stant Pohjola.'
His mother spoke again, saying: 'Do not go, my dear son, for Death will
meet thee thrice upon the way.' Lemminkainen replied that he did not
fear Death, but would overcome him, but at the same time asked his
mother what the first danger would be.

'When thou hast travelled for one day,' she replied, 'thou wilt come to
a stream of fire, with a fiery cataract, and in the fire-fall a rock,
and on the rock a fiery hill, and on its top an eagle made of flames,
who devours all that approach him.'

Lemminkainen answered that he would easily pass this danger, and asked
to know the second. His mother told him: 'When thou hast travelled two
days, thou wilt come to a fiery pit filled with red-hot stones, and no
one has ever been able to pass over it.'

But Lemminkainen thought but little of this second danger, and asked his
mother to tell him what the third one was. She replied: 'When thou hast
gone one day farther, and hast come to Pohjola, the wolf and the black
bear will attack thee, and many hundred men have perished in their
jaws.' But he told her how easily he would overcome them and then have
conquered all the dangers of the journey. Then his mother added: 'There
are three things still to conquer. When thou reachest Louhi's dwelling,
thou wilt find walls built of iron rising up to the sky, and surrounded
by railings of spears on which are serpents and all manner of venomous
creatures twisting and creeping about; and right before the gateway lies
the largest of them all, longer than the rafters of a house. And beyond
all this, thou wilt find great hosts of armed warriors, who have grown
angry over their beer and they will certainly kill you. And if thou
shouldst come into the courtyard, thou wilt find it full of sharp
stakes, to hold the heads of those that go thither unbidden. Do not
forget how thou once fared in Pohjola, that had I not saved thee thou
wouldst now be at the bottom of Tuoni's river.'

Yet after she had warned him of all this, Lemminkainen would not be
persuaded to remain at home, but put on his magic armour of copper and
took his father's sword, and his own strongest bow. Then he had his
steed hitched to a sledge and went out into the courtyard to drive off.
There his mother bade him farewell and gave him some last words of
advice, telling him that if he should come to the feast, to drink but
half of his goblet of beer, for there were serpents in the other half,
and to behave modestly and