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Haas & Peekna & Walker Folklore 23
ern origin of the monster does not fit the appearance of the Kaali
meteorite from the east, but it would make sense if the story originated
from southern Estonia, where the observer would have seen
a strange object streaking across the northern sky. An interesting
detail is that this insatiable people- and animal-eating monster had
metal scales. Since the Kaali meteorite left small granules of iron
around some smaller craters, this could be still another echo of the
ancient catastrophe in folk tales.
Meri even suggests that the iron helped make Saaremaa an important
center of smithing and trade. Tiirmaa reports, however, that
meteoritic iron has a distinctively high nickel content, which has
not been found in any of the iron objects from Saaremaa. The meteorite
was mostly vaporized on impact. Even if some small pieces
could be recovered from the smaller craters, their value for iron
smelting would not have been realized in 2000 BC, well before the
Iron Age, and the sites would have been overgrown with forest by
the time Saaremaa’s inhabitants would have realized the value of
the nuggets. It would thus also seem unlikely that the meteorite is
the source of the concept of an “iron star”, in an Estonian folk song
(Tedre III, 1971: 142), unless Veski’s dating of the crash to around
600 B.C. turns out to be closer to the mark.
HOT SNOW AND THUNDER ROCKS
The aftermath of the meteorite’s crash would have included a shower
of hot cinders and rocks on the island of Saaremaa. This may explain
the curious contradictory phrase ‘hot snow’, which is found in
Estonian folk poetry (Viidalepp 1959: 15; Laugaste 1963: 156).
Ehk tuli tulista lunda
ja sadas sula raheda,
valas vihma varda’asta:
ikka pean ma minema [---]
(translation by A. Haas)
Even though hot snow fell,
and molten hail fell,
rain poured in torrents,
still I need to go[---]
This is a serf’s lament about how he is obligated to go to work
regardless of the conditions outside. It is possible that the original
singer just hit upon the phrase ‘hot snow’ as an apt expression for
showing how ridiculous or extreme the serf’s situation was, just as
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