Serpents

Serpents are woven into the poem’s imagery of danger: they wind around the double spears used as railings, while stinging adders lie along the rails. At Pohyola, that patterned threat takes the form of a single enormous serpent blocking the entrance, which Lemminkainen confronts with words passed down through his family.

Serpents in the Architecture

The railing belongs to a structure described as rising from earth to heaven and then returning to earth. Its double spears serve as railings, with serpents winding around each spear and adders on every rail. The repetition turns the serpent from a lone creature into an insistent feature of the built environment: the boundary itself is marked by danger.

The Serpent at Pohyola

At the portals of Pohyola, Lemminkainen encounters a serpent lying crosswise in the entry. Its scale is measured against the building, as it is said to be longer than the longest rafters. The scene concentrates the earlier image of serpents along the rails into one physical obstruction across the way. Lemminkainen speaks to it and orders it to leave the highway; the encounter is presented as a confrontation conducted through words as well as through the blocking creature’s imposing size.

Inherited Words and Origin

Lemminkainen’s address draws authority from family inheritance: the words were taught by his ancestors and learned by his mother in childhood. He names the serpent’s origin as the death-belt of Tuoni and identifies that origin as part of its evil charm. The serpent is thus not merely a dangerous body in the path; its nature is made legible through an account of where it comes from. The contrast between the winding serpents embedded in the railing and the named creature at Pohyola links repeated protective-looking structure with a threat that must be faced and addressed.