As toughening-fluid for steel, as a substance for preparing iron."
A bee rose from the ground, a "blue-wing" from a knoll,
Keeps flying round, keeps hovering around the smithy of the smith.
Smith Ilmarinen ordered it to Metsola[1]
To bring honey from Metsola, virgin honey from a virgin honey wood.
For the steel about to be made, for the iron about to be prepared.
A hornet, "Hiisi's bird", a "bird of Hiisi", "Lempo's cat".
Was flying round the smithy, offering for sale its sicknesses,[2]
Keeps flying round, keeps hstening to the smith's clear words
Concerning the steel about to be made, the iron about to be prepared.
It was nimble of wing, it was very swift on its pinions.
It managed to get on in front.
It caught up Hiisi's horrors, bore off a snake's poison,
The black venom of a "worm", the itch-causing fluid of an ant,
The hidden poison of a frog,
{As toughening-fluid for steel, as hardening water for iron.
v. To the door of the smith's forge, and upset it into the hardening water.
Smith Ilmarinen himself, the incessant hammerer,
Believes, keeps supposing that the bee has returned.
That it has brought honey—has fetched virgin honey.
He uttered a speech, and spake thus: "Lo I these are good for me
As toughening-fluid for steel, as a substance for preparing iron."
He dipt the poor iron into it, into it plunged the steel
When he had extracted it from the fire—had taken it from the forge.
Therefore steel became evil—iron began to go raging mad.
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/43
Magic Songs of the Finns.
35
