Sorry, I thought I had sent this some days ago.
Jansy wrote:
<< Nobody will comment on the name
"Aina"? Isn't she a girl that drowned in the Finnish epic you've been
discussing in relation to Sibelius and the myths of creation?
>>
Dear Jansy,
It's Aino Ackté (Achte), not Aina. (Incidentally, Sibelius's wife was
Aino née Järnefelt.)
Aino in the Kalevala drowns because she swims towards a
rock coloured like the rainbow.
Iris is the goddess of the rainbow.
So maybe there actually is a connection between Aino Ackté and Iris
Acht.
Also, in the Kalevala, Rune 8, we have "Pohjola's daughter" (i.e. daughter
of the northland), unnamed, seated by a rainbow at her spinning
wheel. She sets Vainamoinen on a number of tasks such
as tying an egg into invisible knots. He succeeds many times but eventually he
gives up, to her mocking laughter. Sibelius portrays this in his symphonic poem
"Pohjola's daughter" (1906).
From Rune 4 of the Kalevala:
Out at sea a goodly distance,
Stood a rock of rainbow
colors,
Glittering in silver sunlight.
Toward it springs the hapless
maiden,
Thither swims the lovely Aino,
Up the standing-stone has
clambered,
Wishing there to rest a moment,
Rest upon the rock of
beauty;
When upon a sudden swaying
To and fro among the billows,
With a
crash and roar of waters
Falls the stone of many colors,
Falls upon the
very bottom
Of the deep and boundless blue-sea.
With the stone of
rainbow colors,
Falls the weeping maiden, Aino,
Clinging
to its craggy edges,
Sinking far below the surface,
To the bottom of the
blue-sea.
Thus the weeping maiden vanished.
Thus poor Aino sank and
perished,
Singing as the stone descended,
Chanting thus as she
departed:
Once to swim I sought the sea-side,
There to sport among the
billows;
With the stone of many colors
Sank poor Aino to the bottom
Of
the deep and boundless blue-sea,
Like a pretty son-bird. perished.
Never
come a-fishing, father,
To the borders of these waters,
Never during all
thy life-time,
As thou lovest daughter Aino.
Anthony Stadlen