The mountain king raised his high head so that the snow flew around him; and the beautiful Northern Lights stood like a halo about his forehead, and shot in long star-shaped, pale-red rays out over the blue night sky; there was a crackling and a roaring like that a forest fire makes when its flames leap up against the crowns of the pine-trees; now the Lights spread themselves out, now they drew together again; now the brightness was very dazzling, now it grew pale, then one gleam of light after another shot like a sudden shower out over the snow-covered mountain. This pleased the mountain king. He clapped his icy hands, and the echo from the mountains sounded like thunder, and the trolls whistled with joy, and the animals round about screamed with fear. This pleased the mountain king still more, so that he called out, loud, over the wilderness:
"So shall it be! So shall it be! Forever winter and forever night! That is what I like."
"Yes, so shall it be, so shall it be!" cried the trolls as loud as they could, for they all liked winter and night better than summer and sunshine.
But among the animals there arose a murmur of talking, for all the beasts of prey and the lemmings thought as the trolls did, while the reindeer and the other animals would have found no fault with the summer, if they had not suddenly happened to think of the gnats in Lapland. It was only the little reindeer-flea who really wanted the summer; he cried as loud as he could: "Your Majesty, we came here to wait for the sun!"
"Will you be quiet, you wretched insect!" growled the white bear, close beside it. "It is only an old custom that makes us collect together here. But it will be pleasant; the sun will stay away forever. The sun is put out! The sun is dead!"
"The sun is put out! The sun is dead!" murmured all the animals, and a shiver went through all nature.
The trolls from the North Pole laughed so that their caps flew off, and the great mountain king raised his voice of thunder and called out over the wilderness: "So shall it be! So shall it be! The sun is dead. The whole earth shall fall down and worship me, Hiisi, the king of everlasting winter and of everlasting night."
That provoked Sampo Lappelil, as he sat behind the stone, and he came out and shouted with his little saucy voice: "You are lying, mountain king! you are lying, as tall as you are! Yesterday I saw the forerunner of the sun in the sky, and the sun is not dead! Your beard will still melt when it comes midsummer."