To attend to little children,
Rock the babes with little fingers.
Now I know not where to send him,
Nor what work I ought to give him.
Perhaps he ought to clear the forest?"
So he went to clear the forest.

Kullervo, Kalervo's offspring
Answered in the words which follow:
"Now I first a man can deem me,
When my hands the axe are wielding. 240
I am handsomer to gaze on,
Far more noble than aforetime,
Five men's strength I feel within me
And I equal six in valour."

Then he went into the smithy,
And he spoke the words which follow:
"O thou smith, my dearest brother,
Forge me now a little hatchet,
Such an axe as fits a hero,
Iron tool for skilful workman, 250
For I go to clear the forest,
And to fell the slender birch-trees."

So the smith forged what he needed,
And an axe he forged him quickly;
Such an axe as fits a hero,
Iron tool for skilful workman.

Kullervo, Kalervo's offspring,
Set to work the axe to sharpen,
And he ground it in the daytime,
And at evening made a handle. 260

Then he went into the forest,
High upon the wooded mountains,
There to seek the best of planking,
And to seek the best of timber.
With his axe he smote the tree-trunks,
With the blade of steel he felled them,
At a stroke the best he severed,
And the bad ones at a half-stroke.

Five large trees at length had fallen,
Eight in all he felled before him, 270
And he spoke the words which follow,
And in words like these expressed him:
"Lempo may the work accomplish,
Hiisi now may shape the timber!"

In a stump he struck his axe-blade,
And began to shout full loudly,
And he piped, and then he whistled,
And he said the words which follow:
"Let the wood be felled around me,
Overthrown the slender birch-trees, 280
Far as sounds my voice resounding,
Far as I can send my whistle.

"Let no sapling here be growing,
Let no blade of grass be standing,
Never while the earth endureth,
Or the golden moon is shining,
Here in Kalervo's son's forest,
Here upon the good man's clearing.

"If the seed on earth has fallen,
And the young corn should shoot upward, 290
If the sprout should be developed,
And the stalk should form