The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country Part 4

Then Linda took her brooch, and spun it round on a thread, while she sent forth the Alder-Beetle[25] to bid the Wind-Magician and Soothsayer hasten to the bedside of her husband. Seven days the brooch spun round, and seven days the beetle flew to the north, across three kingdoms and more, till he encountered the Moon, and besought his aid. But the Moon only gazed on him sorrowfully without speaking, and went on his way.

Again Linda spun the brooch for seven days, and sent forth the beetle, who flew farther this time, through many thick forests, and as far as the Gold Mountain, till he encountered the Evening Star; but he also refused him an answer.

Next time the beetle took a different route, over wide heaths and thick fir-woods, till he reached the Gold Mountain, and met the rising Sun. He also returned no answer; but on a fourth journey the beetle encountered the Wind-Magician, the old Soothsayer from Finland,[26] and the great Necromancer himself. He besought their aid, but they replied with one voice that what the drought had parched up, the moonlight blanched, and the stars withered, could never bloom again. And before the beetle returned from his fruitless journey the mighty Kalev had expired.

Linda sat weeping by his bedside without food or sleep for seven days and nights, and then began to prepare his corpse for burial. First she bathed it with her tears, then with salt water from the sea, rain water from the clouds, and lastly water from the spring. Then she smoothed his hair with her fingers, and brushed it with a silver brush, and combed it with the golden comb which the water-nymphs had used to comb their hair.

She drew on him a silken s.h.i.+rt, a satin shroud, and a robe over it, confined by a silver girdle. She herself dug his grave thirty ells below the sod, and gra.s.s and flowers soon sprang from it.

From the grave the gra.s.ses sprouted, And the herbage from the hillock; From the dead man dewy gra.s.ses, From his cheeks grew ruddy flowers, From his eyes there sprang the harebells, Golden flowerets from his eyelids.[27]

Linda mourned for Kalev for one month after another till three months had pa.s.sed, and the fourth was far advanced. She heaped a cairn of stones over his tomb, which formed the hill on which the Cathedral of Revel now stands. One day she was carrying a great stone to the cairn, but found herself too weak, and let it fall. She sat down on it, and lamented her sad fate, and her tears formed the lake called "ulemiste jarv," the Upper Lake, beside which the huge stone block may still be seen.[28]

After this, Linda felt her time approaching, and she retired to the bathroom,[29] and called upon the G.o.ds to aid her. Ukko and Rugutaja[30] both attended at her call, and one brought a bundle of straw, and the other pillows, and they made her up a soft bed; nor was it long before Kalev's posthumous son saw the light.

Linda was sitting by the cradle one day, trying to sing the child to sleep, when suddenly he began to scream, and continued to scream day and night for a whole month, when he burst his swaddling-clothes, smashed the cradle to pieces, and began to creep about the floor.[31]

Linda suckled the child till he was three years old, and he grew up a fine strong boy. He first learned to tend the cattle, and then to guide the plough, and grew up like a young oak-tree. When he played _kurni_ (tipcat), his blocks flew far and wide all over the country, and many even as far as the sea. Sometimes he used to go down to the sea, and make ducks and drakes of huge rocks, which he sent spinning out to sea for a verst or more, while he stood on his head to watch them.

At other times he used to amuse himself quietly in the enclosure, carving skates or weaving baskets. Thus he pa.s.sed his days till he came to man's estate.

After the death of Kalev, Linda was much pestered by suitors who were anxious to marry the rich widow; but she refused them all, and at length they ceased to trouble her. Last of all came a mighty wind-sorcerer from Finland, calling himself Kalev's cousin; and when she refused him also, he vowed revenge. But she laughed at his threats, telling him she had three young eagles with sharp claws growing up in the house, who would protect their mother.

Linda was no longer tormented by suitors, but the magician whom she had discarded recommended all his friends not to seek a wife in Kalev's house, for notwithstanding Linda's wealth her beauty was faded, her teeth were iron, and her words were red-hot pincers. They would do better to sail to Finland, where they would find rows of maidens, rich in money, pearls, jewels, and golden bracelets, waiting for them on the rocky coast.

[Footnote 23: According to various traditions, Kalev and Linda are said to have had seven or twelve sons.]

[Footnote 24: This is what Jacobs calls "junior right;" the patriarchal custom of the elder children going forth into the world to seek their fortunes, and the youngest remaining at home to look after his parents and inherit their possessions. Hence the rivalry between Esau and Jacob.]

[Footnote 25: Has this anything to do with boys spinning c.o.c.kchafers on a thread? The beetle alluded to in the text is said to be the ladybird, but the ladybird has no particular connection with the alder. When a brooch is thus spun on a thread, a question is asked, and if the motion stops, the answer is unfavourable, but favourable if it continues. The flight of the beetle is fortunate towards the south, but unfortunate towards the north.]

[Footnote 26: It is curious that the Esthonians always regarded the Finns, and the Finns the Lapps, as great sorcerers; each nation attributing special skill in magic to those living north of themselves.--But there is a Finnish ballad (_Kanteletar_, iii. 2) in which we read of the sun and moon being stolen by German and Esthonian sorcerers.]

[Footnote 27: This reminds us of Ariel's well-known song--

"Full fathom five thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made," &c.

[Footnote 28: The origin of stone blocks is usually ascribed to non-human beings in many countries, but most frequently to the devil, especially in Northern Europe. Compare also the church-stories, &c., in a later part of this work.]

[Footnote 29: The usual place employed on such occasions in Finland and Esthonia.]

[Footnote 30: Ukko or Taara commonly appears as the princ.i.p.al G.o.d of the Finns and Esthonians; Rugutaja usually as an accoucheur, but occasionally also as a malicious demon. Rugutaja is also called the G.o.d of the Wind. Other authorities consider him a water-G.o.d. (Kreutzwald und Neus, _Mythische und Magische Lieder_, p. 108.)]

[Footnote 31: Kullervo in the _Kalevala_ (Runo 30) bursts his swaddling-clothes and smashes his cradle in the same way.]

CANTO III

THE FATE OF LINDA

One hot day, the youngest son of Kalev was sitting on the top of a cliff watching the clouds and waves. Suddenly the sky became overcast, and a terrific storm arose, which lashed the breakers into foam. aike,[32] the Thunder-G.o.d, was driving his brazen-wheeled chariot over the iron bridges of the sky, and as he thundered above, the sparks flew from the wheels, and he hurled down flash after flash of lightning from his strong right hand against a company of wicked demons of the air, who plunged from the rocks into the sea, dodged the thunderbolts among the waves, and mocked and insulted the G.o.d. The hero was enraged at their audacity, and plunging into the water, dragged them from their hiding-places like crabs, and filled a whole sack with them. He then swam to the sh.o.r.e, and cast them out on the rocks, where the bolts of the angry G.o.d soon reduced them to a disgusting ma.s.s that even the wolves would not touch.

Another day, the three sons of Kalev went hunting in the forest with their three dogs.[33] The dogs killed a bear among the bushes, an elk in the open country, and a wild ox in the fir-wood. Next they encountered a pack of wolves and another of foxes, numbering five dozen of each, and killed them all. All this game the youngest brother bound together and carried on his back; and on the way home they found the rye-fields full of hares, of which they likewise secured five dozen.[34]

Meantime the Finnish sorcerer had been watching Kalev's house from his boat, where he remained in hiding among the rocks a little way from the sh.o.r.e, till he saw that the three young heroes had left the house and wandered far into the forest, leaving their home unprotected. The sorcerer then steered boldly to the sh.o.r.e, hid his boat, and made his way by devious and unfrequented paths to the house of Kalev, where he climbed over the low gate into the enclosure, and went to the door, but he looked cautiously round when he reached the threshold. Linda was just boiling soup over the fire when he rushed in, and, without saying a word, seized her by the girdle and dragged her away to his boat. She resisted him with tooth and nail, but he muttered spells which unnerved her strength and overpowered her feeble efforts, and her prayers and cries for help were unheard by men. But she cried to the G.o.ds for protection, and the Thunder-G.o.d himself came to her aid.

Just as the sorcerer was about to push off from the sh.o.r.e, Pikker darted a bolt from the clouds. His chariot thundered over the iron bridges of the sky, scattering flames around it, and the sorcerer was struck down senseless. Linda fled; but the G.o.ds spared her further sorrow and outrage by transforming her into a rock on Mount Iru.

It was a long time before the sorcerer woke from his swoon, when he sat up, rubbing his eyes, and wondering what had become of his prey; but he could discover no trace of her. The rock is now called "Iru's Stepmother;" and old people relate that when it was once rolled down into the valley, it was found next morning in its original place on the mountain.

The sons of Kalev were now making the best of their way home, sometimes along well-trodden paths or across the plains, sometimes wading through deep sand or mossy bogs, and then through forests of pine, oak, birch, and alder. The pine forest was called the King's Wood; the oak forest was sacred to the G.o.d Taara; the forest where the slender birch-trees grew was called the Maidens' Wood, and the alder-wood was sacred to mourners, and was called the Wood of the Poor Orphans.

As they pa.s.sed through the pine forest which was called the King's Wood, the eldest brother sat down under a tree and began to sing a song. He sang till the leaves on the trees shone brighter than ever, and the needles on the fir-trees turned to silken ta.s.sels, and the fir-cones gleamed purple in the suns.h.i.+ne. Acorns sprouted on the oaks, tender catkins on the birch-trees, and other trees were covered with sweet-scented snow-white flowers, which shone in the suns.h.i.+ne and glimmered in the moonlight, while the woods re-echoed with his singing, and the tones were heard far over the heaths and meadows, and the daughter of the king of Kungla wept tears of rapture.[35]

The second brother sat down in the birch-wood under a weeping birch-tree, and began to sing a song. As he sang, the buds unfolded and the flowers bloomed, the golden ears of corn swelled, and the apples reddened, the kernels formed in the nuts, the cherries ripened, red berries grew on the hills and blue berries in the marshes, while black berries grew at the edges of the swamps, yellow ones on the mossy hillocks, and the elder-trees were covered with rich purple grapes, while the woods re-echoed with the song, and its notes spread far over the heaths and meadows till the little water-nymphs shed tears of rapture.

The third brother sat down under a magnificent oak in the sacred oak-forest of Taara, and began to sing a song. As he sang, the wild beasts of the neighbouring woods and heaths gathered round him, and the cuckoos, doves, magpies, larks, nightingales, and swallows joined in the concert. The swans, geese, and ducks swam towards the sound, the waves of the sea beat on the rocks, and the crowns of the trees bowed down.

The green hills trembled, and the clouds parted to permit the sky to listen to the singing, while the forest-king's daughter, the slender wood-nymphs, and the yellow-haired water-nymphs wept tears of rapture and glowed with longing for the handsome singer.

Evening now approached, and the heroes made the best of their way homewards, the youngest, as before, loading himself with all the game.

They looked out anxiously for the smoke of their home and the glow of the kitchen-fire, but they could discover nothing.

They quickened their pace as they crossed the deep sand of the heath, but no smoke nor fire nor steam from the kettle could be seen. They rushed into the house, but the fire was out and the hearth was cold.

Again and again they shouted to their mother, but there was no answer save the echo. The evening became darker and stiller, and the brothers went out to search in different directions. The youngest went down to the beach, where he found such traces of his mother's presence that he concluded that she had been carried off by her disappointed suitor, the Finnish sorcerer.

The eldest brother proposed that they should eat their supper and go to sleep, hoping that a dream might show them where to seek for their mother. The second a.s.sented, hoping that Ukko would send them a vision; but the youngest was unwilling to put off till to-morrow what might be done to-day, and finally determined to repair to his father's grave.[36]

From his grave there spoke the father-- "Who upon the sand is treading, With his feet the grave disturbing?

In my eyes the sand is running, On my eyelids gra.s.s is pressing."

The youth told his father who he was, and all his trouble, and implored him to rise and help him. But his father answered that he could not rise, for the rocks lay on his breast, lilies of the valley on his eyelids, harebells on his eyes, and red flowers on his cheeks. But he prayed the wind to show his son the right path, and a gentle zephyr to guide him on the way pointed out by the stars of heaven. So the young hero returned to the sea-sh.o.r.e and followed his mother's footprints till they were lost in the sea. He gazed over the sea and sh.o.r.e, but could detect no further traces of her, nor was any boat in sight. There he sat till it grew quite dark, and the moon and stars appeared in the sky; but winds and waves, sea and sky, moon and stars, alike were silent, and brought him no tidings of his mother.

[Footnote 32: The Esthonian Thunder-G.o.d goes by a variety of names, but is usually called Pikker or Pikne, evidently the Perkunas of the Lithuanians. He resembles Thor in driving about in a chariot, waging war with the evil demons; but one of his attributes, not appertaining to Thor, is his flute (or bagpipe, as some critics regard it). It will be seen in many places that the Esthonians, like all other peoples among whom the belief in fairies, demons, &c., survives, do not share the absurd modern notion that such beings must necessarily be immortal.]

[Footnote 33: Peter, in the story of the Lucky Rouble, is also attended by three black dogs. The dogs of the sons of Kalev were named Irmi, Armi, and Mustukene; the last name means Blackie, not Throttler, as Reinthal translates it.]

[Footnote 34: In the _Maha-Bharata_ Bhima is represented as carrying enormous loads, and in one pa.s.sage Yudhishthira is searching for his brother in the Himalayas, when he comes to a place where slaughtered lions and tigers are lying about by thousands, which convinces him that he is on the right track.]

[Footnote 35: This pa.s.sage would seem to indicate that the daughter of the king of Kungla was sometimes looked upon rather as a fairy than as a human princess.]

[Footnote 36: Visits to a father's grave for counsel are very common in the literature of Northern Europe.]