It is any case to all that body of myth of queer troglodyte story, of wild jugglings with the sun and moon and the origins of the earth and the shapes of Man that in Homer (for instance) has properly been pruned away: it is to this that the Kalevala may be compared, not to the larger grandeur of the epic theme. Or again it is to the quaint tales, the outrageous ghosts, the sorceries and by-tracks of human imagination and belief that crop out here and there in the usually intensely clear air of the sagas that the ‘L of H’ can be likened, not to the haughty dignity and courage, the nobility of which the greater sagas tell.
But the queer and strange, the unrestrained, the grotesque is not only interesting: it is valuable. It is not always necessary to purge it out altogether in order to attain to the Sublime. You can have your gargoyles on your noble cathedral, but Europe has lost much through too often trying to build Greek Temples.
We have here then a collection of mythological ballads full of that very primitive undergrowth that the litterature of Europe has on the whole been cutting away and reducing for centuries with different and earlier completeness in different peoples. Such a collection would no doubt be the despoil of anthropologists who might luxuriate here awhile. Commentators I know make many notes to their translations, saying ‘Compare this story with the one told in the Andaman Isles’ or ‘Compare that belief with the one shown in the Hausa Folktales’ and so forth: but let us avoid this. It after all only proves that Finns and Andaman Islanders are nearly related animals (which we knew before). Therefore let us rather rejoice that we have come suddenly upon a storehouse of those popular imaginings which we had feared lost, stocked with stories as yet not sophisticated into a sense of proportion; with no thought of the decent limits even of exaggeration, with no sense, or rather not our sense, of the incongruous (except where we suspect incongruity is delighted in). We are taking a holiday from the whole course of progress of the last three Millenniums: and going to be wildly unhellenic and barbarous for a time, like the boy who hoped the future life would provide for half holidays in Hell, away from Eton collars and hymns.
The glorious exaggerations of these ballads, by way of illustration, recall the method of story telling in the Mabinogion, but really their cases are rather different. In the K[alevala] there is no attempt at plausibility, no cunning concealment of the impossible; merely the child’s delight in saying how he has cut down a million trees and slaughtered twenty policemen: which has no thought to take you in but is a primitive hero-story. Of course in the Mab[inogion] there is the same delight in a good story, in a strong swap of imagination but the picture has more technique: its colours are marvellously schemed, its figures grouped. It is not so with L. of H. If a man kills a gigantic elk in one line it may be a she-bear in the next. To elaborate this is unnecessary: but it might be made the occasion of an attempt to say just what I find the atmosphere of the Kalevala to be: which you can correct from your own knowledge, or from the extracts which I would wish to read until your patience was exhausted and you felt the appropriateness of the last remarks of the Kalevala.
‘Een the waterfall when flowing /yields no endless stream of water./ Nor does an accomplished singer /sing till all his knowledge fail him.’
What I feel is – that there is no background of litt[erary] tradition. The M[abinogion] has such a background: a feeling of a great amount of devel[opment] which has resulted in a field of the most excellently harmonised and subtly varied colours against which the figures of the actors of the stories stand out; but they also harmonize with the marvellous surrounding colour-scheme and lose in startlingness if not in clearness. Most similar national legend litt[erature] has something of it. The Kalevala to me feels to have none. The colours, the deeds, the marvels, and the figures of the heroes are all splashed onto a clean bare canvas by a sudden hand: even the legends concerning the origins of the most ancient things seem to come fresh from the singer’s hot imagination of the moment. There are no ultra modernities like trams or guns or aeroplanes in it: the heroes’ weapons it is true are the so-called ‘antique’ bow and spear or sword but at the same time there is a ‘nowness’, a quite unhazy unromantic momentariness and presentness that quite startles you, especially when you discover that you are reading all the time of the earth being made out of a teal’s egg or the sun and moon being shut up in a mountain.
II
As to what is known of the origin of the Kalevala: ever since the coming of Väinämöinen and his making of the great harp, his Kantele fashioned of pike-bone, from what we know of the Finns they have always been fond of ballads; and those ballads have been handed on and sung day after day with unending zest from father to son and son to grandson down to the present day when, as the ballads now bewail: ‘The songs are songs of bygone ages/ hidden words of ancient wisdom/, songs which all the children sing not/ all beyond men’s comprehension/ in these ages of unfortune/ when the race is near its ending.’ The Shadow of Sweden and then of Russia has been over the country for many centuries. Petrograd is in Finland. But the remarkable and delightful thing is that these ‘songs of bygone ages’ have not been tinkered with.
Sweden finally in [the] 12th cent[ury] conq[uered] Finland (after contin. warfare combined with some intercourse that stretches back beyond the beg[inning] of our era in which too our own ancestors in Holstein had a good part). Christianity then began slowly to be introduced – in other words the Finns were one of the last acknowledged pagan peoples in Med[ieval] Eur[ope]. The Ka[levala] today is pract[ically] untouched: and except at the end and in a few references to Ukko God of Heaven even hints at the existence of Christianity are almost entirely absent. These largely account for its interest and ‘undergrowth’ character, though also for its minor emot[ional] key: its narrow and parochial view (things in themselves not without delight).
For another seven cen[turies] the ballads were handed on in spite of Sweden, in spite of Russia and were not written down until Elias Lönnrot in 1835 made a selection of them. These were all collected in Eastern Finland and are consequently in a dialect diff[erent] to that of modern litterary Finnish. This dial[ect] has become a kind of poetic convention. Lönnrot was not the only collector, but it was to him that it occurred to string a selection into loosely connected form – as it would seem from the result with no small skill. He called it the Land of Heroes, Kalevala from Kaleva the mythological ancestor of all the heroes. It consisted of twenty-five Runos (or Cantos): this was enlarged with new collected material to double, and published again in 1849, and almost immediately appeared in translation in other lang[uages].
It is interesting to realize however that this ballad-singing, nevertheless, still goes on: that those ballads here by chance crystallized for us are capable of and still undergo a thousand variations. The Kalevala, too, is by no means all the ballad litt[erature] of Finland and is not even the whole of the collected ballads even of Lönnrot, who published as well a whole volume of them under the name ‘Kanteletar’ or the ‘Daughter of the Harp’. The Kalevala is only different in this that it is connected and so more readable, and covers most of the field of Finnish mythology from the Genesis of Earth and Sky to the depart[ure] of Väinämöinen. The lateness of its collection is apt to make those with a prob[ably] unwholesome modern thirst for the ‘authentically primitive’ feel doubtful. It is however very likely the real reason why the treasure house remained unrifled: it was not redecorated or upholstered, whitewashed or otherwise spoilt: it was left to the care of chance; to the genius of the fire-side and escaped the pedant and the instructive person.
[Jumala, whose name translates God in the Bible, is still in the Kalevala the God of clouds and rain, the old man of the sky, the guardian of the many Daughters of Creation] – It is very parallel to the interest of Icelandic Bishops in the adventures [of] Thórr and Óðinn; it is hardly an instance as I have heard claimed, of the still-struggling presence of paganism in Modern Eur[ope] under layers of Christianity or later of Hebraic biblicality. Even when collected and at last suf
fering the fate of reproduction in print these poems by luck escaped being handled roughly or moralistically: it is a startling litterature to be so popular among that now most law-abiding and most Lutheran of Europe’s peoples.
III
The language of these poems, Finnish, makes a strong bid for the place of most difficult in Europe: though it is anything but ugly, in fact it suffers like many lang[uages] of its type from an excess of euphony: so much so that the music of language is apt to be expended automatically and leave no excess with which to heighten the emotion of a lyric passage. Where vowel harmony and the softening of cons[onants] is an integral part of ordinary speech, there is less chance for sudden unexpected sweetnesses. It is a language practically isolated in Europe except for the related and neighbouring Estonia whose stories and whose tongue are very closely akin. (I am told it bears relation to tribal speeches in Russia, to Magyar, to Turkish in the far distance.) It bears no relation to either of its neighbours except in process of borrowing: it is too a language of a type altogether more primitive than most in Europe. It still partakes of a flexible fluid unfixed state inconceivable in English. In the poetry meaningless syllables and even meaningless words that just sound jolly are freely inserted. In such lines as
‘Enkä lähe Inkerelle
Penkerelle Pänkerelle’
or
‘Ihveniä ahvenia
Tuimenia Taimenia’
are possible where pänkerelle merely echoes Penkerelle, and Ihveniä and Tuimenia are merely invented to set off ahvenia and taimenia.
Its metre is roughly the same as that of the translation though much freer: octosyllabic lines with about four stresses (two main ones usually two subordinate). It is of course the unrhymed trochaic metre of ‘Hiawatha’. This was pirated as was the idea of the poem and much of the incident (though none of its spirit at all) by Longfellow – a fact which I merely mention because it is usually kept dark in biographical notices of that poet. ‘Hiawatha’ is not a genuine storehouse of Indian folklore, but a mild and gentle bowdlerising of the Kalevala coloured I imagine with disconnected bits of Indian lore and perhaps a few genuine names. L[ongfellow]’s names are often too good to be inventions. It was either L[ongfellow]’s second or third journey to Europe (the one whose object was the acquiring of Dan[ish] and Swed[ish]) that connected with the Kal[evala]’s first rush into translations in Scandinavian and German. The pathos, I think, only of the Kalevala finds anything like an equal reflection in its imitator (a gentle mild and rather dull American don the author of Evangeline) ‘who the London Daily News (I am now quoting an American appreciation) admitted had produced one of the most marvellous lines in all English: ‘Chanting the Hundredth Psalm that Grand old Puritan Anthem.’’
This metre, monotonous and thin as it can be, is indeed if well handled capable of the most poignant pathos (if not of more majestic things): I do not mean the ‘Death of Minnehaha’ but in the Kalevala the ‘Fate of Aino’ and the ‘Death of Kullervo’, where it is enhanced, not hindered, by the to us humorous naïveté of the unsophisticated mythological surroundings. Pathos is common in the Kalevala – often very true and keen. One of the favourite subjects – not a majestic one but very well handled – is the other side to a wedding which the ‘happy ever after’ style of litt[erature] usually avoids: – the lament and heartsinking even of a willing bride on leaving her father’s house and the familiar things of home. This in the state of society reflected in the ‘Land of Heroes’ was evidently near to tragedy, where mothers-in-law were worse than anywhere in litterature, and where families dwelt in ancestral homes for generations – sons and their wives all under the iron hand of the Matriarch.
If you are bored of the sing-song character of this metre, as you may well be, it is only well to remember that these are only accidentally as it were written things; they are in essence sing-songs chanted to the harp as the singers swayed backwards and forwards in time. There are many allusions to this custom: as for instance at the beginning:
‘Let us clasp our hands together
Let us interlock our fingers
Let us sing a cheerful measure
Let us use our best endeavours
* * * *
And recall our songs and legends
of the belt of Väinämöinen
of the forge of Ilmarinen
and of Kaukomieli’s sword point.’
IV
The Religion of these poems is a luxuriant animism – it can hardly be separated from the purely mythological: this means that in the Kalevala every stock and stone, every tree, the birds, waves, hills, air, the tables, swords and the beer even have well defined personalities which it is one of the quaint merits of the poems to bring out with singular skill and aptness in numerous ‘speeches in part’: The most remarkable of these is the speech of the sword to Kullervo before he throws himself upon its point. If a sword had a character you feel it would be just such as is pictured there: a cruel and cynical ruffian; see Runo 36/330. There is also the mention of a few other cases, the lament of the Birch Tree; or the passage (reminiscent of ‘Hiawatha’ but better) where Väinämöinen seeks a tree to give him timber for his boat (Runo XVI); or where Lemminkainen’s mother seeking for her lost son (R XV) asks all things that she meets for news, the moon, the trees, even the pathway and they answer in characterized parts. This is one of the most essential features of the whole poem: even ale talks on occasion – as in a passage I hope to have time to read, the story of the Origin of Beer (Runo XX 522/546).
The Kalevaläic idea of Beer is often enthusiastically expressed but the oft-repeated ‘The Ale is of the finest, best of Drinks for prudent people’ implies (as also the rest of the poems do) a certain moderation. The joys of Teutonic drunkenness do not seem to have appealed so much as other vices; though drink’s value in setting free the imagination (and the tongue) was often praised (Runo 21. 260):
‘O thou Ale thou drink delicious
Let the drinkers be not moody
Urge the people on to singing;
Let them shout with mouth all golden
Till our lords shall wonder at it,
And our ladies ponder o’er it.
For the songs already falter
And the joyous tongues are silenced
When the Ale is ill-concocted,
And bad drink is set before us;
Then the minstrels fail in singing
And the best of songs they sing not,
And our cherished guests are silent,
And the cuckoos call no longer.’
But beyond this there is a wealth of mythology; every tree wave and hill again has its nymph and spirit (distinct from the character app[arentl]y of each individual object). There is the nymph of blood and the veins: the spirit of the rudder: there is Moon and his children, the Sun and his (they are both masculine). There is a dim and awesome figure (the nearest approach to regal dignity) Tapio God of the Forest and his spouse Mielikki, with their fairylike son and daughter ‘Tellervo little maiden of the Forest clad in soft and beauteous garments’ and her brother Nyyrikki with his red cap and blue coat; there is Jumala or Ukko in the heavens and Tuoni in the earth or rather in some vague dismal region beside a river of strange things.
Ahti and his wife Vellamo dwell in the waters and there are a thousand new and quaint characters for acquaintance [–] Pakkanen the frost, Lempo the god of evil, Kankahatar the goddess of weaving – but a catalogue does not I am afraid inspire the unintroduced and bores the others. The division between the offspring of nymphs and sprites – you cannot really call them gods it is much too Olympic – and the human characters is hardly clearly drawn at all. Väinämöinen, most human of liars, most versatile and hardy of patriarchs, who is the central figure, is the son of the Wind and of Ilmatar (daughter of the Air). Kullervo most tragic of peasant boys is but two generations from a swan.
I give you just this jumble of gods great and small to give some impression of the delightful atmosphere into which you plung
e in the Kalevala – in case some have never plunged. If you are not of this temperament – or think you are not designed for getting on well with these divine personages, I assure you they behave most charmingly, and all obey the great Rule of the Game in the Kalevala which is to tell at least three lies before imparting any accurate information however trivial. It had become I think a kind of formula of polite behaviour, for no one seems to believe you until your fourth statement (which you modestly preface with ‘all the truth I now will tell you, though at first I lied a little’[)].
V
So much for religion, if you can call it such, and the imaginary background. The real scenery of the poems, the place of most of its action is Suomi the Marshland: Finnland [sic] as we call it or as the Finns often call it the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. Short of going there I imagine one could scarcely get a better picture of the land than the Kalevala gives (of the land a century ago at any rate, if not of modern progress): it is instinct with love of it: of its bogs and wide marshes in which stand kind of islands formed by rising ground as by hills topped with trees perhaps. The bogs are always before you or beside you and a worsted or outwitted hero is always thrown into one. One sees the lakes and reed-fenced flats with slow rivers: the perpetual fishing: the pile-built houses – and then in winter the land covered with sleighs and men faring over quick and firm alike on snow-shoes.
Juniper, Pine, Fir, aspen, birch, scarce the oak, seldom any other tree, are continually mentioned; and whatever they be nowadays in Finland the bear and wolf are persons of great importance in the ‘Kalevala’ and many sub-arctic animals besides which we do not know in Britain.
The customs are all strange and the colours: the pleasures and the dangers different: Cold on the whole is regarded with the greatest horror, and perpetual steaming hot baths are one of the greatest daily features. The Sauna or bath-house (a quite separate and elaborate building affixed to all respectable homesteads) has I believe from time immemorial been a charact[eristic] of Finnish dwellings. They take these hot and often.
The Story of Kullervo Page 7
