side my
table, to be a queen within my home in the land of Kalevala.'

But the maiden replied: 'Yesterday I went at twilight to the flowery
meadows. There I heard a thrush singing, and I asked him, "Tell me,
pretty song-bird, how shall I live most happily, as a maiden in my
father's home or as a wife by my husband's side?" And the bird sang in
reply, "The summer days are bright and warm, and so is a maiden's
freedom; the winter is cold and dark, and so are the lives of married
women. They are like dogs chained in a kennel, no favours are given to
wives."'

But Wainamoinen answered the maiden: 'The thrush sings only nonsense.
Maidens are treated like little children, but wives are like queens.
Come to my sledge, O maiden, for I am not the least among heroes, nor am
I ignorant of magic. Come, and I will make thee my wife and queen in
Kalevala.'

Then the Rainbow-maiden promised to be his wife if he would split a
golden hair with a knife that had no edge, and take a bird's egg from
the nest with a snare that no one could see. Wainamoinen did both these
things, and then begged her to come to his sledge, for he had done what
she asked.

But she set another task for him, telling him she would marry him if he
could peel a block of sandstone and cut a whip-handle from ice without
making a single splinter. And Wainamoinen did both these things, but
still the maiden refused to go until he had performed a third task. This
was to make from the splinters of her distaff a little ship, and to
launch it into the water without touching it.

Then Wainamoinen took the pieces of her distaff and set to work. He took
them to a mountain from which he got the iron for his work, and for
three days he laboured with hatchet and hammer. But on the evening of
the third day a wicked spirit, Lempo, caught his hatchet as he raised it
up, and turned it as it fell, so that it hit a rock and broke in
fragments, and one of the pieces flew into the magician's knee, and cut
it, so that the blood poured out.

Then Wainamoinen began to sing a magic incantation to stop the blood
from flowing, but his magic was powerless against the evil Lempo, and he
could not stop the blood. Then he gathered certain herbs with wonderful
powers, and put them on the wound, but still he could not heal it up,
for Lempo's spell was too powerful for his magic. So he got into his
sledge again, and drove off at a gallop to seek for help. Soon he came
to a place where the road