Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v2.djvu/260

248

the sun was never shining,

Neither gleamed the golden moonlight,

Not in Väinöla’s dark dwellings,

Not on Kalevala’s broad heathlands.

Frost upon the crops descended,

And the cattle suffered greatly,

And the birds of air felt strangely,

All mankind felt ever mournful,

For the sunlight shone no longer,

Neither did there shine the moonlight.

Though the pike knew well the pike-deeps,

And the bird-paths knew the eagle,

And the wind the vessel’s journey,

Yet mankind were all unknowing

If the time was really morning,

Or if perhaps it still was night-time,

Out upon the cloudy headland,

And upon the shady island.

And the young men then took counsel,

And the older men considered

How to live without the moonlight,

And exist without the sunlight,

In that miserable country,

In the wretched land of Pohja.