a stove and the flame at its mouth; fire and smoke.