Page:Kalevala (Kirby 1907) v2.djvu/256

In the powan’s entrails hidden,
In the third fold of the entrails.
Then the blue clew he unwinded;
From the inside of the blue clew230
Fell a red clew from within it,
And when he unwound the red clew,
In the middle of the red clew,
There he found a spark of fire
Which had once from heaven descended,
Through the clouds had fallen downward,
From above eight heavens descending,
From the ninth aerial region.
Väinämöinen then considered
How the spark might best be carried,240
To the cold and fireless dwellings,
To the rooms so dark and gloomy.
But the fire flashed up most fiercely,
From the Sun’s son’s hands who held it,
Singed the beard of Väinämöinen,
Burned the smith much more severely,
For upon his cheeks it burned him,
And upon his hands it scorched him.
And it hastened quickly onward
O’er the waves of Lake of Alue,250
Through the junipers fled onward,
Burnt its way through all the thicket,
Then rushed upward through the fir-trees,
Burning up the stately fir-trees,
Rushing ever further onward,
Burned up half the land of Pohja,
And the furthest bounds of Savo,
Over both halves of Carelia.
Väinämöinen, old and steadfast,
Followed hard upon its traces,260
And he hastened through the forest,
Close behind the furious fire,
And at length he overtook it,
’Neath the roots of two great tree-stumps,
In the stumps of alders hidden,
In the rotten stumps he found it.