full marks for aim with a water snake

[incandescens]

Up to 24K on very rough first draft of book 3. (I can already see where some rewrites are going to be needed, but I want to keep going at the moment. Well, keep going once I've done the book 1 copy-edit. That needs to be the priority next.)

Weather is currently beautiful, though it was a little too hot mid-afternoon: it was perfect at around five or six o'clock in the early evening, just nicely cool. Did a good afternoon's shopping. As usual, picked up some more cotton for my bursting stash. I cannot bring myself to turn down good quilting cotton at a low price.

Have been enjoying rereading the Kalevala too much. Had to fight back urge to name a major character in book 3 Louhi, and really, Louhi is more of an antagonist than someone evil - for most of the epic, at least. (I admit that one might regard turning diseases and a giant bear loose on the land, locking up the sun and moon in a cave, and letting vipers drink beer might be going a bit too far.)

---

Dripcap the herdsman
the old blind man of Northland
is at Tuonela's river
at the holy stream's whirlpool
looking, turning round
for Lemminkainen's coming.
One day among others he
saw wanton Lemminkainen
arriving and coming close
there at Tuonela's river
beside the furious rapid
at the holy stream's whirlpool
and he raised a water snake
a serpent out of the waves
and hurled it through the man's heart
through Lemminkainen's liver
through his left armpit
into his right shoulderblade.

-- The Kalevala, Keith Bosley

Comments

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

The Mahabarata has a lot of comic book-like incidents too.

[incandescens]

And as for the path of various spears and arrows in the Iliad...

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Overcompensation for being called Dripcap, maybe. Unless Bosley was just translating a name that means 'wet head-covering' in Finnish?

This is the advantage of using snakes- they twist once inside the victim to hit all the vital spots. *Much* better than spears.

[incandescens]

In this case Lemminkainen more than earned his snake.

Lemminkainen had turned up uninvited to a big feast in the North, and had then been singing most of the men present into awkward situations (the equivalent of picking fights, one assumes) except for one of them.

Wanton Lemminkainen sang
the men thither with their swords
the fellow with their weapons;
He sang the young, sang the old
sang the middle-aged;
one he left unsung -
a paltry herdsman
an old man, old and sightless.
Dripcap the herdsman
put this into words:
"O you wanton Loverboy
you've sung the young, sung the old
sung the middle-aged -
so why will you not sing me?"

Wanton Lemminkainen said:
"This is why I'll not touch you:
you are mean to look upon
wretched without my touching.
Still a younger man
a paltry herdsman
you spoilt her your mother bore
you raped your sister;
all the horses you abused
and the mare's foals you wore out
on open swamps, amid lands
upon shifting water-scum."

Dripcap the herdsman
at that was angry, furious
and he went out through the door
to the field across hte yard
ran to Tuonela's river
to the holy stream's whirlpool.
There he looked out for Farmind
he waits for Lemminkainen
on his return from Northland
on his journey home.

... and it was at the point when Lemminkainen was trying to hunt the Swan of Tuonela, and was thoroughly distracted, that Dripcap got him with the water-snake.

The translator notes on his name:

Dripcap: may be only an epithet - markahattu, 'wet-hat(ted)' - but is more conveniently rendered as a name.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Lemminkainen is a piece of work, indeed. Hope the snake does for him, but that might be too much to hope for?

[incandescens]

The snake did kill him, and he fell into the river, at which point Tuoni's son (Tuoni being king of the realm of the dead) cut his body into several pieces and left it drifting.

Unfortunately, Lemminkainen's mother (who is far too good for him, but also, I suspect, a bit of an enabler) saw blood dripping from the comb and hairbrush which he had left behind at home. She therefore:

made her way to the Northlands (on foot)
got the information out of Louhi as to where Lemminkainen had gone (it took three questions, as Louhi lied on the first two, and his mother had to threaten her to get the truth)
searched for her son's body, both physically and doing the questioning the sun/moon/etc
got Ilmarinen to forge her a copper rake with iron prongs, and raked the river until she fished out the parts of his body
used magic to put him back together again
sent a bee up to heaven to bring back honey to restore his life
taught Lemminkainen the charm against water snakes in case he was bitten by one again.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Enabler indeed. Why didn't she teach him manners, empathy, and to keep it in his pants?

These Trickster types never stay dead anyway...)

[incandescens]

She does, whenever she shows up, usually plead with him to do so. Do not go frolicking with the young maidens. Do not go off to war. Do not gate-crash the huge party and wedding-feast up in Northland.

(Does it work? No. Does he promise for next time? Of course. Does it work then? No.)