sampo, 'a mill for corn one day, for salt the next, for money the
next.' The fatal treasure is concealed by Loutri, and is obviously to
play the part of the fairy hoard in the 'Nibelungen Lied.'

With the eleventh canto a new hero, Ahti, or Lemminkainen, and a new
cycle of adventures, is abruptly introduced. Lemminkainen is a
profligate wanderer, with as many loves as Hercules. The fact that he
is regarded as a form of the sea-god makes it strange that his most
noted achievement, the seduction of the whole female population of his
island, should correspond with a like feat of Krishna's. 'Sixteen
thousand and one hundred,' says the Vishnu Purana, 'was the number of
the maidens; and into so many forms did the son of Madhu multiply
himself, so that every one of the damsels thought that he had wedded
her in her single person.' Krishna is the sun, perhaps, and the
maidens are the dew-drops; it is to be hoped that Lemminkainen's
connection with sea-water may save him from the solar hypothesis. His
first regular marriage is unhappy, and he is slain in trying to
capture a bride from the people of Pohjola. The black waters of the
river of forgetfulness sweep him away, and his comb, which he left
with his mother, bursts out bleeding--a frequent incident in Russian
and other fairy tales. In many household tales, the hero, before
setting out on a journey, erects a stick which will fall down when he
is in distress, or death. The natives of Australia use this form of
divination in actual practice, tying round the stick some of the hair
of the person whose fate is to be ascertained. Then, like Demeter
seeking Persephone, the mother questions all the beings of the world,
and their answers show a wonderful poetic sympathy with the silent
life of Nature. 'The moon said, I have sorrows enough of my own,
without thinking of thy child. My lot is hard, my days are evil. I am
born to wander companionless in the night, to shine in the season of
frost, to watch through the endless winter, to fade when summer comes
as king.' The sun is kinder, and reveals the place of the hero's body.
The mother collects the scattered limbs, the birds bring healing balm
from the heights of heaven, and after a hymn to the goddess of man's
blood, Lemminkainen is made sound and well, as the scattered
'fragments of no more a man' were united by the spell of Medea, like
those of Osiris by Isis, or of the fair countess by the demon
blacksmith in the Russian _Maerchen