Books: The Kalevala book 1
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John Martin Crawford, trans. >> The Kalevala book 1
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Hiisi, the Finnish devil, bearing also the epithets, Juntas, Piru, and
Lempo, is the chief of the forest-demons, and is inconceivably wicked.
He was brought into the world consentaneously with Suoyatar, from whose
spittle, as sung in The Kalevala, he formed the serpent. This demon is
described as cruel, horrible, hideous, and bloodthirsty, and all the
most painful diseases and misfortunes that ever afflict mortals are
supposed to emanate from him. This demon, too, is thought by the
Finlanders to have a hand in all the evil done in the world.
Turning from the outer world to man, we find deities whose energies are
used only in the domain of human existence. "These deities," says
Castren, "have no dealings with the higher, spiritual nature of man.
All that they do concerns man solely as an object in nature. Wisdom
and law, virtue and justice, find in Finnish mythology no protector
among the gods, who trouble themselves only about the temporal wants of
humanity." The Love-goddess was Sukkamieli (stocking-lover).
"Stockings," says Castren gravely, "are soft and tender things, and the
goddess of love was so called because she interests herself in the
softest and tenderest feelings of the heart." This conception,
however, is as farfetched as it is modern. The Love-deity of the
ancient Finns was Lempo, the evil-demon. It is more reasonable
therefore to suppose that the Finns chose the son of Evil to look after
the feelings of the human heart, because they regarded love as an
insufferable passion, or frenzy, that bordered on insanity, and incited
in some mysterious manner by an evil enchanter.
Uni is the god of sleep, and is described as a kind-hearted and welcome
deity. Untamo is the god of dreams, and is always spoken of as the
personification of indolence. Munu tenderly looks after the welfare of
the human eye. This deity, to say the least is an oculist of long and
varied experience, in all probability often consulted in Finland
because of the blinding snows and piercing winds of the north. Lemmas
is a goddess in the mythology of the Finns who dresses the wounds of
her faithful sufferers, and subdues their pains. Suonetar is another
goddess of the human frame, and plays a curious and important part in
the restoration to life of the reckless Lemminkainen, as described in
the following runes. She busies herself in spinning veins, and in
sewing up the wounded tissues of such deserving worshipers as need her
surgical skill.
Other deities associated with the welfare of mankind are the Sinettaret
and Kankahattaret, the goddesses respectively of dyeing and weaving.
Matka-Teppo is their road-god, and busies himself in caring for horses
that are over-worked, and in looking after the interests of weary
travellers. Aarni is the guardian of hidden treasures. This important
office is also filled by a hideous old deity named Mammelainen, whom
Renwall, the Finnish lexicographer, describes as "femina maligna,
matrix serpentis, divitiarum subterranearum custos," a malignant woman,
the mother of the snake, and the guardian of subterranean treasures.
From this conception it is evident that the idea of a kinship between
serpents and hidden treasures frequently met with in the myths of the
Hungarians, Germans, and Slavs, is not foreign to the Finns.
Nowhere are the inconsistencies of human theory and practice more
curiously and forcibly shown than in the custom in vogue among the
clans of Finland who are not believers in a future life, but,
notwithstanding, perform such funereal ceremonies as the burying in the
graves of the dead, knives, hatchets, spears, bows, and arrows,
kettles, food, clothing, sledges and snow-shoes, thus bearing witness
to their practical recognition of some form of life beyond the grave.
The ancient Finns occasionally craved advice and assistance from the
dead. Thus, as described in The Kalevala, when the hero of Wainola
needed three words of master-magic wherewith to finish the boat in
which he was to sail to win the mystic maiden of Sariola, he first
looked in the brain of the white squirrel, then in the mouth of the
white-swan when dying, but all in vain; then he journeyed to the
kingdom of Tuoni, and failing there, he "struggled over the points of
needles, over the blades of swords, over the edges of hatchets" to the
grave of the ancient wisdom-bard, Antero Wipunen, where he "found the
lost-words of the Master." In this legend of The Kalevala, exceedingly
interesting, instructive, and curious, are found, apparently, the
remote vestiges of ancient Masonry.
It would seem that the earliest beliefs of the Finns regarding the dead
centred in this: that their spirits remained in their graves until
after the complete disintegration of their bodies, over which Kalma,
the god of the tombs, with his black and evil daughter, presided.
After their spirits had been fully purified, they were then admitted to
the Kingdom of Manala in the under world. Those journeying to Tuonela
were required to voyage over nine seas, and over one river, the Finnish
Styx, black, deep, and violent, and filled with hungry whirlpools, and
angry waterfalls.
Like Helheim of Scandinavian mythology, Manala, or Tuonela, was
considered as corresponding to the upper world. The Sun and the Moon
visited there; fen and forest gave a home to the wolf, the bear, the
elk, the serpent, and the songbird; the salmon, the whiting, the perch,
and the pike were sheltered in the "coal-black waters of Manala." From
the seed-grains of the death-land fields and forests, the Tuoni-worm
(the serpent) had taken its teeth. Tuoui, or Mana, the god of the
under world, is represented as a hard-hearted, and frightful, old
personage with three iron-pointed fingers on each hand, and wearing a
hat drawn down to his shoulders. As in the original conception of
Hades, Tuoni was thought to be the leader of the dead to their
subterranean home, as well as their counsellor, guardian, and ruler.
In the capacity of ruler he was assisted by his wife, a hideous,
horrible, old witch with "crooked, copper-fingers iron-pointed," with
deformed head and distorted features, and uniformly spoken of in irony
in the Kalevala as "hyva emanta," the good hostess; she feasted her
guests on lizards, worms, toads, and writhing serpents. Tuouen Poika,
"The God of the Red Cheeks," so called because of his bloodthirstiness
and constant cruelties, is the son and accomplice of this merciless and
hideous pair.
Three daughters of Tuoni are mentioned in the runes, the first of whom,
a tiny, black maiden, but great in wickedness, once at least showed a
touch of human kindness when she vainly urged Wainamoinen not to cross
the river of Tuoui, assuring the hero that while many visit Manala, few
return, because of their inability to brave her father's wrath.
Finally, after much entreaty, she ferried him over the Finnish Styx,
like Charon, the son of Erebus and Nox, in the mythology of Greece.
The second daughter of Tuoni is Lowyatar, black and blind, and is
described as still more malignant and loathsome than the first.
Through the East-wind's impregnation she brought forth the spirits of
the nine diseases most dreaded by mankind, as described in the 45th
Rune of the Kalevala:
"Colic, Pleurisy, and Fever.
Ulcer, Plague, and dread Consumption,
Gout, Sterility, and Cancer."
The third daughter of Tuoni combines the malevolent and repugnant
attributes of her two sisters, and is represented as the mother and
hostess of the impersonal diseases of mankind. The Finns regarded all
human ailments as evil spirits or indwelling devils, some formless,
others taking the shapes of the most odious forms of animal life, as
worms and mites; the nine, however, described above, were conceived to
have human forms.
Where the three arms of the Tuoni river meet a frightful rock arises,
called Kipu-Kivi, or Kipuvuori, in a dungeon beneath which the spirits
of all diseases are imprisoned. On this rock the third daughter of
Tuoui sits, constantly whirling it round like a millstone, grinding her
subjects until they escape and go forth to torture and slay the
children of men; as in Hindu mythology, Kali (black) sits in judgment
on the dead.
Various other spiritual powers than gods and goddesses are held in high
reverence by the Finns. Tontu is represented as a kind-hearted
house-spirit, a sort of diminutive Cyclops, and offerings of bread and
broth are made to him every morning. Putting a mare's collar on one's
neck and walking nine times around a church is thought to be a certain
means of attracting one to the place desired. Para is a mystical,
three-legged being, constructed in many ways, and which, according to
Castren, attains life and action when its possessor, cutting the little
finger of his left hand, lets three drops of blood fall upon it, and at
the same time pronouncing the proper magic word. The possessor, by
whatever means, of this mystic being, is always supplied with abundance
of milk and cheese. The Maahiset are the dwarfs of Finnish mythology.
Their abode is under stumps, trees, blocks, thresholds and
hearth-stones. Though exceedingly minute and invisible to man they
have human forms. They are irritable and resentful, and they punish
with ulcers, tetter, ringworms, pimples, and other cutaneous
affections, all those who neglect them at brewings, bakings, and
feastings. They punish in a similar manner those who enter new houses
without making obeisance to the four corners, and paying them other
kindly attentions; those who live in untidy houses are also likewise
punished. The Kirkonwaeki (church-folk) are little deformed beings
living under the altars of churches. These misshapen things are
supposed to be able to aid their sorrowing and suffering worshipers.
Certain beasts, and birds, and trees, are held sacred in Finland. In
the Kalevala are evident traces of arctolatry, bear-worship, once very
common among the tribes of the north, Otso, the bear, according to
Finnish mythology, was born on the shoulders of Otava, in the regions
of the sun and moon, and "nursed by a goddess of the woodlands in a
cradle swung by bands of gold between the bending branches of budding
fir-trees." His nurse would not give him teeth and claws until he had
promised never to engage in bloody strife, or deeds of violence. Otso,
however, does not always keep his pledge, and accordingly the hunters
of Finland find it comparatively easy to reconcile their consciences to
his destruction. Otso is called in the runes by many endearing titles
as "The Honey-Eater," "Golden Light-Foot," "The Forest-Apple,"
"Honey-Paw of the Mountains," "ThePride of the Thicket," "The Fur-robed
Forest-Friend." Ahava, the West-wind, and Penitar, a blind old witch
of Sariola, are the parents of the swift dogs of Finland, just as the
horses of Achilles, Xanthos and Belios, sprang from Zephyros and the
harpy Podarge.
As to birds, the duck, according to the Kalevala, the eagle, according
to other traditions, lays the mundane egg, thus taking part in the
creation of the world. Puhuri, the north-wind, the father of Pakkanen
(frost) is sometimes personified as a gigantic eagle. The didapper is
reverenced because it foretells the approach of rain. Linnunrata
(bird-path) is the name given to the Milky-way, due probably to a myth
like those of the Swedes and Slavs, in which liberated songs take the
form of snow-white dovelets. The cuckoo to this day is sacred, and is
believed to have fertilized the earth with his songs. As to insects,
honey-bees, called by the Finns, Mehilainen, are especially sacred, as
in the mythologies of many other nations. Ukkon-koiva (Ukko's dog) is
the Finnish name for the butterfly, and is looked upon as a messenger
of the Supreme Deity. It may be interesting to observe here that the
Bretons in reverence called butterflies, "feathers from the wings of
God."
As to inanimate nature, certain lakes, rivers, springs, and fountains,
are held in high reverence. In the Kalevala the oak is called Pun
Jumalan (God's tree). The mountain-ash even to this day, and the
birch-tree, are held sacred, and peasants plant them by their cottages
with reverence.
Respecting the giants of Finnish mythology, Castren is silent, and the
following notes are gleaned from the Kalevala, and from Grimm's
Teutonic Mythology. "The giants," says Grimm, "are distinguished by
their cunning and ferocity from the stupid, good-natured monsters of
Germany and Scandinavia." Soini, for example a synonym of Kullervo,
the here of the saddest episode of the Kalevala when only three days
old, tore his swaddling clothes to tatters. When sold to a forgeman of
Karelia, he was ordered to nurse an infant, but he dug out the eyes of
the child, killed it, and burned its cradle. Ordered to fence the
fields, he built a fence from earth to heaven, using entire pine-trees
for fencing materials, and interweaving their branches with venomous
serpents. Ordered to tend the herds in the woodlands, he changed the
cattle to wolves and bears, and drove them home to destroy his mistress
because she had baked a stone in the centre of his oat-loaf, causing
him to break his knife, the only keepsake of his people.
Regarding the heroes of the Kalevala, much discussion has arisen as to
their place in Finnish mythology. The Finns proper regard the chief
heroes of the Suomi epic, Wainamoinen, Ilmarinen, and Lemminkainen, as
descendants of the Celestial Virgin, Ilmatar, impregnated by the winds
when Ilma (air), Light, and Water were the only material existences.
In harmony with this conception we find in the Kalevala, a description
of the birth of Wainamoinen, or Vaino, as he is sometimes called in the
original, a word probably akin to the Magyar Ven, old. The Esthonians
regard these heroes as sons of the Great Spirit, begotten before the
earth was created, and dwelling with their Supreme Ruler in Jumala.
The poetry of a people with such an elaborate mythology and with such a
keen and appreciative sense of nature and of her various phenomena, was
certain, sooner or later, to attract the attention of scholars. And,
in fact, as early as the seventeenth century, we meet men of literary
tastes who tried to collect and interpret the various national songs of
the Finns. Among these were Palmskold and Peter Bang. They collected
portions of the national poetry, consisting chiefly of
wizard-incantations, and all kinds of pagan folk-lore. Gabriel
Maxenius, however, was the first to publish a work on Finnish national
poetry, which brought to light the beauties of the Kalevala. It
appeared in 1733, and bore the title: De Effectibus Naturalibus. The
book contains a quaint collection of Finnish poems in lyric forms,
chiefly incantations; but the author was entirely at a loss how to
account for them, or how to appreciate them. He failed to see their
intimate connection with the religious worship of the Finns in paganism.
The next to study the Finnish poetry and language was Daniel Juslenius,
a celebrated bishop, and a highly-gifted scholar. In a dissertation,
published as early as 1700, entitled, Aboa vetus et nova, he discussed
the origin and nature of the Finnish language; and in another work of
his, printed in 1745, he treated of Finnish incantations, displaying
withal a thorough understanding of the Finnish folk-lore, and of the
importance of the Finnish language and national poetry. With great
care he began to collect the songs of Suomi, but this precious
collection was unfortunately burned.
Porthan, a Finnish scholar of great attainments, born in 1766,
continuing the work of Juslenius, accumulated a great number of
national songs and poems, and by his profound enthusiasm for the
promotion of Finnish literature, succeeded in founding the Society of
the Fennophils, which to the present day, forms the literary centre of
Finland. Among his pupils were E. Lenquist, and Chr. Ganander, whose
works on Finnish mythology are among the references used in preparing
this preface. These indefatigable scholars were joined by Reinhold
Becker and others, who were industriously searching for more and more
fragments of what evidently was a great epic of the Finns. For
certainly neither of the scholars just mentioned, nor earlier
investigators, could fail to see that the runes they collected,
gathered round two or three chief heroes, but more especially around
the central figure of Wainamoinen, the hero of the following epic.
The Kalevala proper was collected by two great Finnish scholars,
Zacharias Topelius and Elias Lonnrot. Both were practicing physicians,
and in this capacity came into frequent contact with the people of
Finland. Topelius, who collected eighty epical fragments of the
Kalevala, spent the last eleven years of his life in bed, afflicted
with a fatal disease. But this sad and trying circumstance did not
dampen his enthusiasm. His manner of collecting these songs was as
follows: Knowing that the Finns of Russia preserved most of the
national poetry, and that they came annually to Finland proper, which
at that time did not belong to Russia, he invited these itinerant
Finnish merchants to his bedside, and induced them to sing their heroic
poems, which he copied as they were uttered. And, when he heard of a
renowned Finnish singer, or minstrel, he did all in his power to bring
the song-man to his house, in order that he might gather new fragments
of the national epic. Thus the first glory of collecting the fragments
of the Kalevala and of rescuing it from literary oblivion, belongs to
Topelius. In 1822 he published his first collections, and in 18317 his
last.
Elias Lonnrot, who brought the whole work to a glorious completion, was
born April 9, 1802. He entered the University of Abo in 1822, and in
1832, received the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of
Helsingfors. After the death of Castren in 1850, Lonnrot was appointed
professor of the Suomi (Finnish) language and literature in the
University, where he remained until 1862, at which time he withdrew
from his academical activity and devoted himself exclusively to the
study of his native language, and its epical productions. Dr. Lonnrot
had already published a scholarly treatise, in 1827, on the chief hero
of the Kalevala, before he went to Sava and Karjala to glean the songs
and parts of songs front the lips of the people. This work was
entitled: De Wainainoine priscorum Fennorum numine. In the year 1828,
he travelled as far as Kajan, collecting poems and songs of the Finnish
people, sitting by the fireside of the aged, rowing on the lakes with
the fishermen, and following the flocks with the shepherds. In 1829 he
published at Helsingfors a work under the following title: Kantele
taikka Suomee Kansan sek vazhoja etta nykysempia Runoja ja Lauluja
(Lyre, or Old and New Songs and Lays of the Finnish Nation). In
another work edited in 1832, written in Swedish, entitled: Om Finnarues
Magiska Medicin (On the Magic Medicine of the Finns), he dwells on the
incantations so frequent in Finnish poetry, notably in the Kalevala. A
few years later he travelled in the province of Archangel, and so
ingratiated himself into the hearts of the simple-minded people that
they most willingly aided him in collecting these songs. These
journeys were made through wild fens, forests, marshes, and ice-plains,
on horseback, in sledges drawn by the reindeer, in canoes, or in some
other forms of primitive conveyance. The enthusiastic physician
described his journeyings and difficulties faithfully in a paper
published at Helsingfors in Swedish in 1834. He had the peculiar good
luck to meet an old peasant, one of the oldest of the runolainen in the
Russian province of Wuokiniem, who was by far the most renowned
minstrel of the country, and with whose closely impending death,
numerous very precious runes would have been irrevocably lost.
The happy result of his travels throughout Finland, Dr. Lonnrot now
commenced to arrange under the central idea of a great epic, called
Kalevala, and in February, 1835, the manuscript was transmitted to the
Finnish Literary Society, which had it published in two parts.
Lonnrot, however, did not stop here; he went on searching and
collecting, and, in 1840, had brought together more than one thousand
fragments of epical poetry, national ballads, and proverbs. These he
published in two works, respectively entitled, Kanteletar (Lyre-charm),
and The Proverbs of the Suomi People, the latter containing over 1700
proverbs, adages, gnomic sentences, and songs.
His example was followed by many of his enthusiastic countrymen, the
more prominent of whom are Castren, Europaeus, Polen and Reniholm.
Through the collections of these scholars so many additional parts of
the epical treasure of Finland were made public that a new edition of
the Kalevala soon became an imperative necessity. The task of sifting,
arranging, and organizing the extensive material, was again allotted to
Dr. Lonnrot, and in his second editions of the Kalevala, which appeared
in 1849, the epic, embracing fifty runes and 22,793 lines, had reached
its mature form. The Kalevala was no sooner published than it
attracted the attention of the leading scholars of Europe. Men of such
world-wide fame as Jacob Grimm, Steinthal, Uhland, Carrière and Max Müller
hastened to acknowledge its surpassing value and intrinsic beauty.
Jacob Grimm, in a separate treatise, published in his Kleinere
Schriften, said that the genuineness and extraordinary value of the
Kalevala is easily proved by the fact that from its mythological ideas
we can frequently interpret the mythological conceptions of the ancient
Germans, whereas the poems of Ossian manifest their modern origin by
their inability to clear up questions of old Saxon or German mythology.
Grimm, furthermore, shows that both the Gothic and Icelandic
literatures display unmistakable features of Finnish influence.
Max Müller places the Kalevala on a level with the greatest epics of the
world. These are his words:
"From the mouths of the aged an epic poem has been collected equalling
the Iliad in length and completeness; nay, if we can forget for a
moment, all that we in our youth learned to call beautiful, not less
beautiful. A Finn is not a Greek, and Wainamoinen was not a Homer
[Achilles?]; but if the poet may take his colors from that nature by
which he is surrounded, if he may depict the men with whom he lives,
the Kalevala possesses merits not dissimilar from those of the Illiad,
and will claim its place as the fifth national epic of the world, side
by side with the Ionian Songs, with the Mahabharata, the Shalinameth,
and the Nibelunge."
Steinthal recognizes but four great national epics, viz., the Iliad,
Kalevala, Nibelunge and the Roland Songs.
The Kalevala describes Finnish nature very minutely and very
beautifully. Grimm says that no poem is to be compared with it in this
respect, unless it be some of the epics of India. It has been
translated into several European languages; into Swedish by Alex.
Castren, in 1844; into French prose by L. LeDuc, in 1845; into German
by Anton Schiefuer, in 1852; into Hungarian by Ferdinand Barna, in
1871; and a very small portion of it--the legend of Aino--into English,
in 1868, by the late Prof. John A. Porter, of Yale College. It must
remain a matter of universal regret to the English-speaking people that
Prof. Porter's life could not have been spared to finish the great work
he had so beautifully begun.
Some of the most convincing evidences of the genuineness and great age
of the Kalevala have been supplied by the Hungarian translator. The
Hungarians, as is well known, are closely related to the Finns, and
their language, the Magyar dialect, has the same characteristic
features as the Finnish tongue. Barna's translation, accordingly, is
the best rendering of the original. In order to show the genuineness
and antiquity of the Kalevala, Barna adduces a Hungarian book written
by a certain Peter Bornemissza, in 1578, entitled ordogi Kisertetekrol
(on Satanic Specters), the unique copy of which he found in the library
of the University of Budapest. In this book Bornemissza collected all
the incantations (raolvasasok) in use among Hungarian country-people of
his day for the expulsion of diseases and misfortunes. These
incantations, forming the common stock of all Ugrian peoples, of which
the Finns and Hungarians are branches, display a most satisfactory
sameness with the numerous incantations of the Kalevala used for the
same purpose. Barna published an elaborate treatise on this subject;
it appeared in the, Transactions of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences,
Philological Department, for 1870. Again, in 1868, twenty-two
Hungarian deeds, dating from 1616-1660, were sent to the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences, as having been found in the Hegyalja, where the
celebrated wine of Tokay is made. These deeds contained several
contracts for the sale of vineyards, and at the end of each deed the
customary cup of wine was said to have been emptied by both parties to
the contract. This cup of wine, in the deeds, was termed, "Ukkon's
cup." Ukko, however, is the chief God according to Finnish mythology,
and thus the coincidence of the Magyar Ukkon and the Finnish Ukko was
placed beyond doubt.
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