Golden Maiden of Ilmarinen

A bride from the forge

After his wife, the Maiden of Pohjola, is killed through Kullervo's revenge, Ilmarinen mourns for months. In Rune 37 he decides to forge himself a new wife. He throws gold and silver into the furnace; after several failed attempts that produce a sheep, a colt, and other things, a maiden of gold and silver emerges, and he works her with great skill into a beautiful woman. But she cannot speak or feel, and when he lies beside her at night, the side of his body that touches her freezes.

Väinämöinen's advice

Ilmarinen offers the golden maiden to Väinämöinen, who looks at her and tells the smith to throw her back into the fire and make useful things from her, or to send her to foreign lands where men want gold. Then he warns the young men of later generations never to bow to gold or court a golden bride, for gold is cold.

Meaning

The episode, like the Greek story of Pandora or the Pygmalion legend in reverse, turns on a manufactured woman; here the lesson is explicitly against valuing wealth over a living companion.