The Eagle

"…crafty old Louhi (Mistress of the North Country) was not without magic of her own. She took five sharp scythes and six worn out hoes and fashioned them into talons. Then she seized the broken planks of her ship and turned them into wings, and of the rudder she fashioned a tail. And the scythes and the hoes and the planks and the rudder became a mighty eagle. When all was finished, old Louhi herself took the shape of the eagle she had contrived. And under her wings she took a hundred of her swordsmen and on the tail she carried a thousand archers." Louhi created an eagle to carry the men from her ship to the ship of old Vainamoinen to retrieve the Sampo, a magic piece that had all the creative power of the universe. In the flight the Sampo broke and spilled in the sea, along with a fragment which contained a small portion of the magic being saved by the people of the land of Heroes. This sculpture represents the eagle into which Louhi was transformed in the tale of the Kalevala, the Land of Heroes. The sculpture was designed and created by the Brethren High School Service Learning Class, 1997-98, of welded scrap metal. The artist-mentor is Andy Priest of Wellston. This sculpture is located in the lot west of the Kaleva Art Gallery.