ly different resultant sound, _e.g._ _Aino_ should be
pronounced not _i-no_, but _a'-ee-no_, the _a_ and _ee_
being close together, with the greatest stress upon the _a_, etc.

_i_ corresponds to English _y_ in _year_.

[Illustration]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FINNISH KOTA _Frontispiece_

SLEIGHING IN FINLAND _Facing page_ 7

INTERIOR OF LAPP HUT " 37

A LAPLAND WIZARD " 93

LAPP WOMEN IN HOLIDAY COSTUME " 118

MIMI IN HOLIDAY DRESS " 151

A WATERFALL " 181

[Illustration]

FATHER MIKKO

Far up in the ice-bound north, where the sun is almost invisible in
winter, and where the summer nights are bright as day, there lies a land
which we call Finland; but the people who live there call it _Suomenmaa_
now, and long, long ago they used to call it _Kalevala_ (which means the
_land of heroes_). And north of Finland lies Lapland, which the Finns
now call _Lappi_, but in the olden days they called it Pohjola (that is,
_Northland_). There the night lasts for whole weeks and months about
Christmas, and in the summer again they have no night at all for many
weeks. For more than half the year their country is wrapped in snow and
frost, and yet they are both of them a kind-hearted people, and among
the most honest and truthful in the world.

* * * * *

One dark winter's day an old man was driving in a sledge through the fir
forest in the northern part of Finland. He was so well wrapped up in
sheep-skin robes that he looked more like a huge bundle of rugs, with a
cord round the middle, than anything else, and the great white
sheep-skin cap which he wore hid all the upper part of his face, while
the lower part was buried in the high collar of his coat. All one could
see was a pair of bright blue eyes with frost-fringed eyelashes,
blinking at the snow that was thrown up every now and then by his
horse's feet.

He was a travelling merchant from away up in the north-western part of
Russia, and had been in southern Finland to sell his wares, at the
winter fairs that are held every year in the Finnish towns and villages.
Now he was on his way home, and had come up through Kuopio, and had got
on past Kajana already, but now it had just begun to snow, and as the
storm grew worse, he pressed on to reach the cabin of a friend who lived
not far ahead; and he intended to stay there u