The Sampo Is Lost In The Sea

When Louhi realized that all her magic had failed, she gathered all her warriors and boarded her largest ship, sailing off to recapture the Sampo by force. Soon they sighted Wainamoinen's vessel, and when he saw Louhi pursuing him with such a mighty host, he shouted to Ilmarinen and Lemminkainen to row with all their might to escape. So all the rowers rowed until the vessel trembled, and the foam flew up from the bow as high as the clouds, but still they could not gain on their pursuers.

Then Wainamoinen saw that he must use some other means, so he took a piece of flint from his tinder-box and dropped it into the water, saying, 'Rise up from the bottom of the sea into a mighty mountain, so that Louhi's ship may be dashed to pieces.' Suddenly a mountain of rock sprang up out of the water, and before Louhi could stop her ship, it crashed upon the rocks and was wrecked.

But Louhi was not to be outdone in magic. She took the timbers of the ship and fashioned them into a magic eagle, using the rudder for its tail and five sharp iron scythes for its talons. On its wings and back she placed all her warriors, and then the magic eagle rose into the air. It circled once round the heavens and then landed on the mast of Wainamoinen's vessel, nearly overturning it with its weight. Wainamoinen first prayed to Ukko for aid, then asked Louhi if she would consent to divide the Sampo between them. But she scorned his offer, and the eagle swooped down to seize the Sampo in its talons. But Lemminkainen raised his sword, and no sooner had the eagle grasped the Sampo than he brought his sword down with such force that every talon was cut off but one.

Then the eagle flew up onto the mast once more and scolded Lemminkainen for breaking his promise to his mother that he would not go to war for sixty years. But Wainamoinen, believing his last hour had come, took the rudder and struck the eagle such a mighty blow that all the warriors fell from its wings and back into the water. Then the eagle made one more swoop upon the vessel, and with the one talon it had left, it dragged the Sampo over the side of the ship so that it fell to the bottom of the ocean and broke into pieces. And that is what has brought so much wealth to the sea, for where the Sampo is, there will always be wealth also. But a few pieces of the lid floated ashore to Kalevala, and it is therefore that our country now has the harvests that before grew in the dismal Northland.

Then Louhi threatened Wainamoinen, saying: 'I will steal away thy silver moonlight and thy golden sunlight. I will send frost and hail to kill thy crops, and I will send the bear--Otso--from the forests to kill thy cattle and sheep. I will send upon thy people nine diseases, each one more fatal than the one before.' Then Wainamoinen replied: 'No one from dismal Northland can harm us of Kalevala. Only Ukko rules the fate of peoples, and he will guard my crops from frost and hail, and my cattle from the bear, Otso. Thou mayst hide evil people in thy Northland caverns, but thou canst never steal the Sun and Moon, and all thy frosts and plagues and bears may turn against thyself.'

And then Louhi departed to her home, weeping for the loss of the magic Sampo, and ever since that time there have been famines and poverty in gloomy Pohjola. But Wainamoinen and the other heroes returned home rejoicing, and on the shore they found fragments of the Sampo's lid. Then Wainamoinen prayed to Ukko to be merciful and kind to them, and to protect them from frost and hail and bears, and to let the golden light of the Moon and Sun shine forever on the plains of Kalevala.

'Ah!' said Erik, half smiling, 'it's a great pity that the whole Sampo didn't float ashore to our country, for perhaps then there would never have been any famines in our land at all,' and he sighed as he thought of some of the hard winters in years past.

'All is in God's hands,' said Father Mikko reverently, 'and we must take both good and ill as they come to us--it is not for us to say what we would wish. Let us be thankful that even a part of the Sampo floated hither,' he added, smiling.

There was a few moments' silence, and then Mimi asked what Wainamoinen had done about his lost kantele, so Father Mikko went on.