The Kalevala · 81 of 275 · tr. John Martin Crawford
Rune XVh
Then the mother spake as follows: "I have found the long-sought balsam, Found the remedy of Ukko, Where-with God anoints his people, Gives them life, and faith, and wisdom, Heals their wounds and stills their anguish, Makes them strong against temptation, Guards them from the evil-doers." Now the mother well anointing, Heals her son, the magic singer, Eyes, and ears, and tongue, and temples, Breaks, and cuts, and seams, anointing, Touching well the life-blood centres, Speaks these words of magic import To the sleeping Lemminkainen: "Wake, arise from out thy slumber, From the worst of low conditions, From thy state of dire misfortune!" Slowly wakes the son and hero, Rises from the depths of slumber, Speaks again in magic accents, These the first words of the singer: "Long, indeed, have I been sleeping, Long unconscious of existence, But my sleep was full of sweetness, Sweet the sleep in Tuonela, Knowing neither joy nor sorrow!" This the answer of his mother: "Longer still thou wouldst have slumbered, Were it not for me, thy, mother; Tell me now, my son beloved, Tell me that I well may hear thee, Who enticed thee to Manala, To the river of Tuoni, To the fatal stream and whirlpool?" Then the hero, Lemminkainen, Gave this answer to his mother: "Nasshut, the decrepit shepherd Of the flocks of Sariola, Blind, and halt, and poor, and wretched, And to whom I did a favor; From the slumber-land of envy Nasshut sent me to Manala, To the river of Tuoni; Sent a serpent from the waters, Sent an adder from the death-stream, Through the heart of Lemminkainen; Did not recognize the serpent, Could not speak the serpent-language, Did not know the sting of adders." Spake again the ancient mother: "O thou son of little insight, Senseless hero, fool-magician, Thou didst boast betimes thy magic To enchant the wise enchanters, On the dismal shores of Lapland, Thou didst think to banish heroes, From the borders of Pohyola; Didst not know the sting of serpents, Didst not know the reed of waters, Nor the magic word-protector!
Learn the origin of serpents, Whence the poison of the adder.
"In the floods was born the serpent, From the marrow of the gray-duck, From the brain of ocean-swallows; Suoyatar had made saliva, Cast it on the waves of ocean, Currents drove it outward, onward, Softly shone the sun upon it, By the winds 'twas gently cradled, Gently nursed by winds and waters, By the waves was driven shoreward, Landed by the surging billows.
Thus the serpent, thing of evil, Filling all the world with trouble, Was created in the waters Born from Suoyatar, its maker." Then the mother of the hero Rocked her son to rest and comfort, Rocked him to his former being, To his former life and spirit, Into greater magic powers; Wiser, handsomer than ever Grew the hero of the islands; But his heart was full of trouble, And his mother, ever watchful, Asked the cause of his dejection.
This is Lemminkainen's answer: "This the cause of all my sorrow; Far away my heart is roaming, All my thoughts forever wander To the Northland's blooming virgins, To the maids of braided tresses.
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 text depicts a worldview where natural phenomena like water and animals possess inherent spirit or divine agency, such as serpents born from ocean swallows.
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 mother recites a specific origin narrative explaining how serpents were created from the marrow of ducks and saliva of ocean swallows.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
Ukko's remedy is described as a divine provision that heals wounds and guards people from evil-doers.
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.
The mother performs a ritual using consecrated material (balsam) and magic words to engage divine power for healing and restoration.
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 centers on the causal-magical efficacy of spoken words and songs used to heal, wake the dead, and protect against serpents.