Lemminkäinen's mother

Lemminkäinen's mother is an aged and protective figure whose attempts to restrain her son are answered by his continued movement toward danger. Her warnings and offer of refuge make maternal care an active force in the episode, even as Lemminkainen pursues his own course.

A mother who tries to hold him back

The narrative first presents her as aged and seeking again to stay her son. Lemminkainen says that his magic blade and scabbard are needed at Pohyola, and she urges him not to go. Her concern is repeated when the prospect of entering Pohyola's mansion and walking the halls of Sariola arises: she answers with another plea not to go to the firesides of Pohyola. The recurrence matters. Her resistance is not a single warning but a sustained effort to turn him away from the northern place he is intent on reaching.

Warning and refuge

Her counsel takes a different form when she answers a threat involving warriors from Pohyola and the demand for Lemminkainen's head. Rather than merely repeating that he should not go, she says that she can name a refuge, a land of small dimensions. The change from warning to practical shelter presents her care as responsive to the danger facing her son: she seeks not only to dissuade him from going, but also to identify somewhere he might be safe.

Reunion

At the later reunion, Lemminkainen finds his gray-haired mother weeping inside a dwelling built between rocky ledges and amid three pine trees. The scene gives her protective role an intimate, visible form: after repeated efforts to keep him from danger, she is shown in tears when he finds her. The evidence establishes her distress and their reunion, without specifying the cause of her tears.