Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v2.djvu/241

Runo XLVII]

And the sun came from his castle,

Sitting on a fir-tree’s summit,

To the kantele to listen,

Filled with wonder and rejoicing.

Louhi, Pohjola’s old Mistress,

Old and gap-toothed dame of Pohja,

Set to work the sun to capture,

In her hands the moon seized likewise.

From the birch the moon she captured,

And the sun from fir-tree’s summit;

Straightway to her home she brought them,

To the gloomy land of Pohja.

Then she hid the moon from shining,

In the mottled rocks she hid him,

Sang the sun to shine no longer,

Hidden in a steel-hard mountain;

And she spoke the words which follow:

“Never more again in freedom

Shall the moon arise for shining,

Nor the sun be free for shining,

If I come not to release them,

If I do not go to fetch them,

When I bring nine stallions with me,

Which a single mare has littered.”

When the moon away was carried,

And the sun had been imprisoned

Deep in Pohjola’s stone mountain,

In the rocks as hard as iron,

Then she stole away the brightness,

And from Väinöla the fires,

And she left the houses fireless,

And the rooms no flame illumined.

Therefore was the night unending,

And for long was utter darkness,

Night in Kalevala for ever,

And in Väinöla’s fair dwellings,

Likewise in the heavens was darkness,

Darkness round the seat of Ukko.

Life without the fire was weary,

And without the light a burden,