Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/70

 62 drink from hops, though it is not produced without water nor yet without fire.

Hops, the son of Boisterous {Remunen), was poked, was ploughed into the ground as a small snake, as an ant was thrown down at the side of the well of Kaleva, on the unploughed edge of Osmo's field. From it a young shoot sprang up, a green tendril uprose, which mounted into a little tree and stretched towards its head.

Osmo's [v. Luck's] old man sowed barley at the end of Osmo's field. The barley grew splendidly, sprouted most perfectly at the end of Osmo's new field, in the cleared land of the son of Kaleva.

Osmotar the brewer of ale, the woman that brews small beer, took up six grains of barley, seven clusters of hops eight ladlesful of water, put a pot on the fire, and brought the brew to boiling-point. She let the barley ale simmer for a whole summer day. She managed to boil the ale, but could not get it to ferment.

She reflects and turns over in her mind what she might add to make the ale ferment, to make the small beer work. She saw wild mustard in the ground, rubbed it with both palms, grated it with both hands against her thighs, and rubbed out a golden-breasted martin.

When she obtained it, she exclaimed: "My little martin! my pet! go where I command, into the gloomy wilds of a forest where mares are wont to fight, where stallions battle savagely. In your hands let their froth drip, with your hands collect their lather to serve as ferment for the ale, as yeast to make the small beer work."

Thus advised, the obedient martin hurried off at full speed, soon had run a long distance, to the gloomy wilds of a forest where mares are wont to fight, where stallions battle savagely. Froth dripped from a mare's mouth,, slaver from a stallion's muzzle, which it brought to the woman's hand, to the shoulder of Osmotar.