Nor can bear their hatred longer,
Longer can I not endure it,
In this dreadful house of Lempo,
In this lair of evil demons.'

"From the handsome house I turned me,
And my pleasant home abandoned, 750
And commenced my weary wanderings,
Through the swamps and through the lowlands,
Past the open sheets of water,
Past the cornfields of my brother.
There the dry pines all were rustling,
And the crowns of fir-trees singing,
All the crows were croaking loudly,
And the magpies all were chattering,

"'Here for thee no home remaineth,
In the house thy birth which witnessed.' 760

"But I let it not distress me,
As I neared my brother's homestead,
But the gates themselves addressed me,
And the cornfields all lamented:

"'Wherefore hast thou thus come homeward,
What sad news to hear, O wretched?
Long ago has died thy father,
Perished has thy sweetest mother,
All estranged is now thy brother,
And his wife is like a Russian.' 770

"But I let it not distress me,
And at once the house I entered,
At the door I grasped the handle,
Cold within my hand I felt it.

"After, when the room I entered,
In the doorway I was standing,
And the mistress stood there proudly,
But she did not come to meet me,
Nor to me her hand she offered.
I myself was proud as she was, 780
And I would not go to meet her,
And my hand I would not offer.
On the stove my hand I rested.
Cold I felt the very hearthstones,
To the burning coals I reached it;
In the stove the coals were frozen.

"On the bench there lay my brother,
Lazy on the bench extended,
On his shoulders soot by fathoms,
And by spans upon his body, 790
On his head glowed coals a yard high,
And of hard-caked soot a quartful.

"Asked my brother of the stranger,
Of the guest he thus inquired:
'Stranger, why hast crossed the water?'

"And on this I gave him answer:
'Dost thou then not know thy sister,
Once the daughter of thy mother?
We are children of one mother,
Of one bird are we the nestlings: 800
By one goose have we been nurtured,
In one grouse's nest been fostered.'

"Then my brother broke out weeping,
From his eyes the tears were falling.

"To his wif