Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/61

 Rh Immediately he shot a third, a final and malignant arrow, across land and swamp, across deep gloomy forests against a steely [v. silver] mountain, against an iron [v. stony] rock. The arrow rebounded from the stone, recoiled against the rock, and entered a human skin, the body of a wretched man.

Such a shaft may be extricated, such an arrow withdrawn always by virtue of the word of God, through the Lord's grace.

(b.)

Of old a lovely oak grew, a flourishing sapling uprose on the shoulder of a sandy ridge, on the crest of a golden hillock. Its boughs were somewhat bushy, its foliage somewhat ample. Its branching head reached the sky, its leafy boughs spread through the air, concealed the rays of the sun, obscured the rays of the moon, prevented the Great Bear from stretching and the stars of heaven from moving.

A shiver comes over cattle, a horror over fish in the water, a strangeness over birds of the air, and weariness over human beings, for the dear sun no longer shines, nor does the moonshine diffuse light upon these wretched ones, these unfortunates.

They searched for a man, sought for such an one that could break down the oak, fell the splendid lofty tree, prostrate the lively tree, clear away the hellish (rutimon) tree. None was found to clear away, to smash the brittle tree to bits. There was no strong doughty man in our own land, in pleasant Finland, in beautiful Karelia to do this; nor did one come from further afield, from daring Sweden, from weak Russia, nor from the disputed ground of this realm, that could fell the oak, fracture the hellish tree, prostrate the hundred-headed oak.

A [v. small, v. black, v. old, v. iron] man emerged from the sea, a full-grown man uprose from the waves. He was not very large nor very small; his height was quarter-ell