Horse

The Horse serves both as a means of travel and as a figure of supernatural danger in the episodes preserved here. Wainamoinen and Lemminkainen each prepare a horse for a snow-sledge, while Lemminkainen later confronts and bridles Lempo’s fire-breathing stallion. The contrast is striking: the ordinary mount makes a journey possible; the flaming one turns mastery of a horse into a feat of courage and control.

Sledge Horses and Departure

Wainamoinen takes a copper-colored steed, hitches a fleet-footed courser, sets the racer to his snow-sledge, and springs onto the cross-seat. The succession of descriptions presents the animal through its speed and its place in the preparations for travel. The account does not explain the horse’s origin or give it a separate identity; its importance in this moment lies in carrying Wainamoinen into motion.

Lemminkainen’s preparations are described in a fuller sequence. He whistles for his stallion, calls the racer from the hurdles and his brown steed from the pasture, then throws on the harness, hitches the fleet-footed horse to the snow-sledge, and leaps onto the highest cross-bench. These changing terms should not be taken as proof that he uses several different horses: the passage builds a scene of summoning and harnessing through a series of names for the mount. The horse is integrated into the departure ritual, linking the call from the pasture to the harnessed vehicle and its rider.

Lempo’s Flaming Stallion

A different kind of horse appears on a heath among distant trees: Lempo’s stallion, whose mouth, eyes, and nostrils send out fire and mingled smoke. This is no longer simply a swift animal prepared for transport. Its fiery body makes the encounter a test of handling a perilous, otherworldly creature.

Lemminkainen responds with a supplication to Ukko, addressing him as the ruler of the storm-clouds and asking him to open the vault of heaven. The passage places this invocation within the encounter, before the account turns to the act of bridling; it does not establish that the prayer alone causes the horse to submit. Lemminkainen then easily puts the bridle on the stallion, using a bright golden bead-stall and a silver-mounted bridle. The careful, precious tack contrasts with the fire and smoke issuing from the animal, while the ease of the action marks the hero’s control of it. The stallion is also named as the flaming horse of evil Piru, a description that makes its supernatural character explicit.

Function and Contrast

Across these episodes, the Horse occupies two related but distinct roles. The copper-colored and brown steeds are prepared for journeys in snow-sledges; their speed is emphasized through terms such as courser and racer, and the narration follows practical actions—calling, harnessing, hitching, and mounting. Lempo’s stallion retains the language of a horse but transforms the familiar task of bridling into a confrontation with flame and smoke.

The difference gives the horse motif its narrative range without changing its central relation to human action. A horse can be the harnessed means by which a hero sets out, or a dangerous creature that must be brought under control. In Lemminkainen’s encounter, the gold-and-silver bridle is not merely travel equipment: it is the instrument through which the flaming stallion becomes manageable.