duced to flour by the labour o f the hands, either by pounding, in
mortars, or by grinding betwixt two Hones. This was a daily
talk, and it fell to the woman’s lot to perform it in Finland, as in
other countries. During the long and dreary winters o f that climate,
they were engaged in this work at home, whilft their huf-
bands abroad were either in purfuit of game, or employed in the
neceflary buflnefs o f feeking wood, forage, &c.
T o cheer their minds, and beguile their labour, fuch o f the
women as were unable to invent fongs, ftudied the compolition
o f new ones; whilft others who were not fo happy as to poflels
that talent, fung thofe they had learned, whether new or old. In
The pafty now is open- laicf,
And all the rogue’s trick is diiplay’d }
But words I want now to exprefs
His rage, his fury, and diftreis;
He ftamp’d, he iwore, with paffion ftutter’d,
But calmer grown, thefe words he utter’d :
How wretched man ! expos’d to cheats !
At meals who knows not what he eats!
This day it may be leg of cat,
To-morrow fomething worfe than thaf;
Thro’ life in all things thus he’s cheated,
And moil when beil he thinks he’s treated^
One truth he firmly may believe,
That death fhall furely not deceive j
But howe’er fumptuouily he eat,
For worms at lail will make him meat.
Thus ends Vanonen’s tale, which you
Have liilen’d with attention to;
I trull you think it well bellow’d,
For all allow the moral good» -
one
one o f thefe a female peafant defcribes herfelf at work in thefe
words :
Pâiwat pyorin petkeleifsa
Kiwen puuffa kükuttelen.
Fix’d to this mill all day I Hand,
And turn the ftone with patient hand.
The ft longs, called jauko runot, ox mill-fongs, are for the mod
part fung to a flow plaintive air. I f two women are employed at
the mill, they are fung in parts- by both o f them ; but when they
relieve each other, ihe- only fings who- works. Thefe fongs are
compofed on a variety o f fubjefts ; fometimes grave and ferious,
at other times ludicrous and fetyrical ; one while a love ftory, and
not infrequently the praifes o f feme heroic a&ion.
Love, which is the great buflnefs o f the’ fex, is, as may well be
feppofed, the topic upon, which the energies o f the Finnifh poetefs
are chiefly exercifed ; it is, however, not an eafy matter to procure
fpecimens o f thefe fongs, as they are generally fung by the young
women at meetings, to which men are rarely or never admitted.
Mr. Franzen o f Abo prefented me with aTong, the compofitibn
o f a country girl,- a native o f Oftro-Bothnia,. and the fervant o f
the magifter or the clergyman o f the village, where ilie had con-
ftantly reflded. It is compofed. on the occafion o f her lover’s ab-
fence, in a ftyle o f natural fimplicity, ftrong fentiment, and bold
figure, to attain which, more cultivated underftandings fometimes
labour in vain. The thought in the fécond ftanza, i f not altogether