Wirokannas blesses Mariatta's son and grants him royal heirship

Wirokannas blesses Mariatta's son and grants him royal heirship in a brief rite that turns the child's recognition into a claim to rule. Wirokannas, identified as ruler of the wilderness, touches the child with holy water, gives him a blessing, and grants him the right to grow into a hero and become king and master of Karyala. The succession is still prospective, but the language gives the child a defined political future and marks a transfer of authority away from the aging Wainamoinen.

The Blessing and Grant of Heirship

Wirokannas performs the decisive actions in sequence: he touches the child with holy water, blesses him, and grants him royal heirship. The physical gesture and blessing frame the grant as a formal act of recognition, not merely a prediction about the child's abilities. The child is given both a right—to live and grow as a hero—and a destination: kingship over Karyala.

The passage distinguishes that future from the present. The child is not yet described as ruling; he is authorized to grow into the role. The paired promises of heroic development and kingship make his personal maturation inseparable from the coming change in political authority.

Wirokannas and the New Ruler

Wirokannas's description as ruler of the wilderness gives the blessing institutional weight. He speaks from a position of authority and grants a royal status that points beyond his own domain: the child is to become king and master of Karyala. The scene thus connects ritual recognition with succession, while leaving the practical process by which the child will assume power unstated.

The child's designation also answers the preceding dispute over his standing. The lines immediately before the rite refer to being evil-treated and banished by one's people; Wirokannas's action then establishes the child's future as one of recognized authority rather than exclusion. The passage does not detail the child's later reign, so its emphasis falls on the grant itself and the future it opens.

Consequences for Wainamoinen

Immediately after the blessing, the narrative turns to Wainamoinen, who recognizes that his powers are waning. The placement makes the child's elevation and the elder hero's decline consecutive parts of the same transition: a new ruler is named as the old figure becomes conscious of diminished power. It does not state that the child takes power at once, but the sequence shifts the story's political horizon toward Karyala's future king.

The scene therefore functions as a hinge in the ending. Holy water, blessing, and heirship establish the child's legitimacy; the following recognition of waning power signals the cost of that change for Wainamoinen. The succession is announced with confidence, while its realization remains ahead.