The second narrative sequence of the Sampo-Cycle is the Creation of the Sampo. Sampo as a term has an Indo-Iranian or Proto-Baltic origin171 and appears connected to mythic images of the axis mundi.172 The account of mythic smith Ilmarinen fashioning the Sampo is embedded in the Sampo-Cycle; this account may be significantly older than the Sampo-Cycle where Ilmarinen is maintained as the creator of the Sampo but subordinated to Väinämöinen as the dominant and orchestrating cultural figure. Väinämöinen also became asserted as the figure who creates the Sampo (§4.3.9.6). The Creation of the Sampo was assimilated to The Courtship Competition in the more southern Finno- Karelian regions (Kuusi 1949; 1994a:53-65; Rausmaa 1964, Frog forthcoming a). A corresponding development was observed with LV in these regions (§4.3.8). In the more conservative Viena tradition, Väinämöinen‟s Ransom was preserved connecting the World-Creation to the Creation of the Sampo by Ilmarinen.
171 Cf. Joki 1973:118-19; Koivulehto 1979:281; 1999:230, 232; Tolley 2009:297-298; Frog forthcoming a. 172 Cf. Krohn 1918b; Setälä 1932a; Harva 1943; Haavio 1967; Anttonen 2000; Tolley 2009:297-299.
At the conclusion of the World-Creation, Väinämöinen continues to drift until he washes ashore in Pohjola, a chthonic location (Siikala 2002a:160-162). In contrast to the tremendous power attributed to Väinämöinen in the World-Creation (e.g. shaping the sea floor) and in the Theft of the Sampo, he is completely helpless and begins to weep. The Mistress of Pohjola hears this and searches out the source. Väinämöinen explains that he wants to return to his own lands. She asks if he can make the Sampo, promising her daughter to the one who can. He acknowledges that he cannot make the Sampo, and a bargain is struck in which Väinämöinen agrees to send Ilmarinen to Pohjola in exchange for being returned to his homeland. When Väinämöinen returns, he sings a magic tree with a gold-breasted martin in its top. He suggests Ilmarinen climb the tree to catch this martin, and once Ilmarinen is in the tree, Väinämöinen sings and the wind (ahava) takes the smith into its boat or sleigh and carries him to Pohjola, providing the transition to Ilmarinen‟s reception and the creation of the Sampo itself. (Kuusi 1949:173-180) The deception of the tree appears to be restricted to this one narrative context in the whole of the Finno-Karelian pool of traditions.
This narrative sequence appears to be adapted directly from Loki‟s deception of Iðunn to send her into the hands of the giant Þjazi. The narrative is preserved in the late 9th century poem Haustlöng 2-13 (North 1997a; Faulkes 1998:30-33) and Snorri‟s prose account (Faulkes 1998:1-2). The only other appearance of the deception of the tree in ON literature is in Bósa saga (Jiriczek 1893:52-54) which appears to make conscious intertextual reference to Snorri‟s Edda (van Wezel 2006:esp.:1041) and utilizes the deception of the tree to make an intertextual reference to the Theft of Iðunn (Frog forthcoming a). The Theft of Iðunn opens with an account of the three figures Óðinn, Loki and Hœnir travelling together, associated with the early stages of the creation and organization of the world (§21.3). They encounter the giant Þjazi; Loki becomes “stuck” to the giant and is tortured until he begs for mercy. Like Väinämöinen, Loki ends up miserable in a remote otherworld location where he is at the mercy of a powerful chthonic being. Like the Mistress of Pohjola, the giant wants a particular object associated with fertility and life, and requires the member of the in-group community in
the exchange: Þjazi demands the goddess Iðunn and her apples of life/youth in exchange for Loki‟s freedom. Loki is allowed to return to the land of the gods, just as Väinämöinen is sent home. Loki deceives Iðunn with a claim that he has found a tree with wonderful apples and leads her out of Ásgarðr to compare its apples to her own. This corresponds directly to Väinämöinen‟s deception to draw out Ilmarinen by singing a tree and gold-breasted martin. The giant Þjazi, in the form of an eagle, grabs Iðunn and carries her to the otherworld location as Ilmarinen is carried from the tree to Pohjola in the ahava-wind‟s boat or sleigh. The narrative sequence of Ilmarinen creating the Sampo has no correspondence in the Theft of Iðunn, but just as Väinämöinen organizes the raid on the Sampo, Loki accomplishes the recovery of Iðunn.
In both of these narratives, the protagonist is miserable and helpless in an otherworld location where he is at the mercy of another mythic being. The second mythic being is a ruler or authority of the otherworld location and associated with chthonic forces. The protagonist asks to be released or returned to his own realm. The adversary desires an object associated with life and fertility (Sampo/apples). The adversary demands the member of the protagonist‟s community who is associated with the desired object in exchange for the protagonist‟s return home. The protagonist agrees and holds to his agreement after gaining his freedom without impending threats or further compulsion. The protagonist uses a trick to send the member of his community to the otherworld location. This is the “deception of the tree”: he creates or claims there is an exceptionally desirable object in a tree and lures the victim to that location. When this member of the protagonist‟s community complies, a third party removes him or her to the otherworld location by flight. Following this deed, the protagonist organizes and accomplishes the recovery of the lost object from the otherworld location. This motif-complex of the narrative sequence is identical and it fulfils the same function in a larger story pattern of each tradition. The larger story pattern of each tradition exhibits more general similarities addressed in §25.3. Both are mythological narratives rather than deriving from diverse genres. Each is the only context in which the deception of the tree is found in its respective culture (see §20.1 on persistence). The range of Germanic influences throughout the Sampo-Cycle make it extremely probable that this has evolved from a
Germanic model adapted to incorporate the established corresponding ethnic mythic object, the Sampo (Frog forthcoming a).
It should be stressed that the relationship exhibited between Väinämöinen‟s Ransom with its deception of the tree and the corresponding episode of the Rape of Iðunn does not mean that the Sampo-Cycle as a whole constitutes some form of translation or adaptation of the Theft of Iðunn as a whole. The correspondence and relationship is only reliably indicated at the level of the episode, which in this case might be more properly be described as a pairing of two encounters which encompass certain events and form a sequence. In this case, the pair can be compared to Hymes‟s (1981:esp.171) “scenes”, which he defines in terms of the two primary criteria of a) relationships between the participants and b) unity of content. The first “scene” would therefore be the interaction between the protagonist and the chthonic being, and the second would be the interaction between the protagonist and the member of the in-group community. The additional parallels extending beyond the motif-complex of that core sequence, both to the prior episode or motifs associated with the creation of the world and the subsequent sequence in which the protagonist initiates the recovery may be purely typological in nature. As in the case of variations and developments of LV, this example emphasizes the stability of the episode in narrative transmission. If viewed as “scenes”, one aspect of their persistence is a maintenance of their relationships to one another.173 Moreover, these “scenes” exhibit the same functions within the respective larger narrative structures in which they participate.174 Rather than reflecting the adaptation of the comprehensive narrative structure as such, this appears to reflect an adaptation and subsequent persistence of systems of indexical relationships which both correlate with how the
173
These particular “scenes” fall very closely in line with Thompson‟s (1955:7) remarkably vague description of “motifs”, although they appear application-specific within their respective cultures.
174 “Function” can be taken roughly in the sense of Propp (1958) here, or Dundes‟s (1962) “motifemes”; a
“motifeme” is essentially a Proppian function as a narrative slot which can be filled by different “motifs”, and the set of viable “motifs” (in the sense of Thompson) which can fill that slot to some degree interchangeably are “allomotifs”. Rather than a range of “allomotifs” (as dangers on the Journey) available for the “motifeme” as an element of narrative structure, the episodes under discussion can be described in Dundes‟s terms as binding “allomotif” and “motifeme”, or rather a constellation of each and their indexical relations with correspondence on the various levels of the constellation of “motifemes”, “allomotifs”, and a system of indexical relationships which connect it to preceding and subsequent episodes in the larger narrative structure.
episode is related to those other episodes and also how it functions within the structure of the larger narrative whole.