One of the best parts of the ***Kalevala*** (see my post from May 8) is in chapter 3 when young **Joukahainen** comes to challenge **Vainamoinen** to a singing contest. He introduces himself by crashing his horse-drawn sleigh into Vainamoinen’s sleigh:
shaft seized on shaft-end traces tangled with traces hames were jammed with hames and collar-bow tip with tip. Then and there was a full stop a full stop, a pause for thought… sweat poured from the collar-bow from the shafts steam rose.
The old Vainamoinen asked: ‘Of what kin are you coming foolishly forward this way recklessly smashing the hames of bent wood the collar-bows of young wood my sleigh to splinters into bits the toboggan?’
*Then the young Joukahainen uttered a word and spoke thus: ‘I am young Joukahainen. But say what your own kin is: of what kin are you of what rabble, wretch?’
Steady old Vainamoinen thereupon said who he was and then he declared: ‘Since you’re young Joukahainen draw aside a bit! You’re younger than me.’*
Then the young Joukahainen uttered a word and spoke thus: ‘Not a bit does a man’s youth his youth or his age matter! Who is better in wisdom mightier in recalling –
Let him stand fast on the road the other shift off the road. If you’re old Vainamoinen the everlasting singer let us start singing begin reciting with man testing man one defeating the other!’
Vainamoinen wins. Joukahainen gets angry and challenges Vainamoinen to fight, but Vainamoinen conjures him into a swamp, up to his armpits. Joukahainen tries to bribe his way out:
‘… I have two bows two handsome crossbows one is quick to strike one has a straight aim Take either of them!’
But Vainamoinen is not interested in a crossbow. Joukahainen tries again:
‘Well, I have two craft two beautiful boats one is light to race one carries a lot. Take either of them!’
But Vainamoinen has plenty of boats of his own. As Joukahainen sinks in deeper, he offers Vainamoinen his choice of horses, gold or silver, and hayfields. Finally just as he is about to sink out of sight, he offers Vainamoinen his sister Aino in marriage.
Vainamoinen is delighted by this and releases Joukahainen. But Aino has other ideas. You will have to read chapters 4 and 5 to find out what happens next.
These are extra-fancy ones, since they have coats of arms in their centers
from The Kalavala, Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Keith Bosley, Oxford University Press, 1989.