The Kalevala · 37 of 275 · tr. John Martin Crawford
Rune VIII-c
But the stream flows like a brooklet, Rushing like a maddened torrent, Stains the herbs upon the meadows, Scarcely is a bit of verdure That the blood-stream does not cover As it flows and rushes onward From the knee of the magician, From the veins of Wainamoinen.
Now the wise and ancient minstrel Gathers lichens from the sandstone, Picks them from the trunks of birches, Gathers moss within the marshes, Pulls the grasses from the meadows, Thus to stop the crimson streamlet, Thus to close the wounds laid open; But his work is unsuccessful, And the crimson stream flows onward.
Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel, Feeling pain and fearing languor, Falls to weeping, heavy-hearted; Quickly now his steed he hitches, Hitches to the sledge of birch-wood, Climbs with pain upon the cross-bench, Strikes his steed in quick succession, Snaps his whip above the racer, And the steed flies onward swiftly; Like the winds he sweeps the highway, Till be nears a Northland village, Where the way is triple-parted.
Wainamoinen, old and truthful, Takes the lowest of the highways, Quickly nears a spacious cottage, Quickly asks before the doorway: "Is there any one here dwelling, That can know the pain I suffer, That can heal this wound of hatchet.
That can check this crimson streamlet?" Sat a boy within a corner, On a bench beside a baby, And he answered thus the hero: "There is no one in this dwelling That can know the pain thou feelest, That can heal the wounds of hatchet, That can check the crimson streamlet; Some one lives in yonder cottage, That perchance can do thee service." Wainamoinen, ancient minstrel, Whips his courser to a gallop, Dashes on along the highway; Only drives a little distance, On the middle of the highways, To a cabin on the road-side, Asks one standing on the threshold, Questions all through open windows, These the words the hero uses: "Is there no one in this cabin, That can know the pain I suffer, That can heal this wound of hatchet, That can check this crimson streamlet?" On the floor a witch was lying, Near the fire-place lay the beldame, Thus she spake to Wainamoinen, Through her rattling teeth she answered.
"There is no one in this cabin That can know the pain thou feelest, That can heal the wounds of hatchets, That can check the crimson streamlet; Some one lives in yonder cottage, That perchance can do thee service." Wainamoinen, nothing daunted, Whips his racer to a gallop, Dashes on along the highway; Only drives a little distance, On the upper of the highways, Gallops to a humble cottage, Asks one standing near the penthouse, Sitting on the penthouse-doorsill: "Is there no one in this cottage, That can know the pain I suffer, That can heal this wound of hatchet, That can check this crimson streamlet?" Near the fireplace sat an old man, On the hearthstone sat the gray-beard, Thus he answered Wainamoinen: "Greater things have been accomplished, Much more wondrous things effected, Through but three words of the master; Through the telling of the causes, Streams and oceans have been tempered, River cataracts been lessened, Bays been made of promontories, Islands raised from deep sea-bottoms."
The doctrine and worldview that natural phenomena, places, and objects possess inherent spirit, soul, or personality — and that the cosmos is populated by countless local, plural, embodied divine agents: kami in mountain and tree, sidhe in cairn and well, landwights in field and stone, nymphs in spring and grove, haltija in forest and lake, lares and penates in household and threshold, Iamblichean daemons in element and place. Distinct from monotheism (single transcendent God), pantheism (one underlying substance), and emanation_hierarchy (cascading single source); animism's signature is the plurality, locality, and embodied-in-landscape character of the divine.
Vainamoinen attempts to heal his wound by gathering natural elements like lichens and moss, implying inherent spiritual power in the landscape, while spirits or magical beings inhabit the cottages along the road.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The old man references primordial creative acts such as 'Islands raised from deep sea-bottoms' and tempering streams, alluding to the origin of the world.
The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.
The passage culminates in the revelation that 'three words of the master' can temper streams and raise islands, highlighting the causal-magical force of spoken formulae central to Vainamoinen's identity as a magician-minstrel.