ost in the sea, and that, perhaps, is 'why the
sea is salt.' Fragments were collected, however, and Loutri, furious at
the success of the heroes of Kalevala, sent against them a bear,
destructive as the boar of Calydon. But Wainamoinen despatched the
monster, and the body was brought home with the bear-dance, and the hymn
of the bear. 'Oh, Otso,' cry the singers, 'be not angry that we come
near thee. The bear, the honey-footed bear, was born in lands between
sun and moon, and he died not by men's hands, but of his own will.' The
Finnish savants are probably right, who find here a trace of the beast-
worship which in many lands has placed the bear among the number of the
stars. Propitiation of the bear is practised by Red Indians, by the
Ainos of Japan, and (in the case of the 'native bear') by Australians.
The Red Indians have a myth to prove that the bear is immortal, does not
die, but, after his apparent death, rises again in another body. There
is no trace, however, that the Finns claimed, like the Danes, descent
from the bear. The Lapps, a people of confused belief, worshipped him
along with Thor, Christ, the sun, and the serpent. {176}

But another cult, an alien creed, is approaching Kalevala. There is no
part of the epic more strange than the closing canto, which tells in the
wildest language, and through the most exaggerated forms of savage
imagination, the tale of the introduction of Christianity. Marjatta was
a maiden, 'as pure as the dew is, as holy as stars are that live without
stain.' As she fed her flocks, and listened to the singing of the golden
cuckoo, a berry fell into her bosom. After many days she bore a child,
and the people despised and rejected her, and she was thrust forth, and
her babe was born in a stable, and cradled in the manger. Who should
baptize the babe? The god of the wilderness refused, and Wainamoinen
would have had the young child slain. Then the infant rebuked the
ancient Demigod, who fled in anger to the sea, and with his magic song he
built a magic barque, and he sat therein, and took the helm in his hand.
The tide bore him out to sea, and he lifted his voice and sang: 'Times go
by, and suns shall rise and set, and then shall men have need of me, and
shall look for the promise of my coming that I may make a new sampo, and
a new harp, and bring back sunlight and moonshine, and the joy that is
banished from the world.' Then he crossed the waters, and gained the
limit