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The Kalevala · 49 of 275 · tr. John Martin Crawford

Rune X-e

On the second day, the blacksmith Downward bent and well examined, On the bottom of the furnace; From the fire, a skiff of metals, Came a boat of purple color, All the ribs were colored golden, And the oars were forged from copper; Thus the skiff was full of beauty, But alas! a thing of evil; Forth it rushes into trouble, Hastens into every quarrel, Hastes without a provocation Into every evil combat. Ilmarinen, metal artist, Is not pleased with this creation, Breaks the skiff in many fragments, Throws them back within the furnace, Keeps the workmen at the bellows, Thus to forge the magic Sampo. On the third day, Ilmarinen, First of all the metal-workers, Downward bent and well examined, On the bottom of the furnace; There be saw a heifer rising, Golden were the horns of Kimmo, On her head the Bear of heaven, On her brow a disc of sunshine, Beautiful the cow of magic; But alas! she is ill-tempered, Rushes headlong through the forest, Rushes through the swamps and meadows, Wasting all her milk in running. Ilmarinen, the magician. Is not pleased with this creation, Cuts the magic cow in pieces, Throws them in the fiery furnace, Sets the workmen at the bellows, Thus to forge the magic Sampo. On the fourth day, Ilmarinen Downward bent and well examined, To the bottom of the furnace; There beheld a plow in beauty Rising from the fire of metals, Golden was the point and plowshare, And the beam was forged from copper, And the handles, molten silver, Beautiful the plow and wondrous; But alas! it is ill-mannered, Plows up fields of corn and barley, Furrows through the richest meadows. Ilmarinen, metal artist, Is not pleased with this creation, Quickly breaks the plow in pieces, Throws them back within the furnace, Lets the winds attend the bellows, Lets the storm-winds fire the metals. Fiercely vie the winds of heaven, East-wind rushing, West-wind roaring, South-wind crying, North-wind howling, Blow one day and then a second, Blow the third from morn till even, When the fire leaps through the windows, Through the door the sparks fly upward, Clouds of smoke arise to heaven; With the clouds the black smoke mingles, As the storm-winds ply the bellows. On the third night Ilmarinen, Bending low to view his metals, On the bottom of the furnace, Sees the magic Sampo rising, Sees the lid in many colors. Quick the artist of Wainola Forges with the tongs and anvil, Knocking with a heavy hammer, Forges skilfully the Sampo; On one side the flour is grinding, On another salt is making, On a third is money forging, And the lid is many-colored. Well the Sampo grinds when finished, To and fro the lid in rocking, Grinds one measure at the day-break, Grinds a measure fit for eating, Grinds a second for the market, Grinds a third one for the store-house. Joyfully the dame of Northland, Louhi, hostess of Pohyola, Takes away the magic Sampo, To the hills of Sariola, To the copper-bearing mountains, Puts nine locks upon the wonder, Makes three strong roots creep around it; In the earth they grow nine fathoms, One large root beneath the mountain, One beneath the sandy sea-bed, One beneath the mountain-dwelling.
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Themes
Animismcosmology

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.

Natural forces like the winds are personified with human actions and emotions, and magical objects possess inherent spirit within the landscape.

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Cosmogonycosmology

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 text narrates the origin story of the Sampo, a key cosmic artifact, though not the creation of the universe itself.

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World Tree Axiscosmology

A vertical structure connecting cosmic levels — a tree, pillar, mountain, or ladder linking heaven, earth, and underworld around which the cosmos is organised. Yggdrasil binding the Nine Worlds in Norse cosmology, the Kalevala's Sampo as world-pillar, the Mayan ceiba, the Vedic Aśvattha, the shamanic central tree of Eliade's analyses. Cosmic-structural in character: distinct from sefirot_tree (a kabbalistic emanation diagram) and emanation_hierarchy (an ontological cascade); world_tree_axis is the cosmos's spine rather than the divine's outflow.

The passage explicitly describes the Sampo with roots beneath the mountain, sea-bed, and dwelling, functioning as a cosmic pillar connecting different realms.

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