“Once on a time it happened, that the young hero went out to cut wood in the forest. He bore a sharp axe on his shoulders, and was besides girded with a great sword; for, as the woods were not only full of wild beasts, but also haunted by wicked men, the pious hermits took the precaution of always going armed. While the good youth was forcing his way through the thickest of the copsewood, and already beheld over it the pointed tops of the fir-trees, (for he was close on the Finland frontier,) there rushed out against him a great white wolf, so that he had just time enough to leap to one side, and not being able immediately to draw his sword, he flung the axe at his assailant. The blow was so well aimed, that it struck one of the wolf’s fore-legs, who being cruelly wounded, limped back, with a yell of anguish, into the wood. The young hermit-warrior, however, thought to himself, “It is not enough that I am rescued, but I must take such measures that no one else may in future be injured, or even terrified by this wild beast.” So he rushed in as fast as possible among the fir-trees, and inflicted such a vehement blow with his sword on the wolf’s head, that the animal, moaning piteously, fell to the ground. Hereupon there came over him all at once a strange mood of regret and compassion for his poor victim. Instead of putting it immediately to death, he bound up the wounds, as well as he could, with moss and twigs of trees, placed it on a sort of canvass sling, on which he was in the habit of carrying great faggots, and with much labour brought it home, in hopes that he might be able at last to cure and tame his fallen adversary.