A Banishment of Disease
If you’re a wind-borne disease, wind-borne, water-driven, shared out by the gale, carried by chill air, go by the wind’s way, by the gale’s sledge track, without sitting in a tree, or resting in an alder to a copper slope’s summit, a coppery peak, there to be lulled by the wind cared for by the gale! If you’ve come from heaven, from the furthest fair-weather clouds, rise again to heaven, go up there into the sky, to the drizzling clouds, to the trembling stars, to smoulder as fire, to sparkle as sparks, where the sun drives, where the moon-ring revolves! Should you, weakling, have been drawn by water, by billows driven, weakling, enter the water and drive below the billows to the mud-stronghold’s edges, the water-ridge’s shoulders, there to be driven by the billows, tossed by the gloomy water! Should you be from the grave’s heath, the abodes of ever-gone, try hard to get home to those farmyards of the grave, to the crumbling soils, earth being disturbed in which people have fallen, strong folk have toppled! If, evil one, you have come from a forest demon’s lair, from hideouts of pine, from lodges of fir, that is where I banish you— to the forest demon’s lair, the lodges of fir, the hideouts of pine, that you may stay there, until the floors rot, and the wall beams grow mushrooms, and the roof comes tumbling down.
There, I banish you there, wretch, I compel you— to gaffer bruin’s home, to gammer bear’s farm, to marshy hollows upon unthawed swamps, into moving mires, into spilling springs, into pools that are fishless, quite perchless. Should you not get a place there yonder I will banish you— to the furthest North, to Lapland’s vastness, to the barren glades, to the unsown lands, where there is no moon, no sun, nor daylight for evermore. You will enjoy being there, you will love it flitting there: elk have been hung up on trees, the kings of beasts overcome for a hungry man to eat, for one who wants it to bite. There I banish you, there tell and compel you—to Rutja’s steep rapid, the smoking whirlpool into which trees fall headlong, pines roll root and branch, the great firs base first plunging, the shock-headed pines top first: swim there, bad heathen in the rapid’s steep foaming, in the wide waters swirl round, in the narrow waters dwell!
Should you not get a place there yonder I will banish you— to Tuoni’s black river, to the Dead Land’s eternal brook from where you’ll never get out, never in this world be free, unless I get to letting you out, get round to unloosing you, with nine wethers, born of a single ewe, with nine oxen, calves of a single cow, with nine stallions, foals of a single mare. If you should ask for a lift, beg for draught horses—oh, yes I’ll arrange a lift for you and I’ll give you a draught horse: the Demon has a good horse, one with red hair on a fell, whose muzzle flashed fire, its snout flame indeed, all its hoofs are of iron, its haulers of steel; they can go uphill, raise a hollow to a bank, with a good man at the reins, with a strict driver. Should not enough come of that, get the Demon’s skiing-things, the Devil’s alder snowshoes, the evil one’s thick ski-stick, to ski on the Demon’s lands, and to roam the Devil’s groves, hopping on the Demon’s lands, skipping on the evil one’s! A rock lies across the road: let it smash to bits; a log lies along the road: let this snap in two; a fellow stands in the road: send him to one side!
Go now, idler, on your feet, evil man, get a move on before the day breaks, and the dawn god dawns, and the sun comes up and the cockcrow sounds!
Excerpt from The Kalevala (Oxford World’s Classics edition) by Elias Lönnrot