   Minä laulan lammen lummen Meren lummen luikuttelen Luulin lumpehen pitävän Veen kalvon kannattavan Lumme alkoi lummistella Veen kalvo kallistella Suistuin suulleni vetehen Kasvoilleni kaislikkohon Hauki minun manalle saattoi Hauki tuotti Tuonelahan En mahu minä manalle Sovi Tuonelan tupihin Manan neijet riitelöövät Tuonen tyttäret toruivat Minun tuhmin tuloani Verevänä viereväni Kaunoissa kaottuani "Kuin rauta Manalle toisi Veri vaatteistas valuisi Hurmeena hurahteleisi" Kalman lapset kalkuttivat Jott'ei ennen aikojansa Pää on pahoin menisi Tukka turhaan tulisi Hiutuisi hyvät hivukset Hyvä tukka tummettuisi |
I sing a water lily into the pond I shout out the sea lily I thought the water lily could bear me The water's surface carry me The water lily began the sway The water's surface to tilt I slid mouth-first into the water Face-first into the bed of reeds A pike escorted me to Mana A pike took me to Tuonela I do not fit in Mana Suit into the halls of Tuonela The maidens of Mana quarrel The daughters of Tuoni scolded The naughty me for having arrived For having rolled in while still lush For having become lost while still beautiful "If iron had brought you to Mana Blood would drip from your clothes Flow as gore" The children of Kalma nagged So not before its time Would a head turn bad Hair go to waste Fine locks wilt A head of hair turn dark |
Being taken by a big fish is a common way that Sámi shamans have described their trance when the shaman's soul travels to the Underworld. The same can be seen here: a tietäjä makes a miscalculation and ends up being taken to the Underworld by a pike. However, the daughters of the Underworld see that he's not actually dead yet and scold him for having come. They point out that he was not killed by a weapon because if so, he'd be bleeding.
This concept has been utilized with different characters in different runosongs. It's place was possibly originally in the Song of Vipunen, as Vipunen is thought to have swallowed Väinämöinen (meaning going to the Underworld) while the eldest written down protagonist of the myth is actually Ilmarinen; in some Karelian runosongs, Ilmarinen is swallowed by a maiden of the Underworld (also meaning going to the Underworld). The concept has also been used with Lemminkäinen's stories in Karelia and indeed, started kind of developing into its own separate myth there where Väinämöinen was pretending to be dead, explaining by it's detatched from everything else in the Kalevala.
In Finnish runosongs, on the other hand, these lines exist on their own, separate from the myths of Väinämöinen or Ilmarinen (one possible connection to "Kaukomieli"). Because of the wide variety of contexts where this theme appears, the runosong is simply called "going to Tuonela" in SKVR.