Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v2.djvu/114

102

In the air the birds are joyous,

I myself am never happy,

On my life the sun shines never,

And my life is always joyless.

“Now I know not who has nursed me,

And I know not who has borne me,

For, as water-hens are used to,

Or as ducks among the marshes,

Like the teal on shore she left me,

Or in hollow stone, merganser.

“I was small, and lost my father,

I was weak, and lost my mother,

Dead is father, dead is mother,

All my mighty race has perished,

Shoes of ice to wear they left me,

Filled with snow they left my stockings,

On the ice they left me lying,

Rolling on the platform left me,

Thus I fell into the marshes,

And amid the mud was swallowed.

“But in all my life I never,

Never in my life I hastened,

Through the swamp to make a platform,

Or a bridge in marshy places;

But I sank not in the marshes,

For I had two hands to help me,

And I had five nimble fingers.

And ten nails to lift me from it.”

Then into his mind it entered

In his brain he fixed the notion

Unto Untamo to journey,

There his father’s wrongs avenging,

Father’s wrongs, and tears of mother,

And the wrongs himself had suffered.

Then he spoke the words which follow:

“Wait thou, wait thou, Untamoinen,

Watch thou, of my race destroyer!

If I seek thee out in battle,

I will quickly burn thy dwelling,

And thy farms to flame deliver.”