ch force that every
talon was cut off but one.

Then the eagle flew up on to the mast once more, and upbraided
Lemminkainen because he had broken his promise to his mother that he
would not go to war for sixty years. But Wainamoinen, believing that his
last hour was come, took the rudder in his hand and struck the eagle
such a mighty blow that all the warriors fell from its wings and back
into the water. Then the eagle made one more swoop down upon the vessel,
and, with the one talon it had left, it dragged the Sampo over the side
of the ship so that it fell to the bottom of the ocean and was broken to
pieces. And it is this that has brought so much wealth to the sea, for
where the Sampo is there will always be wealth also. But a few pieces of
the lid floated ashore to Kalevala, and it is therefore that our country
has now the harvests that before that grew in the dismal Northland.

But Louhi threatened Wainamoinen, saying: 'I will steal away thy silver
moonlight and thy golden sunlight. I will send the frost and hail to
kill thy crops, and will send the bear--Otso--from the forests to kill
thy cattle and sheep. I will send upon thy people nine diseases, each
one of them more fatal than the one before.' Then Wainamoinen replied:
'No one from dismal Northland can harm us of Kalevala, Only Ukko rules
the fate of peoples, and he will guard my crops from frost and hail, and
my cattle from the bear, Otso. Thou mayst hide evil people in thy
Northland caverns, but thou canst never steal the Sun and Moon, and all
thy frosts and plagues and bears may turn against thyself.'

And then Louhi departed to her home, weeping for the loss of the magic
Sampo, and ever since that time there have been famines and poverty in
gloomy Pohjola. But Wainamoinen and the other heroes returned home
rejoicing, and on the shore they found fragments of the Sampo's lid.
Then Wainamoinen prayed to Ukko to be merciful and kind to them, and to
protect them from frost and hail and bears, and to let the golden light
of the Moon and Sun shine for ever on the plains of Kalevala.

* * * * *

'Ah!' said Erik, half smiling, 'it's a great pity that the whole Sampo
didn't float ashore to our country, for perhaps then there would never
have been any famines in our land at all,' and he sighed as he thought
of some of the hard winters in years past.

'All is in God's hands,' said Father Mikko reverently, 'and we must take
both goo