Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/42

34 Take me away from here, from the torments of malignant fire." Smith Ilmarinen said: "If I took thee from the fire Perhaps thou wilt grow terrible—wilt begin to grow extremely mad, Wilt also cut thy brother, wilt lacerate thy mother's child." Then miserable iron swore—swore his solemn oath Upon the forge, upon the anvil, upon the hammers, upon the sledge-hammers. "I shall not touch flesh, I shall not cause blood to flow. There is wood for me to bite—a fallen tree for me to munch, A young fir for me to nip, a stone's heart for me to eat, So that I shall not cut my brother—shan't lacerate my mother's child. 'Tis better for me to be—more pleasant for me to live As comrade to a traveller, as a weapon in a wayfarer's hand. Than touch a kinsman with my 'mouth', than injure my own kith and kin." Then smith Ilmarinen, the time-old hammerer. Snatched the iron from the fire, set it on the anvil To make it malleable, to hammer it into sharp implements. Into axes, into spears, into every sort of implement. He hammers with repeated blows, cling, clang resounds repeatedly, But iron will not take a point, an edge of steel is not produced. {{dropinitial|{|2em}}The iron does not harden, the iron edge is not durable. v. Iron does not take an edge without being dipt in water. Smith Ilmarinen accordingly keeps pondering in his mind What could be procured, what could be brought To form a toughening-fluid for steel—a hardening-water for iron. He prepared a little ashes, he dissolved some lye, Tried it with his tongue, tasted it with intelligence, Expressed himself in words: "These are not food for me