Kultapyörä

Lifting Fire up to the Skies

This is a rare one, it describes Poika Pohjolainen lifing fire to the sky, which rips holes into the sky. In another version, the lifter is Louhi, called "little blue bird" (sinisirkku).


Tule poika Pohjolasta
Poika Pohjolan takaa
Uros kylmästä kylästä
Mies pitkä Pimentolasta
Lapsi täyestä Lapista
Joll' on suussa suuri tieto
Mahti ponneton povessa
Se tunsi tulen lumoa
Valkiaisen varvennella
Kekäläisen kielotella
Tulen nosti taivahille
Auer ilmahan yleni
Pakko pilville pakeni
Pilvet liikku, taivas nauku
Taivon kannet kallisteli
Ilmat reikihin repeili
Ilmat kaikki ikkunoiksi

Come son from Pohjola
Boy from beyond Pohjola
Male from a cold village
Tall man from Pimentola
Child from full Lapland
Who has great knowledge in his mouth
Non-physical might in his breast
He felt the charm of fire
To calm the blaze
To persuade the ember
He lifted fire up to the skies
Sunlit haze rose into the air
Ache escaped into the clouds
Clouds moved, the sky whined
The lids of the sky tipped
The sky ripped full of holes
The whole sky into windows

The reason why I wanted to include this is because this is not the only time that the sons of Louhi are connected to the sky almost breaking. Usually this happens when they are making arrows of pain out of the branches of the Great Oak (or here, just a fiery birch), and this set of events is even given specifically to Poika Pohjolainen when he shoots at Väinämöinen. The reason why I think this is notable is because there is another extremely rare runosong from either North Ostrobothnia or Kainuu which includes the following part:

and/or
Pirulainen pitkä poika
Hakkasi tulisen koivun
Saaressa nimettömässä
Vasammoita valmistaapi
Pajassa ovettomassa
Ilman ikkunattomassa
Sulitteli nuoliahan
Pääsken pienillä sulilla
Varpuisen vipuisimilla
Nokasti hevon kusessa
Ampu perisokia
Ampu yhen nuoliahan
Ylääksen taivoseen:
Tahto taivaskin haleta
Ilman kaaret katkehilla
Mennessä pahan okahan
Risti rautanen putoisi
Tuon keito käsin tapaisi
Ilman maata maistamatak
Tannerta tavoittamatak

Devilish tall son
Cut down a fiery birch
On a nameless island
Creates bolts
In a doorless forge
Which has no windows
Feathered his arrows
With the small plumes of a swallow
With the levers of a sparrow
Tipped it in horse's piss
Blind-from-birth shot
Shot one of his arrows
Upwards to the sky:
The sky nearly split
The arch of the sky snap
As the evil thorn went through
An iron cross fell
The miserable one caught it with his hands
Before it could taste the ground
Reach the field

And the reason why this is so fascinating is because it looks like as if regardless of having made these painful arrows, he also prevented the sky from collapsing by catching the "iron cross". I have no idea what the iron cross is, it doesn't appear much elsewhere, but I read a theory that it would actually mean the world pillar. If it's truly out of iron, Ilmarinen could truly have forged it, the same as he did with the sky itself. When this arrow is shot, the description of the damage is the same as when Väinämöinen starts singing after he and Joukahainen have stolen the Sammas, also meaning the world pillar.

The matter of the theft of Sammas continues to be one of the most mysterious parts of the mythos. I am also fascinated by how it ties to the Shooting of Väinämöinen. Maybe Pohjolainen's motivation for shooting at Väinämöinen in a boat could, in some version, be to stop the theft?

Runosongs of interest

Only in Finnish, sorry. This is the source material.