Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/42

34 rocked fire, swayed him to-and-fro in a copper boat, in a copper skiff, in an iron barrel [v. in the belly of a copper sheep], between iron hoops [v. in the bed of a golden lamb] ; she carried him in it to baptism, hurried off with him to the christening.

(e.)

Ilmarinen struck fire, Väinämöinen caused a flash at the end of an iron bench, the extremity of a golden form, with a living portent [v. with a variegated snake, v. with three cock's feathers], with a burning [v. creeping] land-snake [v. with five wings]. He struck fire upon his nail, caused a crackling sound against his finger-joints, struck fire without iron, without flint, without tinder.

Red fire flew suddenly, one spark shot from the top of Väinämöinen's knee, from under Ilmarinen's hands to the ground under his feet. In its course it then rolled along long farmyards, along the headland of a field to the open sea, to the illimitable waves, burnt up a store-house of the perch, a stone castle of the ruffs.

When Takaturma Äijö's son knew that fire was coming, was pouring down, he squeezed fire tightly in his hands, forced it into tinder-spunk, rolled it up into birch fungus. Hence the genesis and origin of fire in these poor bordelands, these wretched regions of the north.

(f.) He altogether lies, speaks without rhyme or reason, who imagines fire to have been struck by Väinämöinen. Fire has come from the sky [v. 1. Fire's origin is from the sky, v. 2. Fire has come from the Creator's mouth], Panu was