Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v1.djvu/96

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But the blood gushed forth in torrents,

Rushing like a foaming river,

O’er the berry-bearing bushes,

And the heath the ground that covered.

There remained no single hillock,

Which was not completely flooded

By the overflowing blood-stream,

Which came rushing forth in torrents

From the knee of one most worthy,

From the toes of Väinämöinen.

Väinämöinen, old and steadfast,

Gathered from the rocks the lichen,

From the swamps the moss collected,

Earth he gathered from the hillocks,

Hoping thus to stop the outlet

Of the wound that bled so freely,

But he could not check the bleeding,

Nor restrain it in the slightest.

And the pain he felt oppressed him,

And the greatest trouble seized him.

Väinämöinen, old and steadfast,

Then began to weep full sorely.

Thereupon his horse he harnessed,

In the sledge he yoked the chestnut,

On the sledge himself he mounted,

And upon the seat he sat him.

O’er the horse his whip he brandished,

With the bead-decked whip he lashed him,

And the horse sped quickly onward.

Rocked the sledge, the way grew shorter,

And they quickly reached a village,

Where the path in three divided.

Väinämöinen, old and steadfast,

Drove along the lowest pathway,

To the lowest of the homesteads,

And he asked upon the threshold,

“Is there no one in this household,

Who can cure the wounds of iron,

Who can soothe the hero’s anguish,

And can heal the wound that pains him?”