A Finnish Story*
by Edward Mackinnon
Landless, she worked on the land of a great landlord and his lady
where the grass was lush and fat cows blinked at the northern light
But she had to walk thirty miles with a fish and a pound of butter
and having an honest heart she told everyone she met on the way
that the good fish and butter she was carrying were for her son
and had been given to her by the lady of her great landlord
because her son was in prison
The northern air was as sharp as the spiny fins of a fish
and the sun was the colour of pale butter
and she had to walk thirty miles
For part of the way she was given a lift by a farmer
and as she always babbled and spoke from the heart
she said the lady of the estate with lush grass and white birches
had given her a fish and a pound of butter for her son in prison
But when she told him her son was a Red
(it was the time after the civil war)
the farmer ordered her to get down from his wagon and walk
Along the way she met women doing their washing in a stream
all gathered together like water birds
and when she told them about the fish and the butter and her son
they looked up and listened
glad to be fed a scrap of news from the wider world
The woman walked on, past green fields and poplars with sun-dappled leaves
until she came to the prison
where the ground was bare and the trees were scraggly and bent
Her son enquired of her about this and that, her neighbours and her aching back
and when he saw the fish and the butter
he asked whether she had begged for it from the landlord and his lady
and when she answered yes he refused to eat it
I won’t take anything from them he said
this although the prison rations were scarcely enough
to feed a crow in winter
So the landless woman had to walk back the thirty miles
with the fish and the pound of butter
which began to smell and turn rancid
She therefore ate the food as she walked along and told everyone she met
– farmers and women hunched over their washing at the stream –
that the food had been for her son in prison
but that he had refused to eat it
because she had begged for it from the great lord and his lady
explaining that he wouldn’t take anything from them
Thus she walked all the way back to the estate with lush grass and white birches
babbling like a child and speaking from the heart
and in this way many people heard about her son
and there were those who talked about him and remembered
Yes, some people are like that, they said.
* After a scene in Herr Puntila and His Servant Matti by Bertolt Brecht and Hella Wuolijoki. Image is Peasant Woman and Cows in a Landscape, by Paul Gauguin, 1890.
