Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v1.djvu/215

Runo XVIII]

If it be a flock of wild geese,

Or of other beauteous birdies,

Let them on their rushing pinions

Soar aloft amid the heavens.

“If it be a shoal of salmon,

Or a shoal of other fishes,

Let them leap as they are swimming,

Plunging then beneath the water.

“If it be a rocky island,

Or a stump amid the water,

Let the billows rise above it,

Or the waters drive it forward.”

Now the boat came gliding onward,

And the new boat sailed on swiftly

Forward to the misty headland,

And the shady island’s ending.

Annikki, the ever-famous,

Saw the vessel fast approaching,

Saw the hundred-boarded passing,

And she spoke the words which follow:

“If thou art my brother’s vessel,

Or the vessel of my father,

Then direct thy journey homeward,

To the shore the prow directing,

Where the landing-stage is stationed,

While the stern is pointing from it.

If thou art a stranger vessel,

May’st thou swim at greater distance,

Towards another stage then hasten,

With the stern to this directed.”

’Twas no vessel of her household,

Nor a boat from foreign regions,

But the boat of Väinämöinen,

Built by him, the bard primeval,

And the boat approached quite closely,

Onward sailed in hailing distance,

Till a word, and then a second,

And a third were heard distinctly.

Annikki, the ever-famous,

Night’s fair daughter, maid of twilight,