Rocked until his locks stood endwise;
Rocked one day, and then a second,
Rocked the third from morn till noontide;
But before the third day ended,
Kicks the boy with might of magic,
Forwards, backwards, upwards, downwards,
Kicks in miracles of power,
Bursts with might his swaddling garments
Creeping from beneath his blankets,
Knocks his cradle into fragments,
Tears to tatters all his raiment,
Seemed that he would grow a hero,
And his mother, Untamala,
Thought that be, when full of stature,
When he found his strength and reason,
Would become a great magician,
First among a thousand heroes.
When three months the boy had thriven,
He began to speak as follows:
"When my form is full of stature,
When these arms grow strong and hardy,
Then will I avenge the murder
Of Kalervo and his people!"
Untamoinen bears the saying,
Speaks these words to those about him;
"To my tribe he brings destruction,
In him grows a new Kalervo!"
Then the heroes well considered,
And the women gave their counsel,
How to kill the magic infant,
That their tribe may live in safety.
It appeared the boy would prosper;
Finally, they all consenting,
He was placed within a basket,
And with willows firmly fastened,
Taken to the reeds and rushes,
Lowered to the deepest waters,
In his basket there to perish.
When three nights had circled over,
Messengers of Untamoinen
Went to see if he had perished
In his basket in the waters;
But the prodigy, was living,
Had not perished in the rushes;
He had left his willow-basket,
Sat in triumph on a billow,
In his hand a rod of copper,
On the rod a golden fish-line,
Fishing for the silver whiting,
Measuring the deeps beneath him;
In the sea was little water,
Scarcely would it fill three measures.
Untamoinen then reflected,
This the language of the wizard:
"Whither shall we take this wonder,
Lay this prodigy of evil,
That destruction may o'ertake him,
Where the boy will sink and perish?"
Then his messengers he ordered
To collect dried poles of brushwood,
Birch-trees with their hundred branches,
Pine-trees full of pitch and resin,
Ordered that a pyre be builded,
That the boy might be cremated,
That Kullervo thus might perish.
High they piled the and branches,
Dried limbs from the sacred birch-tree,
Branches from a hundred fir-trees,
Knots and branches full of resign;
Filled with bark a thousand sledges,
Seasoned oak, a hundred measures;
Piled the brushwood to the tree-tops,
Set the boy upon the summit,
Set on fire the pile of brushwood,
Burned one day, and then a second,
Burned the third from morn till evening.
When Untamo sent his heralds
To inspect the pyre and wizard,
There to learn if young Kullervo
Had been burned to dust and ashes,
There they saw the young boy sitting
On a pyramid of embers,
In his band a rod of copper,
Raking coals of fire about him,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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