Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/45

Rh Was wending his way, was pursuing his course, Found the sprouts of iron — the steely shoots of growing corn. He looks about, turns here and there, uttered a speech, spake thus : "What sort of growing corn is this, and what these budding shoots ? Something would come from them at a dexterous hammerer's." He gathered them into his pouch, he carried them into a smith's hands. Smith Ilmarinen seeks for a place for his forge. Found a tiny bit of ground — an extremely small dell, Where he set up his bellows, where he established his forge. But wretched iron does not grow, the genus steel is not produced In a doorless smithy, on a fireless forge. The iron-smith had lack of wood, the iron-hammerer of fire. He gets wood, he fetches fire, but still iron is not produced Unless there be a bellows-man — a man to press the bellows. He took a servant to blow — a hireling to press them, Looked underneath the forge — at the edge of the bellows. Already the production (F. birth) of iron had taken place, the Genus steel had appeared. (c.) The genesis of steel is known, the origin of iron is guessed. Water is the eldest of the brothers, iron the youngest. Paltry fire the middle one. Water is the outcome of a mountain, fire's genesis is from the sky, Iron's origin from iron-ore (F. rust). Fire became violent, worked itself into a fury. Evil fire burnt much land, much land, much swamp, Burnt sandy fields run wild, burnt sandy heaths. Wretched iron lay concealed from his malignant brother's face. Where did poor iron hide, where did he hide and save himself In that prodigious year of drought, that summer bad for forest fires?