ry one
admired the beautiful colt save Ilmarinen, who threw it back into the
furnace.

Once more he added gold and silver and set the workmen to blow the
bellows, but they neglected their work this time too. Then he blew the
fire by magic, and cast other magic spells over the furnace, so that the
gold and silver should grow into a lovely maiden. When he looked into
the furnace on the evening of the third day, he saw at last the figure
of a maiden rising from the flames, but it had neither feet nor hands
nor ears. So Ilmarinen took her from the fire and forged unceasingly
until feet and hands and ears were all completed, and the maiden was now
the most beautiful that any one had ever seen, but yet she could not
walk, nor talk, nor see, nor hear.

But Ilmarinen carried the golden maiden out of the smithy and took her
to the bath-room where he washed the golden and silver image and then
took it and laid it in his couch, in his wife's place. That night he
heaped up bear-skins and rugs of all kinds on top of the bed, hoping
that the image would come to life from the warmth, but it was all in
vain, and Ilmarinen was almost frozen himself when he rose next morning.
Then he said to himself: 'Surely this lovely maiden was not meant to be
my bride. I will take her to Wainamoinen, and perhaps she may come to
life for him.'

So off he went and offered the beautiful image to Wainamoinen, telling
him that he had brought a lovely maiden to be Wainamoinen's bride now in
his old age. But Wainamoinen, after praising the image's beauty, said:
'My dear brother Ilmarinen, it is better to throw this image back into
thy furnace, and to forge from the melted metal a thousand useful
trinkets. For I will never wed an image made of gold and silver.'

And then Wainamoinen turned to those of his people who were standing
near by, and said to them: 'Never bow to any image made of gold or
silver, for they cannot see, nor hear, nor speak, and they will only
bring you sorrow.'

[Illustration]

ILMARINEN'S FRUITLESS WOOING

So Ilmarinen cast the maid of gold into a corner of his smithy and
harnessed up his sledge and drove off to the dismal Northland, to ask
Louhi to give him another of her daughters in marriage. Three days he
journeyed, and on the evening of the third he reached old Louhi's home.

Louhi asked him how her daughter, the Rainbow-maiden, fared, and
Ilmarinen, with hanging head and sorrowful face, told how his poor wife
ha