The Kalevala · 216 of 275 · tr. John Martin Crawford
Rune XXXIX-a
'S SAILING.
Wainamoinen, old and faithful, Spake these words to Ilmarinen: "O thou wonder-working brother, Let us go to Sariola, There to gain the magic Sampo, There to see the lid in colors." Ilmarinen gave this answer: "Hard indeed to seize the Sampo, Neither can the lid be captured From the never-pleasant Northland, From the dismal Sariola.
Louhi took away the Sampo, Carried off the lid in colors To the stone-mount of Pohyola; Hid it in the copper mountain, Where nine locks secure the treasure.
Many young roots sprout around it, Grow nine fathoms deep in sand-earth, One great root beneath the mountain, In the cataract a second, And a third beneath the castle Built upon the mount of ages." Spake the ancient Wainamoinen: "Brother mine, and wonder-worker, Let us go to Sariola, That we may secure the Sampo; Let us build a goodly vessel, Bring the Sampo to Wainola, Bring away the lid in colors, From the stone-berg of Pohyola, From the copper-bearing mountain.
Where the miracle lies anchored." Ilmarinen thus made answer: "By the land the way is safer, Lempo travels on the ocean, Ghastly Death upon his shoulder; On the sea the waves will drift us, And the storm-winds wreck our vessel; Then our bands must do the rowing, And our feet must steer us homeward." Spake the ancient Wainamoinen: "Safe indeed by land to journey, But the way is rough and trying, Long the road and full of turnings; Lovely is the ship on ocean, Beautiful to ride the billows, Journey easy o'er the waters, Sailing in a trusty vessel; Should the West-wind cross our pathway, Will the South-wind drive us northward.
Be that as it may, my brother, Since thou dost not love the water, By the land then let us journey.
Forge me now the sword of battle, Forge for me the mighty fire-sword, That I may destroy the wild-beasts, Frighten all the Northland people, As we journey for the Sampo To the cold and dismal village, To the never-pleasant Northland, To the dismal Sariola." Then the blacksmith, Ilmarinen, The eternal forger-artist, Laid the metals in the furnace, In the fire laid steel and iron, In the hot-coals, gold and silver, Rightful measure of the metals; Set the workmen at the furnace, Lustily they plied the bellows.
Like the wax the iron melted, Like the dough the hard steel softened, Like the water ran the silver, And the liquid gold flowed after.
Then the minstrel, Ilmarinen, The eternal wonder-forger, Looks within his magic furnace, On the border of his oven, There beholds the fire-sword forming, Sees the blade with golden handle; Takes the weapon from the furnace, Lays it on his heavy anvil For the falling of the hammer; Forges well the blade of magic, Well the heavy sword be tempers, Ornaments the hero-weapon With the finest gold and silver.
Wainamoinen, the magician, Comes to view the blade of conquest, Lifts admiringly the fire-sword, Then these words the hero utters: "Does the weapon match the soldier, Does the handle suit the bearer?
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 and places possess spirit or agency, such as Lempo traveling on the ocean and Death riding upon his shoulder.
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.
Wainamoinen is identified as a magician whose spoken words initiate the quest and command action, reflecting the tradition of speech carrying causal force.
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 centers on the Sampo, which the definition explicitly identifies as a world-pillar in Kalevala cosmology, describing its hidden location within a mountain with deep roots.