Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v2.djvu/149

Runo XXXVIII]

But a little way they journeyed,

Short the distance they had traversed,

When the horse pricked ears to listen,

And the long-eared steed was shying.

Then her head the maiden lifted,

In the snow she saw fresh footprints,

And she thereupon inquired,

“What has passed across our pathway?“

Said the smith, said Ilmarinen,

“’Twas a hare that ran across it.”

Then the hapless girl was sighing,

Much she sobbed, and much was sighing,

And she spoke the words which follow:

“Woe to me, unhappy creature!

Better surely had I found it,

And my lot were surely better

If the hare’s track I could follow,

In the traces of the Crook-leg.

Than in sledge of such a suitor,

’Neath the rug of one so wrinkled,

For the hairs of hare are finer,

And his mouth-cleft is more handsome.”

Thereupon smith Ilmarinen,

Bit his lips, his head turned sideways,

And the sledge drove rattling onward,

And a little way they journeyed,

When the horse pricked ears to listen,

And the long-eared steed was shying.

Then her head the maiden lifted,

In the snow she saw fresh footprints,

And she thereupon inquired,

“What has passed across our pathway?”

Said the smith, said Ilmarinen,

“’Twas a fox that ran across it.”

Then the hapless girl was sighing,

Much she sobbed, and much was sighing,

And she spoke the words which follow:

“Woe to me, unhappy creature,

Better surely had I found it,

And my lot were surely better,