Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/55

Rh was given to the wretch, was bestowed upon the rascal. They named him Sharp Frost, Ear-sweller, Nail-smarter, Demander of toes.

(b.)

The swarthy old wife of the North, Raani, the mother of Sharp Frost, seated herself with her breast eastwards, lay with her back windwards. She looks about, turns here and there, glanced due north, and saw how the moon was rising to the circle (of the sky), how the sun was ascending to the vault of heaven. The wind quickened her, the dawn of day made her with child.

What is she carrying within? She carried three boy children. She gave birth to her sons, was confined of her children at the far end of an outhouse in Pohjola, at the end of a hut in Pimentola.

She invited the Creator to baptise them, God to give them names. As the Creator never came, she baptised her rascals herself. One she named Tuuletar, another Viimatar, the last, a malignant boy, she named Sharp Frost, who demands (people's) nails, who covets after feet.

(c.)

The Hiisi folk held a wedding, the evil crew a drinking-bout. For the wedding they killed a horse, for their feast a long-maned horse; its blood was sprinkled behind the forge of Hiitola; the fume rose to the sky, the vapour ascended into the air, then scattered into clouds, formed itself into Sharp Frost.

The filly [v. Tapio's daughter], Snow White, suckled Sharp Frost. Sharp Frost, the evil offspring, sucked so that her shoulder split, that her milk ran dry.

The boy got nursed, was christened, was baptised in a silver river [v. in the river Jordan], in a golden ring [v. in an eddy of the holy stream]. The name of Kuljus [v. Kuhjus] was given him, boy Kuljus was the name for