The Hero of Esthonia | Page 6

missionary efforts to malign his
character and discredit his worship. However, there is a class of
magicians who are called Wind-sorcerers, and witches often invoke the
aid of the Mother of the Wind.
An old man, with one eye and a long grey beard, often appears to
travellers in the forests. He is probably the Finnish Tapio, but is not
named.
The sun, moon, and stars are represented as male deities.
Goddesses preside over the woods, fields, waters, &c. Thus we have
the Meadow-Queen (literally, Grass-mother), who presides over the
home-field, and is therefore one of the protecting deities of the
household. She is also the queen of the woods and fields. The
Wind-mother and Water-mother are similar deities, and the
wood-nymphs and water-nymphs are their daughters.
Vanemuine, the Väinämöinen of the Finns, is the god of song and
music, rather than the patriarch and culture-hero of the Kalevala. All
voices and sounds in nature are only echoes of his music. He has a
foster-daughter, Jutta, of whom we have given an account elsewhere.

Ilmarine (Finnish, Ilmarinen) is a great smith, whose workshop is under
a mountain at the centre of the earth.
The Devil has many names, being called Kurat, the Evil One; Tühi or
Tühja, the Empty One, or rather, perhaps, the Contemptible One; but
most often Vana Pois, the Old Boy; God being frequently called Vana
Isa, the Old Father. He dwells in the underground kingdom, and has
three daughters, or foster-daughters; a hat of invisibility, composed of
nail-parings; a bridge-building wand, and a sword. He has also much
gold and silver plate, and ducks and geese with gold and silver plumage.
These treasures are often carried off by enterprising heroes. The
maidens whom the Kalevipoeg found in the palace of Sarvik do not
appear to have been at all unkindly treated, though they had to work
hard, and much regretted that they had no human company.
Another Devil, more prominent in the Kalevipoeg, is Vana Sarvik, or
Old Hornie, who is represented as Tühi's brother-in-law.
The Devil's underground kingdom is called Põrgu, or Hell. His mother
usually appears in the form of a bitch, and his grandmother under that
of a white mare. The minor Esthonian devils are usually stupid rather
than malevolent. They are sometimes ogres or soul-merchants, but are
at times quite ready to do a kindness, or to return one to those who aid
them. Their great enemies are the Thunder-God and the wolf. The
principal outwitter of the devil is generally called Crafty Hans; and
several volumes of their adventures have been published in Esthonian.
The Devil is often represented as fond of beer.
Besides the above-named gods and demons, we have spirits of the
whirlwind and the Northern Lights; gnomes; and a host of inferior
demons, as well as various grades of sorcerers, especially
Wind-sorcerers, Word-sorcerers, or soothsayers, and Death-sorcerers,
or necromancers. The Tont, or House-Spirit, goes by various names;
among others Kratt or Puuk. Kratt is perhaps a word of Scandinavian or
German origin; Puuk must be the same as our Puck, or the Irish Pouka.
He was probably originally a beneficent house-spirit, and in later times
assumed the demoniacal character in which he appears in the story of
the Treasure-Bringer. In the story of "Martin and his Dead Master," we

have a spectre much resembling a vampyre in character.
The gigantic race of the heroes is represented as descended from Taara.
As in the case of so many other hero-races--as, for example, the knights
of Arthur, Finn, Charlemagne, Vladimir, Palmerin, &c.--they are at
length practically destroyed in a series of terrible battles, while the
Kalevipoeg, like Arthur, Olger, Barbarossa, and Tell, remains in
enchanted bondage till the day shall come for him to restore the ancient
glories of his country.[3]
[Footnote 3: Further information on most of the subjects discussed in
the Introduction will be found in the Notes and Index.]


PART I
THE HERO OF ESTHONIA
The Kalevipoeg, which may be called the national epic of Esthonia,
contains the adventures of a mythical hero of gigantic size, who ruled
over the country in its days of independence and prosperity. He is
always called by his patronymic, Kalevipoeg, or Kalevide, the son of
Kalev; and, notwithstanding the great differences between them, he is
evidently the Kullervo of the Finnish Kalevala.
The Kalevipoeg consists of twenty cantos and about 19,000 lines; and a
fairly complete prose outline of the story is here given, all the tedious
lyrical interludes which break its continuity, especially at the beginning
of several of the cantos, being entirely omitted. For further general
information respecting the poem itself we will refer to the Introduction,
and will now proceed to give a short abstract of the principal contents
of the cantos, before proceeding to a more detailed