Chapter VI

When the bright sun showed its half,
Whereas the other didn’t show itself yet,

[It] woke up and said: “My father and my mother!
Fill up with milk
My black iron hornlet.
Father, [take and leave] me
In the middle of a big dell

Where people come to,
In the middle of a big dell
Where people go out.
Father, this is what I want to say:
Take me

In my black iron cradle
And leave me there.
If you leave me [there]
I will become your son,
If you do not leave me [there]

I won’t become your son!”
The right word said [Geser]
And then
The soft afterglow became like yellow leaves.
They fell asleep,

The next day when the bright sun showed its half
Whereas the other half had not yet shown itself,
They got up, and the mother
From both the breasts
Poured milk into the black iron hornlet.

The seventy-year-old father
Took [the baby] out of the black iron cradle
And carried and left it
In the middle of a big dell
Where they come to,

In the middle of a big dell
Where they go out,
And having left it there
In the middle of a big dell
Where they come to,

In the middle of a big dell
Where they go out,
Returned to his place.

               * * *

After [Geser] had been left there
At noon

From the western side
Two ravens flew up,
With big iron beaks,
With big iron claws.
They sat on either side of

The head of his cradle.
When they descended
Geser instantly put out
Both his hands
And having seized

The two ravens
At their thin necks said:
“What will you leave here
In this land
If you behave like you do?”

And tore off and threw away
Their iron hard beaks.
Instead he put in
Beaks of horn.
Tore off and threw away

Their iron black claws
Instead he put them
Good claws made of horn.
Those two ravens
Hardly escaped.

When they were flying away
They said to each other:
“We were aware that some day
He will become a nuisance to us.
We wanted

To peck out
The pupils of his eyes.
But he tore off and threw away
Our poor beaks,
Our poor claws!

* * *
And then
When the soft afterglow
Became like yellow leaves
The seventy-year-old man
Went to bring his son,

He brought him in his hands.
“My father and mother!
You’ve put me to sleep in such a good place!
If early tomorrow you take me to the same place
And leave there,

I’ll become your son.
But if you don’t take me there,
I won’t become your son!”
The right word said [the child].
The soft afterglow became like yellow leaves.

Having sucked the mother’s milk
[The child] fell fast asleep.
The next day when the bright sun showed its half
But the other had not yet shown itself,
[The child] got up quite so quickly.