Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v2.djvu/149

But a little way they journeyed,
Short the distance they had traversed,180
When the horse pricked ears to listen,
And the long-eared steed was shying.
Then her head the maiden lifted,
In the snow she saw fresh footprints,
And she thereupon inquired,
“What has passed across our pathway?“
Said the smith, said Ilmarinen,
“’Twas a hare that ran across it.”
Then the hapless girl was sighing,
Much she sobbed, and much was sighing,190
And she spoke the words which follow:
“Woe to me, unhappy creature!
Better surely had I found it,
And my lot were surely better
If the hare’s track I could follow,
In the traces of the Crook-leg.
Than in sledge of such a suitor,
’Neath the rug of one so wrinkled,
For the hairs of hare are finer,
And his mouth-cleft is more handsome.”200
Thereupon smith Ilmarinen,
Bit his lips, his head turned sideways,
And the sledge drove rattling onward,
And a little way they journeyed,
When the horse pricked ears to listen,
And the long-eared steed was shying.
Then her head the maiden lifted,
In the snow she saw fresh footprints,
And she thereupon inquired,
“What has passed across our pathway?”210
Said the smith, said Ilmarinen,
“’Twas a fox that ran across it.”
Then the hapless girl was sighing,
Much she sobbed, and much was sighing,
And she spoke the words which follow:
“Woe to me, unhappy creature,
Better surely had I found it,
And my lot were surely better,