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176
Kalevala
[Runo XLII

And upon his coming thither,
When he reached the swamp of Pohja,
Screaming still, and screaming harshly,
Screaming at his very loudest,
Waked in Pohjola the people,
And aroused that evil nation.
Up rose Pohjola’s old Mistress
From her long and heavy slumber,310
And she hastened to the farmyard,
Ran to where the corn was drying,
And she looked upon the cattle,
And the corn in haste examined.
Nought was missing from the cattle,
And the corn had not been plundered.
To the hill of stone she wandered,
And the copper mountain’s entrance,
And she said as she was coming,
“Woe to me, this day unhappy,320
For a stranger here has entered,
And the locks have all been opened,
And the castle’s doors been opened,
And the iron hinges broken.
Has the Sampo perhaps been stolen,
And the whole been taken from us?”
Yes, the Sampo had been taken,
Carried off the pictured cover,
Forth from Pohjola’s stone mountain,
From within the hill of copper,330
Though by ninefold locks protected,
Though ten bars protected likewise.
Louhi, Pohjola’s old Mistress,
Fell into the greatest fury,
But she felt her strength was failing,
And her power had all departed,
So she prayed to the Cloud-Maiden.
“Maiden of the Clouds, Mist-Maiden,
Scatter from thy sieve the cloudlets,
And the mists around thee scatter,340
Send the thick clouds down from heaven,
Sink thou from the air of vapour,