While the stories about Kallewe Poeg are
nearly as wild as the legends of the Tartars,
to which in character they are somewhat
similar, they are told with a great display
of geographical accuracy. A high rocky coast
in the neighbourhood of Revel was actually
shown to Dr. Kruse (an antiquary to whose
researches in Esthonian tradition we are much
indebted) as the sepulchre raised by the widow
of Kallewe Poeg's father over her departed
husband, and a lake in the vicinity is attributed
to her tears. Near Assama, a town situated to
the north-west of the Peipus, Dr. Fählmann,
another archæologist, was shown a marsh and
four pits, the origin of which is thus explained:
Kallewe Poeg, mounted on horseback, was giving
chase to his foes, when his horse, in springing
from one mountain-top to another, took too
short a leap, and fell between them. The body
of the animal, dashed to pieces, formed the
marsh, and the four pits are the prints of his
feet. An awful curse was uttered by Kallewe
Poeg on the occasion of the accident. "Remain
a marsh," he said to the fatal place, "a marsh
till the end of the world, an abode for nothing
but frogs. May man avoid thee and avert his
face from thy hideous form." The exact spot
on the bank of the river Aa is shown, where
Kallewe Poeg had a remarkable encounter with
three "iron-clad men." The first of these he
whirled round his head, making a noise like the
wings of a flying eagle, and then stamped him
into the ground, so that he was buried up to his
waist. The second was similarly whirled, with a
sound like that of the wind among pine-trees,
and buried up to the chin. As to the third,
whose whirling could only be compared to a
flash of lightning, he was stamped so deeply
into the earth that only the point of his helmet
was visible.

The angling of Kallewe Poeg in this same
river Aa was on a most magnificent scale. An
ambassador who came to demand his submission
to a neighbouring power, was asked by him to
fetch his staff, which was standing at the riverside,
furnished with a bait for crabs. The staff
proved to be the trunk of a tree, which the
ambassador could not move, but which Kallewe
Poeg pulled up with ease, showing a whole
horse as the suspended bait. The ambassador was
then sent home, with orders to report that the
conquest of Kallewe Poeg would be no easy task.

The time when Kallewe Poeg flourished is
regarded by the Esthonian peasant as a sort of golden
age. Dr. Kruse saw in a large stone, which
lay near the Kallewe Poeg Säng, the marks of
a colossal finger and thumb, and was told by a
peasant who resided on the spot that these
marks were left by Kallewe Poeg, a good worker
of the land, under whose dominion corn was
abundant, and flocks greatly multiplied. Indeed,
the stone itself was a monument of his beneficent
agency, for it had been flung by him at a wolf
that was carrying off a lamb. Another relic is
the Kallewe Poeg tool (chair), a huge stone,
with an appearance of a back and two arms, upon
which the giant is said to have rested.

So great a hero could not fall by any sword
but his own. When he left his weapon in the
stream, after it had been stolen by the enchanter,
he uttered an imprecation to the effect, that if
ever he who had worn it should cross that
stream, he wished it might cut off his legs. By
"him who had worn it," he meant the enchanter;
forgetting for the moment that he had carried
the sword himself. As General Damas says:
"Curses are like young chickens; and aye come
home to roost;" so when Kallewe Poeg amused
himself one day by walking through the stream,
his feet were so dreadfully cut by the sword that
he with difficulty got out of the water, and flung
himself in agony upon the ground, his groans filling
the whole intermediate space between the
earth and the abode of the gods. He died of his
wounds, and his soul ascended to heaven, but
Old Father was afraid lest such an active hero
might become mischievous if he was not
furnished with some employment adequate to his
great powers. He was, therefore, despatched
to the infernal regions, to keep order among the
devils, who had been more than commonly
contumacious.

We conclude our series with a charming fable
which we have purposely reserved to the last,
and we tell it literally as it was heard by Dr.
Fählmann, when an old Esthonian narrated it for
the amusement of his grandchildren:

"Knowest thou the light in Old Father's
halls? It has just sunk to rest, and where it
went out its reflexion still shines in the sky, and
already is there a bright streak which extends
towards the east, whence in its full magnificence
it will again greet the entire creation. Dost
thou know the hand which receives the sun and
brings her to rest when she has finished her
course? Knowest thou the hand which
rekindles her when she is extinguished, and makes
her once more begin her heavenly journey?

"Old Father had two faithful servants of the
race that is blessed with eternal youth, and
when on the first evening light had finished its
course, he said to Aemmerik: 'On account of
thy faithfulness, daughter, I entrust to thee the
sinking sun. Extinguish her, and conceal the
fire, that it may cause no harm.' And when
on the following morning the sun was to renew
her course, he said to Koit: 'Thy office, my
son, shall be to rekindle the light, and prepare
it for its new journey.' Both performed this
duty faithfully, and there was not a day on
which the vault of heaven was without its light.
When in winter the sun reaches the horizon,
she is extinguished at an earlier hour, and in
the morning she later resumes her course; but
when in spring she awakes the flowers and the
birds, and when in summer she ripens the fruit
with her sultry beams, she is only allowed a
short time of repose, and as soon as her light
is extinguished Aemmerik places her
immediately in the hands of Koit, who at once
rekindles her for new life.

"That beautiful time had arrived when flowers
put forth their colours and their fragrance, and
birds and men fill the air with songs, and