RUNO XXXVII
56. Literally, their hatless shoulders.
61. Compare the account of the forging of the Sampo in Runo X.
RUNO XXXVIII
94. This might allude to the Viking practice of carving the Blood-Eagle on the backs of enemies; but Prof. Krohn remarks that this was unknown in Finland.
255. Here it seems that the mere fact of Ilmarinen having carried off the girl, even against her will, was enough to constitute her his lawful wife.
273. Ilmarinen’s sword was less bloodthirsty than that of Kullervo; but it will be noticed that there is as little real chivalry in the Kalevala generally as in old Scandinavian literature.
RUNO XL
274. Literally, “at the tips of my ten nails.”
RUNO XLI
238. Similar incidents are common in folktales. The reader will recollect the decoration of Mama, the Woodpecker. (Hiawatha, IX.)
RUNO XLII
1-3. Here again we notice a difference of expression, indicating a different authorship.
52. “Mistress of the mighty spell.” (Southey.)
146. Compare Runo XX., lines 17-118.
295. Literally, his finger-bones.
403. Perhaps the cap had ear-flaps to be worn in bad weather.
RUNO XLIII
37, 38. This seems to be meant ironically.
115-120. This, or something similar, is a common device for impeding a pursuer in European fairy tales.
177. Pohjan eukko. Another epithet for Louhi.
383, 384. The Sampo being not only an unfailing corn, salt, and money-mill, but a palladium of general prosperity, Pohjola would naturally fall into famine and misery when nothing remained but an almost worthless fragment of the cover. It is possible that the story may refer to some great and permanent change for the worse of the climate of the North; either during the storms and earthquakes of the fourteenth century, which would connect it with the plague described in Runo XLV.; or perhaps to a much earlier period, when, as old Persian books tell us, the climate of some part of Asia (?) was changed from nine months summer and three months winter, to nine months winter and three months summer.
