nds Ilmarinen to Pohjola to make the
sampo, 'a mill for corn one day, for salt the next, for money the next.'
The fatal treasure is concealed by Loutri, and is obviously to play the
part of the fairy hoard in the 'Nibelungen Lied.'

With the eleventh canto a new hero, Ahti, or Lemminkainen, and a new
cycle of adventures, is abruptly introduced. Lemminkainen is a
profligate wanderer, with as many loves as Hercules. The fact that he is
regarded as a form of the sea-god makes it strange that his most noted
achievement, the seduction of the whole female population of his island,
should correspond with a like feat of Krishna's. 'Sixteen thousand and
one hundred,' says the Vishnu Purana, 'was the number of the maidens; and
into so many forms did the son of Madhu multiply himself, so that every
one of the damsels thought that he had wedded her in her single person.'
Krishna is the sun, of course, and the maidens are the dew-drops; {170}
it is to be hoped that Lemminkainen's connection with sea-water may save
him from the solar hypothesis. His first regular marriage is unhappy,
and he is slain in trying to capture a bride from the people of Pohjola.
The black waters of the river of forgetfulness sweep him away, and his
comb, which he left with his mother, bursts out bleeding--a frequent
incident in Russian and other fairy tales. In many household tales, the
hero, before setting out on a journey, erects a stick which will fall
down when he is in distress, or death. The natives of Australia use this
form of divination in actual practice, tying round the stick some of the
hair of the person whose fate is to be ascertained. Then, like Demeter
seeking Persephone, the mother questions all the beings of the world, and
their answers show a wonderful poetic sympathy with the silent life of
Nature. 'The moon said, I have sorrows enough of my own, without
thinking of thy child. My lot is hard, my days are evil. I am born to
wander companionless in the night, to shine in the season of frost, to
watch through the endless winter, to fade when summer comes as king.' The
sun is kinder, and reveals the place of the hero's body. The mother
collects the scattered limbs, the birds bring healing balm from the
heights of heaven, and after a hymn to the goddess of man's blood,
Lemminkainen is made sound and well, as the scattered 'fragments of no
more a man' were united by the spell of Medea, like those of Osiris by
Isis, or of the fair co