em back, nor shalt thou leave this hall alive.' No sooner
had he finished speaking than Wainamoinen drew his magic sword, and fell
upon those that stood between him and the door. They gave way before
him, and in a moment he was out in the courtyard, where he could have
room to fight fairly. All the warriors rushed at him with drawn swords
and lifted spears, and the fire flashed from their weapons. But
Wainamoinen was more than a match for all of them, and in a very short
time he had stretched them all lifeless on the ground.

Then he left the court and hastened on to find the Sun and Moon. Soon he
came to a solitary birch-tree, and beside the tree stood a carved
pillar of stone, which concealed an opening in the rocks. Wainamoinen
gave three blows with his magic sword, and the pillar broke in pieces,
showing behind it an entrance into the rock; but the entrance was shut
by a massive door, and there was only a little crack through which he
could peep. Inside he saw the Sun and Moon prisoners, but though he
tried with all his strength and all his magic spells to open the door,
it still remained tightly shut, and he could not budge it so much as an
inch.

Wainamoinen began to despair of ever succeeding in liberating the Sun
and Moon, and he hastened off home to ask for Ilmarinen's help. He
directed him to forge a whole set of skeleton-keys, so that some one of
them would fit the lock of the door to the Sun's prison. Ilmarinen went
to work and soon his anvil was ringing merrily to the blows of his
hammer.

Now Louhi had grown very much alarmed after Wainamoinen had slain all
her warriors, and so she assumed the shape of an eagle and flew away to
Kalevala to see what was going on there. She heard the merry ring of
Ilmarinen's work and flew down and lit in the window of the smithy.
There she asked what he was doing, and the cunning Ilmarinen replied: 'I
am forging a collar of steel for the neck of evil Louhi, and with it I
shall bind her fast to the rocks.'

Louhi was terribly alarmed at this, so she flew off to Pohjola and
released the Sun and Moon from prison immediately, and sent them up to
their places in the heavens. Then the silver sunlight and the golden
moonlight returned once more to Kalevala, and Ilmarinen, and
Wainamoinen, and all the people offered up a prayer that they might
never again be deprived of the blessed Sun and Moon.

* * * * *

'It would have served old Louhi right