d perished, and ended up his story by asking Louhi to give him her
next fairest daughter to be his wife. But Louhi grew angry and upbraided
him with not having guarded her other daughter, and thus being guilty of
her death, and she scornfully refused to give him another of her
daughters.

But Ilmarinen went into the house in great anger and there addressed
Louhi's next fairest daughter, begging her to come to his home with him
and become his wife. The maid replied: 'I will never marry the man who
has been the cause of my dear sister's death. And even if I were to
marry I would wish a nobler suitor than a mere blacksmith.' Then
Ilmarinen grew pale with anger, and seizing the maiden in his mighty
arms he rushed off to his sledge and drove off like the wind before any
one could stop him.

The poor maid wept and begged Ilmarinen to release her and to let her
die by the roadside, rather than to take her thus to his home. 'If thou
wilt not release me,' she said, 'I will change into a salmon and escape
thee.' But Ilmarinen told her that he would pursue her in the shape of a
pike. Then the maiden said, first, that she would become an ermine, but
Ilmarinen told her he would turn into a snake and catch her; and then
she said that she would become a swallow, but Ilmarinen threatened to
become an eagle.

So they drove on and on, and the maiden wept the whole time, and begged
Ilmarinen to let her go, even if it were only to die in the snow, but he
refused and grew more and more angry at her obstinacy. At length they
reached Ilmarinen's home and he took the maiden into the house. But
here, seeing there was no hope of escape, she determined to make him so
angry that he would kill her and thus she would be freed from him. So
she began to make fun of him and to scorn him and laugh at him, until at
length Ilmarinen was in such a rage that he scarcely knew what he was
doing, and drew his sword to kill her.

But the sword refused to do this cruel deed, saying: 'I was born to
drink the blood of warriors, but not of such a pure and lovely maid as
this.' So Ilmarinen, being unable to kill her, began to weave a magic
spell about her, and in a few minutes she changed all of a sudden into a
seagull, and flew off screaming towards the sea-cliffs.

And when he had done this, Ilmarinen went out and got into his sledge
and drove off to his brother Wainamoinen. When he arrived, Wainamoinen
asked him why he was so sad, and whether all was well in