Kalevala: The Epic Poem of Finland

About this book

The Kalevala is the national epic of Finland, fifty songs, or runos, about the heroes of the land of Kalevala and their struggles with the dark northern land of Pohjola. Its hero is the old, wise singer Väinämöinen, whose music enchants all nature; beside him are the smith Ilmarinen, who forges the Sampo, a magic mill that grinds out grain, salt and gold, for the witch-queen Louhi in exchange for her daughter; the reckless adventurer Lemminkäinen; and the tragic Kullervo, a slave who takes terrible revenge. The poem ends with the theft of the Sampo and the coming of a new age.

Context and significance

Elias Lönnrot (1802–1884), a country doctor, collected the songs from village singers in Karelia and published the epic in 1835 and in its full form in 1849; it became a symbol of Finnish identity and inspired Sibelius and Tolkien. This translation, of 1888, by John Martin Crawford, keeps the original's trochaic metre, which Longfellow had already borrowed for The Song of Hiawatha.

About the author