the deepest caverns with her rake. First, she
found his jacket, and then the rest of his clothing; and finally, the
third time she swept her rake along, it brought up Lemminkainen's body,
but the hands and arms and head were still missing. Still she went on
with her search, and at length all the pieces were gathered together.
When she had laid them beside each other, in their proper positions, she
began to pray to the goddess of the veins, Suonetar, and the maiden of
the ether, to come and join the different parts together, and to sew up
the wounds and make him whole. And then she prayed to the mighty Ukko to
help them, and to heal every part that was wounded or bruised, to touch
them with his magic touch, and restore Lemminkainen to life.
And Ukko did so, and Lemminkainen lived once more, but he was still
blind and deaf and dumb. But his mother considered deeply how she might
restore these senses to him, and at length she called the little bee to
her, and bade it go out and collect honey from the healing plants in
the meadows. So the bee flew away and returned very soon laden with
honey from all the healing plants, and she anointed her son with this,
but it only gave him his sight, and still left him deaf and dumb.
Again the mother sent off the bee, telling it to go across the seven
oceans, and to alight on an enchanted isle in the eighth. There it would
find magic honey to bring back. The bee did as it was told and found the
magic honey-balm in tiny earthen vessels, and flew back with seven
vessels in its arms and seven on each shoulder, all filled with the
magic honey-balm. Lemminkainen's mother anointed him with this, and he
could hear, but still remained speechless.
Then the mother bade the bee fly up to the seventh heaven and to bring
down from thence the honey of Ukko's wisdom, which was so abundant
there. When the bee declared that it could not fly so high, she told it
the way and sent it off. So the bee flew up and up, and at the end of
the first day it rested on the moon. At the end of the second day it
reached the shoulders of the Great Bear, and on the third day it flew
over the Great Bear's head and reached the seventh heaven of Ukko. There
it found three golden kettles, and in the first was a balm that gave
ease to the heart, and the balm in the second gave happiness, but the
balm of the third kettle gave life. So the bee took some of the
life-giving balm and hastened back to earth.
Then Lemminkai
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