Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v2.djvu/65

Runo XXIX]

Hast thou perished, who hast borne me,

Hast thou gone, O tender mother?

Now thy flesh in earth has rotted,

Fir-trees o’er thy head are growing,

Juniper upon thy ankles,

On thy finger-tips are willows.

“Thus my wretched doom has found me,

And an ill reward has reached me,

That my sword I dared to measure,

And I dared to raise my weapons

There in Pohjola’s great castle,

In the fields of Pimentola.

But my own race now has perished,

Perished now is she who bore me.”

Then he looked, and turned on all sides,

And he saw a trace of footsteps,

Where the grass was lightly trampled,

And the heath was slightly broken.

Then he went the way they led him,

And he found a little pathway;

To the forest led the pathway,

And he went in that direction.

Thus he walked a verst, a second,

Hurried through a stretch of country,

And in darkest shades of forest,

In the most concealed recesses,

There he saw a hidden bath-house,

Saw a little cottage hidden,

In a cleft two rocks protected,

In a nook between three fir-trees;

There he saw his tender mother,

There beheld the aged woman.

Then the lively Lemminkainen,

Felt rejoiced beyond all measure,

And he spoke the words which follow,

And in words like these expressed him:

“O my very dearest mother,

O my mother who hast nursed me,

Thou art living still, O mother,

Watchful still, my aged mother!