Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v2.djvu/145

Runo XXXVIII]

And began the conversation,

And she turned to him and asked him

How her child’s health was at present,

If her daughter was contented,

As the daughter-in-law of master,

And the daughter-in-law of mistress.

Thereupon smith Ilmarinen,

Head bowed down, and deeply grieving,

And his cap all sloping sideways,

Answered in the words which follow:

“Do thou not, O mother, ask me,

Do not question me in thiswise

How your daughter may be living,

How your dear one now is dwelling!

Death has borne her off already,

Grisly death has seized upon her.

In the ground is now my berry,

On the heath is now my fair one,

And her dark locks ’neath the stubble,

’Neath the grass my silver-fair one.

Give me now your second daughter,

Give me now that youthful maiden,

Give her to me, dearest mother,

Give me now your second daughter,

Thus to occupy the dwelling,

And the station of her sister.”

Louhi, Pohjola’s old Mistress,

Answered in the words which follow:

“Ill have I, unhappy, acted,

And it was a sad misfortune

When to thee my child I promised,

And I gave to thee the other,

In her early youth to slumber,

For the rosy-cheeked one perished.

To the mouth of wolf I gave her,

To the jaws of bear when growling.

“No more daughters will I give you,

Nor my daughter will I give you,

That she wash the soot from off you,

And she scratch the soot from off you,