Kalevala is the national epic poem of the Finnish people and the following extract tells the story of one of its heroes,Vainamoinen, and his search for a bride.
Before time itself, there was Ilma, the air goddess. She had a daughter called Luonnotar who wandered constantly through the clouds her mother had created. After many years of wandering, she fell down to the ocean, exhausted.
Luonnotar floated in the waters of the ocean for seven hundred years. Without her knowledge, (for she was tired and in a dreamless sleep) the lapping waters of the ocean made her pregnant. The child grew in her womb and took so long to come out that he was already an old man when he finally did. He was called Vainamoinen. Vainamoinen swam across the waters and reached the land that was to become Finland in the future. He thought the first thing he should do was build a home for himself and proceeded to do so. Suddenly, the ground shook as if the earth was about to open up and a loud voice boomed echoing manifold in that wilderness, “Halt, you stranger! You don’t belong here. What gives you the right to set up a home in these parts? This is my territory!”
Vainamoinen looked up from his task at hand. Towering over him menacingly was a giant of a man. “And who may you be?” he asked in a tone that was half polite, half mocking, thinking that the giant was too thick headed to notice. “You don’t know?”thundered the giant angrily, “I’m Joukahainen, the mighty! Be afraid, very afraid”
“Really? I don’t see reason to,” replied Vainamoinen and continued building his future home. As you can see it was never going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship and the two began to quarrel violently. Now our hero Vainamoinen was born with an extraordinary musical gift. So he challenged the giant to a musical contest. Joukahainen roared with laughter. “You can sing old man? Well, you are never going to win this one,”
“What happens if I win?” asked Vainamoinen smiling. He was delighted that the giant was actually falling into the trap. Joukahainen thought his booming voice would drown the song of the old man. But he was not prepared for the magical quality of Vainamoinen’s voice. The mesmerising strains of his song caused Joukahainen to sink into a swamp. He didn’t know the singer was also a magician and was singing the Song of Death. When he realised that he was in danger, the desperate giant called out, “Don’t do this. If you save me, I promise you the hand of my sister, Aino. She is beautiful, kind hearted and will look after you.”
What a stroke of luck, thought Vainamoinen to himself. Of course he needed a wife. So he pulled the giant back to land. When she heard that her brother had foolishly pledged her in marriage to an old man, the beautiful Aino was completely heartbroken. Rather than fulfill her brother’s promise, she chose to drown herself in the ocean.
Vainamoinen searched the seas for the girl and found that she had turned into a fish. He tried to get her out with a fishing hook but she managed to escape and sought refuge in the undersea world. As Vainamoinen made his journey back to land disappointed, Joukahainen, angry that his sister had drowned, attacked him. He sank Vainamoinen’s boat in the ocean but the magician singer drifted helplessly in the sea. In due course it would carry him to the Northlands where he would continue his long quest for a bride. But that is another story.