by Elias Lönnrot, John Martin Crawford
I will write a thing and Declare what I have done I have read the Kalevala 49 cantos I have read 50 was the number of the cantos My Mother spoke a thing and declared thus “You cannot read the Kalevala” she said “Such a reading is not for you. Read the books of your home. Not old tales of northern ...
Chances are that if you've heard of this work at all it's because it was the inspiration for Longfellow's Hiawatha, you've just heard about the publication of Tolkien's Story of Kullervo or you're some kind of expert in Epic Poetry. Which is to say it's fairly obscure outside it's native Finnland, ...
ForewordDedicationFinnish PronunciationIntroductionSelect Bibliography--The KalevalaNotesAppendix: Sibelius and the 'Kalevala'
The Kalevala is a strange beast. It was compiled by Elias Lonnrot in the 19th century out of an oral tradition. Lonnrot was deliberately trying to create a national epic, but he appears to have thought that he was rediscovering a lost epic. The result is a strange hybrid between genuine oral tra...
I'm not reading the poem, listening to a programme about it:Storyteller and musician Nick Hennessey travels to Finland to explore the mythical world of the country's national poem, The Kalevala. Blurb: First published in 1835, this 50-chapter epic inspired a 19th-century artistic awakening and remai...
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