Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v2.djvu/107

Then a crow cawed from the bushes,
Cawed the crow, and croaked the raven.
“O thou wretched golden buckle,
Kalervo’s surviving offspring,
Wherefore art thou so unhappy,
Wherefore is thy heart so troubled?
Take a switch from out the bushes,
And a birch from forest-valley,110
Drive the foul beasts in the marshes,
Chase the cows to the morasses,
Half to largest wolves deliver,
Half to bears amid the forest.
“Call thou all the wolves together,
All the bears do thou assemble,
Change the wolves to little cattle,
Make the bears the larger cattle,
Lead them then like cattle homeward,
Lead them home like brindled cattle;120
Thus repay the woman’s jesting,
And the wicked woman’s insult.”
Kullervo, Kalervo’s offspring,
Uttered then the words which follow:
“Wait thou, wait thou, whore of Hiisi,
For my father’s knife I’m weeping,
Soon wilt thou thyself be weeping,
And be weeping for thy milchkine.”
From the bush a switch he gathered,
Juniper as whip for cattle,130
Drove the cows into the marshes,
And the oxen in the thickets,
Half of these the wolves devoured,
To the bears he gave the others,
And he sang the wolves to cattle,
And he changed the bears to oxen,
Made the first the little cattle,
Made the last the larger cattle.
In the south the sun was sinking,
In the west the sun descended,140
Bending down towards the pine-trees
At the time of cattle-milking.