THE Kalevide now decided on a journey north, to the uttermost end of the world, where it touches the sky. He imagined that he could only reach this point by sea, and thought at first of travelling on the wings of an eagle. Meantime, a raven directed him, when he came to a broad expanse of blue water, to look for a place where rushes grew on the bank, and to stamp on the ground with his right foot, when the mouth of the earth and the strongly guarded doors would fly open, and he would reach the end of the world.
Then the Kalevide reflected how he had waded through every lake and sea, and had found none too deep for him except Lake Ilma. He then thought he would visit Finland, Norway, and the islands, where he expected to find old friends to direct him on his journey. So he directed Olev
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to fell the great oak-tree which their father and mother had planted, and which neither sun, moon, stars, nor rain, could penetrate,
The Kalevide answered that he needed no pilot to show him the way home, but would be glad if the Lapp could pilot him to the door at the World’s End. The Lapp consented, but bargained for what was chained to the wall at home, which the hero readily promised.
So Varrak the Laplander took the helm and
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steered the vessel due north for many days and nights. The first danger they encountered was a great whirlpool,
Now they sailed farther north, and the cold became intense, while the spirits of the Northern Lights began their combats in the air with silver spears and golden shields. The sailors were frightened, but the Kalevide was pleased that they should now be able to direct their course when they had left the sun and moon behind them.
Next they reached an unknown shore, where the inhabitants were half men and half dogs, and had long dog’s tails.
1 Here we have the great oak-tree mentioned in Cantos 5 and 6 reappearing in another connection.
1 The Flyer.
2 In the present canto the Kalevide is never spoken of as of gigantic size, unless we may consider feats like this as implying it.
3 Baring Gould considers this country to be the North Cape, but the geography of the voyage is confused.
1 The Maelström?
2 The commentators identify this island with Iceland, but the voyagers were apparently on the wrong side of Scandinavia to reach either the Maelström or Iceland. Still we have both geysers and volcanoes in the text.
1 Here the Kalevide’s sun begins to decline, for the first of faithful companions leaves his side, as Hylas left Heracles.
1 This is Chamisso’s Alsatian legend, “Das Riesenspielzeug,” “The Giant’s Toy,” usually called in English translations “The Giant’s Daughter and the Peasant.” The girl in the poem seems to have far exceeded even the Kalevide in stature; and we may remember Gulliver’s remark respecting the Brobdingnagians—“Who knows but that even this prodigious race of mortals might be equally overmatched in some distant part of the world whereof we have yet no discovery?”
2 Throughout this passage the giant is usually called simply the magician, and the other “the wise man.”
3 Asking riddles of this kind was a common amusement in Northern Europe. Compare Prior’s Danish Ballads, i. 185, 334.
1 Baring-Gould ingeniously suggests that this country is Greenland, and that the Dog-men are Esquimaux, clad in furs, and riding in dog-sledges. The end of this canto is inconsequential, for the hero should have reached his goal during this voyage, not by a land-journey afterwards.
