A Land of Heroes: The Theft of the Sampo

The Myth:  The Mythic History of Finland. Gods! Goddesses! Culture heroes who are not exactly gods but are certainly impressive and sing very well indeed! Magic duels! Magic fish! Magic ... whatever the Sampo is!
The Book: Kalevala, The Land of Heroes (volume 2 of 2)
The Author: Elias Lönnrot (1835)
This text: etext of a 1907 translation by W. F. Kirby.
Price: nothin' (Kindle Free Library)

The back half of the Kalevala takes a turn for the grim, with several new characters. Untamoinen fights his brother Kalervo and in so doing enslaves nephew Kullervo, setting off a chain of events that ends with both homesteads razed and the whole family dead - including the pets. (Untamoinen and Kalervo had another brother, but he went off to Russia to become a merchant and nobody heard from him again.) The Kullervo sequence is darker in tone to the preceding episodes. Kullervo is a malicious and joyless thug without any of Lemmikainen's ebullience and optimism, and I confess I wasn't sorry when he was gone.

But one of Kullervo's murder victims is Ilmarinen's wife, the former Maiden of Pohjola, which segues into the next sequence, which is awesome. Mrs Ilmarinen wasn't actually very nice to Kullervo,but probably didn't deserve to be ripped apart by magic wolves and bears. Understandably, this murder sends Ilmarinen into a funk, during which he builds himself a creepy robot bride out of gold and silver.

"Oh, hey there, Ilmarinen. How're you doing?"
"Hi, Väinämöinen. Not great. Wife got murdered."
"Oh, geeze, man, I'm so sorry."
"Thanks, man."
"So...who's the creepy robot lady?"
"Oh. I made a new bride out of gold and silver. Only, she's cold."
"I...can imagine."

Väinämöinen sends her off to Russia and delivers a stern lecture about how creepy robot brides are wrong, so Ilmarinen goes back to Pohjola to kidnap his late wife's sister. It turns out that she wants none of this marriage-by-abduction caper, so he turns her into a seagull. However, while in Pohjola, Ilmarinen couldn't help but notice how nice the Sampo - sort of a magic mill - has made the country. The Sampo was Ilmarinen's bride price for his first wife, and, feeling ripped off now that he no longer has a wife of any sort, he suggests to Väinämöinen that they steal it. Väinämöinen sings together an old warship and a crew, they pick up Lemminkainen (who doesn't want to miss another war on Pohjola), and set off on a mythic heist.

Väinämöinen sings the House of Pohjola to sleep, and Ilmarinen and Lemminkainen smash through the locks and dig up the Sampo, which has put down roots. They nearly get away, but Lemminkainen starts singing too early, waking the Mistress of Pohjola. She flies out to the boat to magic-duel Väinämöinen for the Sampo, but it breaks and falls into the lake. Väinämöinen smugly points out that the bits have fallen into Kaleva's lakes, not Pohjola's, and it will make them fertile and prosperous.

Mistress Louhi, who at this point in the narrative has lost two daughters, a husband and the source of her country's prosperity to Kaleva's heroes, goes off the evil sorceress deep end. She summons eight plagues and a sorcerer to blight the land of Kaleva. She sends a bear. Then she steals the sun and moon and all of the fire in the land of Kaleva.

"A bear? Is it the Great Bear of the Heavens?"
"No, it's an earth bear."
"But, like a huge bear, big as a mountain?"
"Not a big one, not a small one. A regular bear."
"I...ok. Hey, Ilmarinen, make me a spear."
"A magic one?"
"Apparently not."

At this point, Ukko, god of everything, decides to take a hand, and reforges a new sun. Unfortunately, his clumsy daughter drops it in the sea, and it gets eaten by a fish. Which is eaten by another fish, which is eaten in turn by another fish. Ukko says he's not making another one.

Ilmarinen has already had a go with gold and silver, but Väinämöinen points out that the key things about the sun and moon is that they shine, which Ilmarinen's don't. So Ilmarinen makes a vast  magic net, and the heroes go fishing. They eventually find the sun inside the fish inside the fish inside the other fish, and let it out, restoring fire to the land of Kaleva...

"There it is! In the fish inside the fish inside the other fish! I'll get it!"
"Hey, Ilmarinen, shouldn't you make some iron gloves or stone mittens or something?"
"Nah, I've got - Ow! Owowowowow!"

...by setting it on fire.

Eventually, however, the sun and moon are restored to their rightful place, and everyone lives happily ever after, except Mistress Louhi and Pohjola.

The epic ends with a virgin giving birth in a stable. Väinämöinen thinks that nothing good can come of this, and says so. The miraculous offspring is made King of Carelia, in spite of the big V.'s objections. Väinämöinen sails off in a huff, leaving behind his harp and his songs.

--

I can't express just how much I loved reading the Kalevala. It's got everything: magic, bears, singing, magic beer squirrels, sorcerous duels, magic artifacts, feuds, fish, gods, heists, creepy robot women, the works. The translation was a joy to read - especially out loud - and I can only imagine what it sounds like in its original language. Väinämöinen - crotchetty old bard/wizard that he is - is my new hero.

Would recommend.

A Land of Heroes: There's One in Every Myth Cycle.

The Myth:  The Mythic History of Finland. Gods! Goddesses! Culture heroes who are not exactly gods but are certainly impressive and sing very well indeed! Magic duels! Magic fish! Magic ... whatever the Sampo is!
The Book: Kalevala, The Land of Heroes (technically, volume 1 of 2)
The Author: Elias Lönnrot (1835)
This text: etext of a 1907 translation by W. F. Kirby.
Price: nothin' (Kindle Free Library)

Lemminkainen's main literary role is to demonstrate the importance of listening to your mother.

I mentioned the domestic scale of this epic. Lemminkainen lives with his mum in a homestead in Kaleva, and occasionally goes to war with Pohjola, much against her advice. Pohjola has a single house of note: Mistress Louhi's homestead.  It is full of wizards and bards and sorcerers and musicians and soothsayers, but in Mythic Finland pretty much everyone is some level of wizard or bard or sorcerer or musician or soothsayer, so it's really just a house full of folk.

Lemminkainen's first assault on Pohjola goes well for a while - he drives everyone out of Mistress Louhi's house by singing at them - but just as he's finishing off an impossible quest for the hand of the Maiden of Pohjola, he's ambushed and dismembered. His mother puts him back together with the most mythic of all magics, and tells him there will be no more of this Maiden of Pohjola nonsense.

Said Maiden eventually marries Ilmarinen the smith - who wins at impossible questing because she cheats on his behalf - and everyone in Kaleva and Pohjola is invited to the wedding.

Except Lemminkainen, because Pohjola thinks he's a jerk.

This leads to Lemminkainen's second assault on Pohjola, once again against his mother's advice. He is not so much pissed off at losing the Maiden of Pohjola to Ilmarinen so much as missing a drinking party. The homestead is Not Impressed when he shows up several days after the wedding demanding beer, and the Master of Pohjola challenges him to a duel. Lemminkainen wins by technical decapitation, and Mistress Louhi sings up an army of swordsmen to chase him home.

"Ah, mum, I might need some help."
"Did you do something stupid?"
"I may have accidentally decapitated the Master of Pohjola and started a war."
"Honestly, you're just like your father."

His mum sends him off to an island where his father also used to hide out from stupid wars. Lemminkainen spends three years singing and cavorting with maidens, before heading back home just as he is about to be murdered by angry menfolk.

He returns to Kaleva to find his homestead in ruins, his treasure stolen and his mother in hiding. Once he's reassured that she's ok, he recruits a former fighting buddy Tiera for a third venture into Pohjola.

“Have you literally not learned one damned thing? I should have married for brains instead of looks.”

Halfway across the lake, Mistress Louhi sends the demon Frost against them, who freezes the lake before Lemminkainen insults it into submission. Lemminkainen and Teira make it to shore and wander about aimlessly for a bit before giving up the whole thing as a bad job.

"You know, I really think that went pretty well."
"Shut up, Lemminkainen."

 --

At this point I'm about two thirds through the Kalevala and I'm still loving it. I love the rhythm, the magic, the personal nature of the thing. I love that to brew for an epic wedding, you need the mythic history of beer. I love that a giant begins an epic series of curses with "I'll tell your mother on you!" And I'm even fond of Lemminkainen, vicious little murder-punk that he is.

Next: The theft of the Sampo.