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Forth to chase the elks I sent him,

And to struggle with the monsters,

And the mighty beasts to bridle,

And to put the foals in harness.

Then I sent him forth swan-hunting,

Seeking for the bird so sacred,

But I really cannot tell you

If misfortune came upon him,

Or what hindrance he encountered.

Nought I heard of his returning,

For the bride that he demanded,

When he came to woo my daughter.”

Then the mother sought the strayed one,

Dreading what mischance had happened,

Like a wolf she tracked the marshes,

Like a bear the wastes she traversed,

Like an otter swam the waters,

Badger-like the plains she traversed,

Passed the headlands like a hedgehog,

Like a hare along the lakeshores,

Pushed the rocks from out her pathway,

From the slopes bent down the tree-trunks,

Thrust the shrubs beside her pathway,

From her track she cast the branches.

Long she vainly sought the strayed one,

Long she sought, but found him never.

Of her son the trees she questioned,

For the lost one ever seeking.

Said a tree, then sighed a pine-tree,

And an oak made answer wisely:

“I myself have also sorrows,

For your son I cannot trouble,

For my lot’s indeed a hard one,

And an evil day awaits me,

For they split me into splinters,

And they chop me into faggots,

In the kiln that I may perish,

Or they fell me in the clearing.”

Long she vainly sought the strayed one,

Long she sought, but found him never,