The Kalevala · 58 of 275 · tr. John Martin Crawford
Rune XIIb
"Hither bring my martial doublet, Bring me now the sword of battle, Bring my father's sword of honor; I must go to upper Northland, To the battle-fields of Lapland, There to win me gold and silver." This the anxious mother's answer: "My beloved Kaukomieli, We have gold in great abundance, Gold and silver in the store-room; Recently upon the uplands, In the early hours of morning, Toiled the workmen in the corn-fields, Plowed the meadows filled with serpents, When the plowshare raised the cover From a chest of gold and silver, Countless was the gold uncovered, Hid beneath the grassy meadow; This the treasure I have brought thee, Take the countless gold in welcome." Spake the hero, Lemminkainen: "Do not wish thy household silver, From the wars I'll earn my silver; Gold and silver from the combat Are to me of greater value Than the wealth thou hast discovered.
Bring me now my heavy armor, Bring me too my spear and broadsword; To the Northland I must hasten, To the bloody wars of Lapland, Thither does my pride impel me, Thitherward my heart is turning.
"I have heard a tale of Lapland, Some believe the wondrous story, That a maid in Pimentola Lives that does not care for suitors, Does not care for bearded heroes." This the aged mother's answer: "Warlike Athi, son beloved, In thy home thou hast Kyllikki, Fairest wife of all the islands; Strange to see two wives abiding In the home of but one husband." Spake the hero, Lemminkainen: "To the village runs Kyllikki; Let her run to village dances, Let her sleep in other dwellings, With the village youth find pleasure, With the maids of braided tresses." Seeks the mother to detain him, Thus the anxious mother answers: "Do not go, my son beloved, Ignorant of Pohya-witchcraft, To the distant homes of Northland Till thou hast the art of magic, Till thou hast some little wisdom Do not go to fields of battle, To the fires of Northland's children, To the slaughter-fields of Lapland, Till of magic thou art master.
There the Lapland maids will charm thee, Turyalanders will bewitch thee, Sing thy visage into charcoal, Head and shoulders to the furnace, Into ashes sing thy fore-arm, Into fire direct thy footsteps." Spake the warlike Lemminkainen: Wizards often have bewitched me, And the fascinating serpents; Lapland wizards, three in number, On an eve in time of summer, Sitting on a rock at twilight, Not a garment to protect them, Once bewitched me with their magic; This much they have taken from me, This the sum of all my losses: What the hatchet gains from flint-stone, What the auger bores from granite, What the heel chips from the iceberg, And what death purloins from tomb-stones.
"Horribly the wizards threatened, Tried to sink me with their magic, In the water of the marshes, In the mud and treacherous quicksand, To my chin in mire and water; But I too was born a hero, Born a hero and magician, Was not troubled by their magic.
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.
The worldview assumes a landscape populated by active spiritual agents like Lapland wizards and serpents who inhabit specific places and interact with humans.
Form-mutability as a constitutional property of divine and preternatural beings — gods, heroes, spirits, and their human practitioners possessing inherent capacity to alter form across human, animal, plant, or elemental states. Loki and Odin's transformations in Norse, Math's pigs and Blodeuwedd's owl-shape and Pwyll's exchange with Arawn in the Mabinogion, the Greek Proteus, the Indian dasavatara, Vainamoinen's bird-flight in the Kalevala, Ovid's metamorphoses, the shamanic and witch's capacity for ritual form-change. Distinct from anthropomorphism (divine taking specific human form, single embodiment) in that anthropomorphism establishes a stable form whereas this concept establishes form's plurality and instability.
The wizards threaten to magically transform the hero's body into charcoal and ashes through their song, indicating a capacity for ritual form-change.
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 explicitly describes magic as sung words that alter physical reality, such as singing a visage into charcoal or directing footsteps into fire.