Research source

This child-hero occurs again in their dwarf-god (pikku mies), who, although, like the Hindoo Vishnus, he is but…

Date of account: English edition published 1872
Source: Zoological Mythology; or, The Legends of Animals, Volume 1 (of 2)
Reference: Zoological Mythology; or, The Legends of Animals, Volume 1 (of 2) · selected passage 45
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-25

Record summary

This child-hero occurs again in their dwarf-god (pikku mies), who, although, like the Hindoo Vishnus, he is but a span long, wields in his hand an axe the length of a man, with which he cuts down an oak-tree that no one had yet been able to bring to the ground

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

This child-hero occurs again in their dwarf-god (_pikku mies_), who, although, like the Hindoo Vishnus, he is but a span long, wields in his hand an axe the length of a man, with which he cuts down an oak-tree that no one had yet been able to bring to the ground. The sun-hero is little; but his ray, his thunderbolt, his weapon, his hand, lengthen themselves, extend themselves as far as the dwarf-hero can desire, in order to destroy the enemy, who wears here the well-known aspect of the trunk of a tree, or of a dark forest. The woodcutter is therefore a favourite figure in popular tradition. And the fact that Väinämöinen, having grown old and truthful in speech, cuts down in the _Kalevala_,[340] by the help of the little god, the prodigious oak, shows us that this little god is a new and junior form, a younger and victorious brother, or self-reproduction of the erewhile child-hero Väinämöinen, who has lived his life of a day.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

Lattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.

Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.