Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/72

 64 brewer of ale], reflects and ponders: "What would happen were I to bring them together and unite them, causing each one to meet the others?"

A redstart sang from a tree: "A noble drink would be obtained, good ale would result from them in the hands of a skilful maker, one that rightly understands."

The kindly maiden, the girl of Pohja, plucks clusters of hops, gathered grains of barley, drew water from the eddy of a stream. These she united, intermingled one with the other, and intended to brew in a new two-handled tub of birch. Stones were heated for a month, a forest of trees was burnt, water was boiled a whole summer [v. a sea of water was boiled], ale was brewed for a whole winter. A wagtail [v. titmouse] fetched water, a bee brought honey to make the new drink ferment. Owing to that the new drink fermented in the two-handled tub of birch, foamed up to a level with the handles, bubbled above the rim, was like to splutter on the ground, to fall upon the floor. Hence the violent one was known, was judged, was supposed at the proper time to pour upon the earth for the benefit of the earth before it became great.

The kindly maiden, the girl of Pohja, gave utterance to words: "How unlucky I am! alas my thoughtless deeds! for I have brewed bad ale, have produced an intractable small beer. It has swelled up to the handles, it inundates the floor."

A redstart sang from a tree, a thrush from the eaves: "It does not pertain to poor living, 'tis a drink that pertains to good living, that should be emptied into tuns, transported into cellars in oaken barrels, in butts with copper hoops."

Small Beer expressed himself cleverly, took up the word and said: "'Tis bad to live inside a half-tun behind a copper tap. If you do not provide singers, do not invite merry ones, I will spirt out foaming from the barrel, will escape from the half-tun, will kick the half-tun into two, will bang the bottom out with blows, will move to another farmhouse,