Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v1.djvu/248

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How to brew the beer I know not,

Nor how ale was first concocted.”

By the stove there sat an old man,

From the stove spoke up the old man:

“Ale of barley is concocted,

And the drink with hops is flavoured,

Yet they brew not save with water,

And the aid of furious fire.

“Hop is called the son of Revel;

Planted in the ground when little,

With a plough they ploughed the region,

Like an ant, away they cast him

Close to Kaleva’s great well-spring,

There where Osmo’s field is sloping;

There the tender plant sprang upward,

And the green shoot mounted quickly.

Up a little tree it mounted,

Rising to the leafy summit.

“Sowed, by chance, an old man barley,

In the fresh-ploughed field of Osmo,

And the barley sprouted bravely,

And it grew and flourished greatly,

On the new-ploughed field of Osmo,

Kaleva’s descendant’s cornland.

“But a little time passed over,

When the hops exclaimed from tree-top,

And upon the field the barley,

And in Kaleva’s well-water,

‘When shall we be yoked together,

Each with other be united?

Life in solitude is weary;

Better two or three together.’

“Osmotar, the ale-constructer

She, the maid who beer concocted,

Took, on this, the grains of barley,

Gathered six of grains of barley,

Seven hop-tassels next she gathered,

And eight ladles took of water,

Then upon the fire she placed it,

And allowed it there to simmer,