The Kalevala · 41 of 275 · tr. John Martin Crawford
Rune IXd
"Surely thou wert void of greatness, Having neither strength nor beauty, When the moose was trampling on thee, When the roebuck trod upon thee, When the tracks of wolves were in thee, And the bear-paws scratched thy body.
Surely thou hadst little value When the skilful Ilmarinen, First of all the iron-workers, Brought thee from the blackened swamp-lands, Took thee to his ancient smithy, Placed thee in his fiery furnace.
Truly thou hadst little vigor, Little strength, and little danger, When thou in the fire wert hissing, Rolling forth like seething water, From the furnace of the smithy, When thou gavest oath the strongest, By the furnace, by the anvil, By the tongs, and by the hammer, By the dwelling of the blacksmith, By the fire within the furnace.
"Now forsooth thou hast grown mighty, Thou canst rage in wildest fury; Thou hast broken all thy pledges, All thy solemn vows hast broken, Like the dogs thou shamest honor, Shamest both thyself and kindred, Tainted all with breath of evil.
Tell who drove thee to this mischief, Tell who taught thee all thy malice, Tell who gavest thee thine evil!
Did thy father, or thy mother, Did the eldest of thy brothers, Did the youngest of thy sisters, Did the worst of all thy kindred Give to thee thine evil nature?
Not thy father, nor thy mother, Not the eldest of thy brothers, Not the youngest of thy sisters, Not the worst of all thy kindred, But thyself hast done this mischief, Thou the cause of all our trouble.
Come and view thine evil doings, And amend this flood of damage, Ere I tell thy gray-haired mother, Ere I tell thine aged father.
Great indeed a mother's anguish, Great indeed a father's sorrow, When a son does something evil, When a child runs wild and lawless.
"Crimson streamlet, cease thy flowing From the wounds of Wainamoinen; Blood of ages, stop thy coursing From the veins of the magician; Stand like heaven's crystal pillars, Stand like columns in the ocean, Stand like birch-trees in the forest, Like the tall reeds in the marshes, Like the high-rocks on the sea-coast, Stand by power of mighty magic!
"Should perforce thy will impel thee, Flow thou on thine endless circuit, Through the veins of Wainamoinen, Through the bones, and through the muscles, Through the lungs, and heart, and liver, Of the mighty sage and singer; Better be the food of heroes, Than to waste thy strength and virtue On the meadows and the woodlands, And be lost in dust and ashes.
Flow forever in thy circle; Thou must cease this crimson out-flow; Stain no more the grass and flowers, Stain no more these golden hill-tops, Pride and beauty of our heroes.
In the veins of the magician, In the heart of Wainamoinen, Is thy rightful home and storehouse.
Thither now withdraw thy forces, Thither hasten, swiftly flowing; Flow no more as crimson currents, Fill no longer crimson lakelets, Must not rush like brooks in spring-tide, Nor meander like the rivers.
"Cease thy flow, by word of magic, Cease as did the falls of Tyrya, As the rivers of Tuoni, When the sky withheld her rain-drops, When the sea gave up her waters, In the famine of the seasons, In the years of fire and torture.
Themes
◆Alchemical Workpraxis
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
The text describes the transformation of raw iron from swamp to weapon through fire, mirroring purification processes.
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.
The iron weapon and blood are addressed as sentient agents with will, moral capacity, and the ability to break vows.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The blood is commanded to stand like cosmic structures (heaven's pillars, ocean columns), linking bodily fluid to cosmic order.
Iamblichean ritual practice that engages the gods directly through consecrated material symbols and actions, on the premise that divine power descends into properly prepared matter — distinct from philosophical contemplation alone.
Ritual invocation of smithy tools and fire is used to engage magical powers and effect physical healing.
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 is an explicit magical spell where spoken words command the blood and weapon to cease flowing and alter reality.