And then Louhi departed to her home, weeping for the loss of the magic Sampo, and ever since that time there have been famines and poverty in gloomy Pohjola. But Wainamoinen and the other heroes returned home rejoicing, and on the shore they found fragments of the Sampo's lid. Then Wainamoinen prayed to Ukko to be merciful and kind to them, and to protect them from frost and hail and bears, and to let the golden light of the Moon and Sun shine for ever on the plains of Kalevala.
'Ah!' said Erik, half smiling, 'it's a great pity that the whole Sampo didn't float ashore to our country, for perhaps then there would never have been any famines in our land at all,' and he sighed as he thought of some of the hard winters in years past.
'All is in God's hands,' said Father Mikko reverently, 'and we must take both good and ill as they come to us--it is not for us to say what we would wish. Let us be thankful that even a part of the Sampo floated hither,' he added, smiling.
There was a few moments' silence, and then Mimi asked what Wainamoinen had done about his lost kantele, so Father Mikko went on.
When the heroes had returned home, and found the fragments of the Sampo on the shore, they wished to make merry over the good fortune which even these fragments were sure to bring, but Wainamoinen could not give them music, since the wondrous kantele had been lost in the sea. Then he bade Ilmarinen make a huge rake with copper teeth a hundred fathoms long and the handle a thousand fathoms, and when the rake was ready, Wainamoinen took it, and sailing out over the sea in a magic vessel that needed neither sails nor oars to move it, he raked over the whole bottom of the ocean. But he only raked up shells and seaweed, and found no trace of the kantele.
Then Wainamoinen returned sadly home, saying: 'Never again shall I pour forth floods of music to the people of Kalevala from the magic strings of my kantele.' And driven on by his grief he left his house and went far off into the forest. As he wandered there he heard the birch-tree lamenting, and Wainamoinen asked the tree why it was unhappy when it had such lovely silver leaves and tassels. To this the birch-tree replied: 'Thou thinkest that I am always happy, and that my leaves and tassels must always be whispering joy. But, alas! I am so weak and feeble, and must always stand alone without a word of sympathy. Others rejoice at the coming of the spring, but I am robbed of bark and tassels and tender twigs, and am cut up for firewood, and then in the winter time the frost and the cold biting winds kill my young shoots and strip me of my silver leaves and leave me cold and naked.'