The Kalevala · 89 of 275 · tr. John Martin Crawford
Rune XVII-a
FINDS THE LOST-WORD.
Wainamoinen, old and truthful, Did not learn the words of magic In Tuoni's gloomy regions, In the kingdom of Manala.
Thereupon he long debated, Well considered, long reflected, Where to find the magic sayings; When a shepherd came to meet him, Speaking thus to Wainamoinen: "Thou canst find of words a hundred, Find a thousand wisdom-sayings, In the mouth of wise Wipunen, In the body of the hero; To the spot I know the foot-path, To his tomb the magic highway, Trodden by a host of heroes; Long the distance thou must travel, On the sharpened points of needles; Then a long way thou must journey On the edges of the broadswords; Thirdly thou must travel farther On the edges of the hatchets." Wainamoinen, old and trustful, Well considered all these journeys, Travelled to the forge and smithy, Thus addressed the metal-worker: "Ilmarinen, worthy blacksmith, Make a shoe for me of iron, Forge me gloves of burnished copper, Mold a staff of strongest metal, Lay the steel upon the inside, Forge within the might of magic; I am going on a journey To procure the magic sayings, Find the lost-words of the Master, From the mouth of the magician, From the tongue of wise Wipunen." Spake the artist, Ilmarinen: "Long ago died wise Wipunen, Disappeared these many ages, Lays no more his snares of copper, Sets no longer traps of iron, Cannot learn from him the wisdom, Cannot find in him the lost-words." Wainamoinen, old and hopeful, Little heeding, not discouraged, In his metal shoes and armor, Hastens forward on his journey, Runs the first day fleetly onward, On the sharpened points of needles; 'Wearily he strides the second, On the edges of the broadswords Swings himself the third day forward, On the edges of the hatchets.
Wise Wipunen, wisdom-singer, Ancient bard, and great magician, With his magic songs lay yonder, Stretched beside him, lay his sayings, On his shoulder grew the aspen, On each temple grew the birch-tree, On his mighty chin the alder, From his beard grew willow-bushes, From his mouth the dark green fir-tree, And the oak-tree from his forehead.
Wainamoinen, coming closer, Draws his sword, lays bare his hatchet From his magic leathern scabbard, Fells the aspen from his shoulder, Fells the birch-tree from his temples, From his chin he fells the alder, From his beard, the branching willows, From his mouth the dark-green fir-tree, Fells the oak-tree from his forehead.
Now he thrusts his staff of iron Through the mouth of wise Wipunen, Pries his mighty jaws asunder, Speaks these words of master-magic: "Rise, thou master of magicians, From the sleep of Tuonela, From thine everlasting slumber!" Wise Wipunen, ancient singer, Quickly wakens from his sleeping, Keenly feels the pangs of torture, From the cruel staff of iron; Bites with mighty force the metal, Bites in twain the softer iron, Cannot bite the steel asunder, Opens wide his mouth in anguish.
Wainamoinen of Wainola, In his iron-shoes and armor, Careless walking, headlong stumbles In the spacious mouth and fauces Of the magic bard, Wipunen.
Ritual maintenance of relationship with the dead as ongoing presences whose favour is cultivated and whose offence is propitiated. Shinto uji-gami and obon, Norse disir and the alfablot, Celtic samhain and the feast for the deceased, Roman lares and parentalia, Chinese ancestor rites, Vedic śrāddha. Practice-coded rather than belief-coded: distinct from soul_migration (cosmological doctrine of soul-transmigration) and theosis_deification (deification trajectory); ancestor_veneration centres the living's ongoing ritual obligation to the dead.
Wainamoinen seeks wisdom from Wipunen, an ancient dead bard, treating the deceased figure as a vital source of inherited magical knowledge.
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 depicts nature as spiritually alive and interconnected, evidenced by trees growing directly from the body of a deceased human magician.
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.
Wipunen's body undergoes a metamorphosis where vegetation (aspen, birch, oak) grows from his specific anatomical features while he sleeps.
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 treats spoken 'words of magic' and 'wisdom-sayings' as possessing inherent causal force that must be physically extracted to be utilized.