JUTTA. (JANNSEN.)1

Sacred-Texts Legends & Sagas   

 In the Kalevala, Vainamonien has neither wife nor child, but the Esthonians ascribe to him a foster-daughter, of whom the following story is related.

ONCE upon a time the God of Song wandered musing by the banks of Lake Endla, and his harp p. 86 clanged in unison with the thoughts which moved his heart. There he saw a little child lying near him in the grass, which stretched out its hands to him. He looked round everywhere for the child’s mother, but she was nowhere to be seen. So he lifted up the beautiful little girl, and went to Taara, and begged him to give him the child as his own. Ukko consented, and as he gazed graciously at his daughter, her eyes shone like stars, and her hair glittered like bright gold.

 Under the divine protection the child grew up from the tender infant to the maiden Jutta. The God of Song taught her the sweet art of speech, and Ilmarine wrought the girl a veil, wondrously woven of silver threads. He who gazed through her veil saw everything of which the maiden spoke as if it were passing before his eyes. She is said to have dwelt by the Lake of Endla, where she was often seen, planning the flights of the birds of passage, and showing them the way; and also when she p. 87 wandered by the shores of the lake, and wept for the death of Endla,¹ her beloved. But she took the wonderful veil, and gazed upon the happy past, and then was she happy, for she thought she possessed what her eyes saw. She has also lent her veil to mortal men, and then it is that the songs and legends of the past become living to us.

Footnotes

p. 85

¹ This story is also related, more briefly, by Blumberg, who states that Lake Endla lies in an impassable swamp in the district of Vaimastfer, and is visible from the hill near Kardis. The fish and birds are under the protection of Jutta, and there is no place in the country where birds congregate to such an extent, and birds of passage remain so long. Jutta is perhaps the same as Lindu (vol. ii. p. 86 p. 147). Near Heidelberg is a spring called the “Wolfsbrunnen,” where a beautiful enchantress named Jutta, the priestess of Hertha, is said to have had an assignation with her lover; but he found she had been killed by a wolf, the messenger of the offended goddess. Whether there is any connection between the German and Esthonian Jutta I do not know.

p. 87

¹ Or Endel, the son of Ilmarine. Blumberg writes “Wanemuinen” and “Ilmarinen” in his account of the legend, which nearly approach the Finnish forms of the names.