gain to Osmotar. But when
she put the cones and pine-shoots into the beer, it still refused to
ferment.

'So Osmotar made the Kalevala maiden get into the birchen tub once more,
and this time the maiden found a chip upon the bottom. When she took it
to Osmotar, the latter rubbed her hands upon her knees again, and turned
the chip into a magic golden-breasted marten. Then she sent the marten
off to the dens of the mountain bears, to gather the foam from their
angry lips as they fought with one another. The marten flew away, and
soon returned with the foam that it had gathered from the mouths of the
raging bears. But when Osmotar added it to the liquor there was no
effect, and the beer remained as still as ever.

'For a third time, then, the maid of Kalevala stepped into the tub, and
this time found a pod on the bottom. Osmotar took the pod and rubbed it
between her hands and knees, and there flew out of it a honeybee. She
sent the bee off to the Islands of the Sea, telling it to go to a meadow
there, where a maiden lay asleep, and growing by the maiden's side there
were honey-grasses and fragrant flowers. From these the bee was to
collect the honey and bring it back. The bee flew off straight over the
ocean, and on the evening of the third day reached the Isles of the
Sea, where it found the maiden fast asleep amongst the flowers, clad in
a silver robe, with a girdle of copper. By her grew the loveliest and
sweetest of flowers and grasses, and the bee loaded itself down with
their honey and returned to Osmotar with it. This time, when the honey
was placed in the beer it began to ferment and rise and bubble and foam
until it filled all the tubs and ran over on the sands.

'When the beer was ready, all the heroes of Kalevala came to drink it,
and Lemminkainen drank so much that he became intoxicated. But Osmotar,
now that she had made the beer, did not know how to keep it, for it was
still running out of the tubs and over everything. While she was sitting
and grieving over this, the robin sang to her from an aspen, and told
her to put it into strong oaken barrels bound with copper hoops, and
thus the last difficulty was overcome.

'Thus was beer first brewed from hops and barley,' continued the old
man, 'and the beer of Kalevala is famed to strengthen the feeble, to
cheer the sad, to make the old young, and the timid brave. It makes the
heart joyful and puts wise sayings on the tongue, but the fool it makes
still more