Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v2.djvu/117

Runo XXXIV]

Greater not than span of father,

Longer not than mother’s spindle?”

Then his mother interrupted,

And exclaimed the aged woman,

“O my son, my son unhappy,

O my golden brooch so wretched,

Hast thou then, with eyes yet living,

Wandered through these countries hither,

When as dead I long had mourned thee,

Long had wept for thy destruction?

“I had two sons in the past days,

And two daughters of the fairest,

And among them two have vanished,

Two are lost among the elder,

First my son in furious battle,

Then my daughter, how I know not.

Though my son has reached the homestead,

Never has returned my daughter.”

Kullervo, Kalervo’s offspring,

In his turn began to question.

“How then has your daughter vanished,

What has happened to my sister?“

Then his mother made him answer,

And she spoke the words which follow:

“Thus has disappeared my daughter,

Thus it happened to your sister.

To the wood she went for berries,

Sought for raspberries ’neath the mountain,

There it is the dove has vanished,

There it is the bird has perished,

Thus she died without our knowledge,

How she died we cannot tell you.

“Who is longing for the maiden?

Save her mother, no one missed her.

First her mother went to seek her,

And her mother sought, who missed her,

Forth I went, unhappy mother,

Forth I went to seek my daughter,

Through the wood like bear I hurried,

Speeding through the wastes like otter,