If he could make her this, she
would also give him her daughter in marriage. "I cannot forge the Sampo,
but if thou wilt help me to my distant country I will send thee my brother
Ilmarinen, the blacksmith, who can forge for thee the magic Sampo, and win
thy beautiful daughter."
Louhi provided a sledge and horse, and as Wainamoinen seated himself she
warned him, as he journeyed, not to look upward before nightfall, or some
great misfortune would befall him.
The maiden of the Rainbow, beautiful daughter of Pohyola, was sitting on
the rainbow weaving, and Wainamoinen, hearing the whizzing of the loom,
forgot the warning, and, looking up, was filled with love for the maiden.
"Come to me," he cried.
"The birds have told me," she replied, "that a maiden's life, as compared
to a married woman's, is as summer to coldest winter. Wives are as dogs
enchained in kennels."
When Wainamoinen further besought her, she told him that she would
consider him a hero when he had split a golden hair with edgeless knives
and snared a bird's egg with an invisible snare. When he had done these
things without difficulty, she demanded that he should peel the sandstone,
and cut her a whipstick from the ice without making a splinter. This done,
she commanded that he should build her a boat from the fragments of her
distaff, and set it floating without the use of his knee, arm, hand, or
foot to propel it.
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