Life songs in the Land of the Dead

When Finnish poets sang of Vainamöinen and Ilmarinen, they sang of Lemminkäinen too. Like Ilmarinen, he sought to win a daughter of the sorceress Louhi, and like Ilmarinen, he dared the lands of the dead, bent on tasks Louhi had set as a bride price. But one of Louhi's people was lurking there and, when Lemminkäinen came, slew him.

In Finland, Lemminkäinen's mother, a sorceress herself, knew at once of her son's danger, but none of her arts could tell her what the danger was or where the young man had gone. So she set out to find him, heading north across the snow fields, travelling on foot and alone. She was a mistress of disguise, and if Louhi's people had been on watch for her, they would have seen no more than a rabbit on a riverbank or a gray wolf loping among the grasses of the fens.

At length, the mother found the path her son had taken. (The poets say that the sun told her the way, but that might be only the words they chose to express her skill with the lore of track and tree and stars' signs.) She continued far to the north, crossing the border wastes, where the snowy meadows gave way to bone-littered scrub and shadow, and the winds never ceased their sobbing.

At last she came to the black water the poets called Death's River, and from its bed she raked the piteous remnants of the body of her son. Working on the riverbank, she sang spells that made his body whole, bolting the bones together and weaving the flesh. But he was cold. Lemminkäinen's mother sang again, calling fiercely on powers that might animate him. When she finally fell silent, his heart began to beat beneath her hand. Thus the mother gave life to the son again and, having done this, took him back to Finland and safety. But he never won the daughter of the sorceress.