Kyllikki had told herself that she was only going out because she had hopes of windfall nuts or early mushrooms. The cool darkness of the forest had beckoned her, as a respite from the loneliness gathering like gallstones inside her, and she had followed the thin pathways ever deeper into the trees ( Read more... )

Kyllikki is harvesting vegetables from her garden today, putting marrows and eggplants and beans and tomatoes into baskets. She is humming to herself as she works, some innocent song about a woman in love; her hair is coiled into braids, and her sleeves are rolled up over her elbows.

Kyllikki's little household garden has borne fruit and vegetables, but the wilder gardens of the Mansion have made thousands of flowers--and today Kyllikki has crowned her braids with a garland of flowers, which she studies shyly in a hall mirror. Her fair skin has been sunburned many times from working outside, and her hands are rough despite the ( Read more... )

Kyllikki is sitting below a tree, picturesque and surrounded by wildflowers; she might have plucked them and torn idly at their petals, once, but now she knows a flower and loves her, and that keeps her from tearing at petals. Instead, she is only unbraiding her hair and letting it flow loose over her shoulders, combing it with her fingers and ( Read more... )

The kitchen plothole has ceased giving food, and Kyllikki has taken the sudden change with equanimity. In Saari, she spent her childhood working in the barns and the gardens, hands gloved to protect their softness; in Lemminkainen's kingdom, she did the wife's work of making cheese and churning butter, growing grain and making it into bread, ( Read more... )

Kyllikki is sitting on the porch, embroidering a belt with birds and vines. The noonday sun is warm enough that she doesn't need a coat or a shawl, and she is smiling at the warmth of the day and humming little snatches of a cheery-tuned song (that is actually about a bride whose mother-in-law worked her like a slave). Go ahead and bother her if ( Read more... )

Kyllikki has moved the furniture in her room today, using all of her strength to press the bed into a corner and to move her boxes and her mirror while the Rose bathes and adorns herself. She has laid a soft rug on the floor so that it will not make their bare feet slip to walk it When the Rose returns, she will find the room quite ready for ( Read more... )