With regard to what I have said above it is however well to remember that apart from selection and arrangement these things were taken down straight from the lips of Finnish minstrels, and that the collection did not kill the minstrelsy; the ballad-singing still goes on (or did until the late war); 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-literature of Finland; it is not even the whole of the collections of Lönnröt alone, who published as well another whole volume of them under the name of ‘Kanteletar’ the Daughter of the Harp. The Kalevala is only different in that it is more connected and so more readable, and it covers most of the field of Finnish mythology from the Genesis of Earth and Sky to the departure of Väinämöinen. The lateness of the date of the collection and publication is apt to make those with the (probably not entirely wholesome) modern thirst for the ‘authentically primitive’ doubt whether the wares are quite genuine. Read and doubt no more. Bogus archaism and the pseudo-primitive is as different from this as Ossian is from Middle Irish romance; and anyway the external evidence for the genuineness of these goods is more than sufficient. Indeed the lateness of the collection is very likely the actual reason why the treasure-house has remained unrifled; why its empty shell has not then been whitewashed, redecorated, upholstered in the eighteenth century manner, or otherwise destroyed. It has been left unnoticed to the care of chance, and to the genius of hard-worked uneducated men at the fireside, and has escaped the pedant and the instructive person. More remarkable still, even when collected and suffering at last the fate of reproduction in print, these poems have by luck escaped being roughly or moralistically handled. They have not been twisted into any shape of edification, and remain a very startling sort of reading to be so popular with those now most law-abiding and Lutheran of European peoples, the modern educated Finns. Something of a parallel can be found in the interest of mediaeval Icelandic priests and bishops in the fierce deeds of the pre-christian [sic] Scandinavians, and in the often scandalous adventures of Thórr and Ódinn. As a matter of fact one does sometimes hear the Kalevala, and things like it, cited as evidence of the enduring paganism of Europe that (we are told) is still fighting a gallant and holy battle against the oppression of Christianity, and of Hebraic Biblicality. To argue about this would really be to stray far from my present point and purpose; but the temptation to say something about our attitude towards the ancient gods is too strong. Without disputing about the attitude of the Finnish people up to, say, about a century ago when these things were taken down (for I do not know enough about them), I am still quite ready to admit that without something approaching to an objective belief in the old gods we definitely lose something of the magic of all old tales, something in them is ‘all beyond our comprehension’; it is no good saying that the sea is still poetically boundless, for to the very people who can appreciate the poetry of the sea the roundness of the earth and the unfortunate existence of America on the other side of a strictly limited Atlantic ocean is most constantly and vividly present in the imagination; the heavenly bodies are by them above all most clearly realized not to be the heavenly beings. The organization and greater security of modern life: gentler social manners; a wealth of bodily conveniences, and comforts, and even destructive luxuries; tobacco, doctors, and police; and more (the one thing that is certainly worth it) freedom from the shadow of the darker crueller and fouler superstitions, we have purchased at a price – there are no magic islands in our Western sea and (as Francis Thompson says) ‘none will again behold Apollo in the forefront of the morning, or see Aphrodite in the upper air loose the long lustre of her golden locks’. We are grown older and must face the fact. The poetry of these old things remains being immortal, but no longer for us is the intoxication of both poetry and belief. The holiday I suggested is a holiday from poetic and literary development, from the long accumulated weight of civilised tradition and knowledge, not a decadent and retrograde movement, not a ‘nostalgie de la boue’ – only a holiday; and if while on this holiday we half hear the voice of Ahti in the noises of the sea, half shudder at the thought of Pohja, gloomy land of witchcraft, or Tuonela yet darker region of the dead, it is nonetheless with quite another part of our minds that we do this than that which we reserve for our real beliefs and for our religion, just as it undoubtedly was for the Icelandic ecclesiastics of old. Yet there may be some whom these old songs will stir to new poetry, just as the old songs of other pagan days have stirred other Christians; for it is true that only the Christians have made Aphrodite utterly beautiful, a wonder for the soul; the Christian poets or those who while renouncing their Christianity owe to it all their feeling and their art have fashioned nymphs and dryads of which not even Greek ever dreamt; the real glory of Latmos was made by Keats.
[The following sentence is handwritten in ink.] As the world grows older there is loss and gain – let us not with modern insolence and blindness imagine it all gain (lest this happen such songs as the ‘Land of Heroes’ are left for our disillusionment); but neither must we with neo-pagan obscurity of thought imagine it all loss.
Returning from my unwarranted digression, I feel that I can not proceed any further without saying something about the language of the poems. Finnish is, for Englishmen at any rate, near the top of the list of the very difficult languages of Europe; though it is anything but ugly. Indeed it suffers like many languages of its type from an excess of euphony; so much so that the music of the language is liable to be expended automatically, and leave over no excess with which to heighten the emotion of a lyric passage. Where vowel-harmony, and the assimilation and softening of consonants is an integral part of ordinary grammar and of everyday speech there is much less chance for sudden unexpected sweetnesses. It is a language practically isolated in modern Europe, except for the language of the Esthonians which is closely akin, as are their tales and their blood. Finno-Ugrian philology, which is no concern of ours now, discovers relationships with tribal non-Russian speeches in modern Russia, and in the far distance (though here it is rather a relationship of type than an ultimate kinship of descent) with the Magyar in Hungary, and further still with Turkish. It has no kinship at all with either its immediate Germanic or Slavonic neighbours, except in a process of agelong borrowing that has filled it to the brim with old Slavonic, Lithuanian, and Germanic words, many of which preserve in their new soil the form that they have lost centuries ago in their own tongues – such, for instance, is the case with the Finnish word ‘kuningas’ king which is exactly the form that philologists had assumed that our word ‘king’ possessed two thousand years ago or thereabouts. In spite of all this borrowing, and the constant cultural influence of the Indo-european neighbouring languages which has left definite traces, Finnish still remains a language far more primitive (and therefore contrary to the usual superstition far more complicated) than most of the other languages in Europe. It still preserves a flexible fluid unfixed state inconceivable even in the most primitive patois of English. There is no need to search for a more startling example of this than the way in which in the poetry meaningless syllables and even meaningless words that merely sound jolly are freely inserted. For instance in such lines as the following:-
‘Enkä lähe Inkerelle
Penkerelle Pänkerelle’ – or
‘Ihveniä ahvenia
Tuimenia taimenia’
‘Pänkerelle’ merely echoes ‘Penkerelle’; ‘Ihveniä’ and ‘tuimenia’ are merely invented to set off ‘ahvenia’ and ‘taimenia’. I don’t mean to say that this sort of thing is done often enough to reduce the songs to nonsense rhymes with flickers of sense; but the mere fact that such things are possible at all even if it may be for special effect or emphasis is sufficiently astonishing. The metre employed is roughly the same as that of the translations though much freer and less monotonous than the English would lead one to think. It is the octosyllabic line with roughly four beats or stresses, the rhythm is uniformly trochaic
, no upbeat being used, and there is no rhyme. Two of the stresses or beats (usually the first and third) tend to stand out as the most important. It is of course, as far as English can be made to yield the same effect as Finnish, the metre of ‘Hiawatha’. What however is not so generally known is that not only the metre, but the idea of the poem, and much too of the matter and incident, was pirated for ‘Hiawatha’ – ‘Hiawatha’ is in fact the first literary offspring of the Kalevala, and nothing could better emphasize or illustrate my earlier remarks on the spirit and nature of Finnish songs than a comparison with their civilized descendant. ‘Hiawatha’ is not a genuine storehouse of Indian folklore, but a mild and gentle bowdlerizing of the Kalevala coloured with disconnected bits of Indian lore, and I imagine a few genuine legendary names – some of Longfellow’s names sound altogether too good to be invented. It was either Longfellow’s second or third journey to Europe (the one that had for its object the learning of Danish and Swedish – Longfellow was a professor of Modern languages) that coincided with the Kalevala’s first rush into Scandinavian and German translations.
The pathos alone, I think, of the Kalevala finds anything like an equal reflection in the work of its imitator – a mild and rather dull American don, the author of ‘Evangeline’, who, ‘the ‘London Daily News’ (I am quoting now an old 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 (especially in English), is indeed if well handled capable of the most poignant pathos, if not of more majestic things. I don’t mean only the ‘Death of Minnehaha’, but the ‘Fate of Aino’ in the Kalevala and the ‘Death of Kullervo’, where this pathos is enhanced not hindered by the (to us) almost humorous naiveté of the mythological and fabulous surroundings. Pathos is common in the Kalevala and often very true and keen. One of the favourite subjects – not a majestic one, but very well handled – is that other side to a wedding that the ‘happy-ever-after’ type of literature usually avoids: the lament and heart-sinking of even a willing bride on leaving her father’s house and the familiar things of the home. This farewell in the state of society reflected in the Kalevala was evidently often near to tragedy, where mothers-in-law were worse than anywhere else in literature, and where families dwelt in ancestral homes for generations, sons and their wives all under the iron hand of the Matriarch.
If, however, pathos or not, you are bored by the interminable sing-song character of this metre, it is well to remember again that these are only, as it were, accidentally written things – they are in essence song-songs, sing-songs chanted to the monotonous repetition of a phrase thrummed on the harp while the singers swayed backwards and forwards in time.
‘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.’
So opens the Kalevala, and there are many other references to the rhythmic swaying of the monotonous chanters: I wish I had ever heard them with my own ears, but I have not.
The religion of the poems – after headings such as ‘language’ and ‘metre’ one feels bound to have another on ‘religion’ – if indeed such a name can be applied to it, is a luxuriant animism; it cannot really be separated from the purely mythological elements. This means that in the Kalevala every stock and every stone, every tree, the birds, waves, hills, air, the tables, the swords, and even the beer have well-defined personalities, which it is often the quaint merit of these poems to bring out with singular skill and aptness in numerous speeches in part. One of the most remarkable of these is the speech of his sword to Kullervo just 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. There is also, to mention only a few other cases, the lament of the Birch Tree, or the passage (of which the similar passage in Hiawatha is an imitation that does not improve upon its model) where Väinämöinen seeks a tree to give him timber for his boat (Runo XVI); or where Lemminkainen’s mother seeking for her lost son asks all things that she meets for news, the moon, the trees, even the pathway – and they all answer in characterised parts. (Runo XV). This indeed is one of the essential features of the songs: even ale talks on occasions – as in a passage that I hope to have time to read, the story of the Origin of Beer. Here is a bit of it (Runo XX 522–556).
‘... now the bread they baked was ready, and were stirred the pots of porridge,
and a little time passed over, when the ale worked in the barrels,
and the beer foamed in the cellars:– ‘now must some one come to drink me,
now must some one come to taste me, that my fame may be reported,
and that they may sing my praises.’ Then they went to seek a minstrel,
went to seek a famous singer, one whose voice was of the strongest,
one who knew the finest legends. First to sing they tried a salmon,
if the voice of trout was strongest. Singing is not work for salmon,
and the pike recites no legends. Crooked are the jaws of salmon,
and the teeth of pike spread widely. Yet again they sought a singer,
went to seek a famous singer, one whose voice was of the strongest,
one who knew the finest legends – and they took a child for singer,
thought a boy might sing the strongest. Singing is not work for children,
nor are splutterers fit for shouting. Crooked are the tongues of children,
and the roots thereof are crooked. Then the red ale grew indignant,
and the fresh drink fell to cursing, pent within the oaken barrels,
and behind the taps of copper. ‘If you do not find a minstrel,
do not find a famous singer, one whose voice is of the strongest,
one who knows the finest legends, then the hoops I’ll burst asunder,
and among the dust will trickle ... .’
Here we hear not only beer speaking and get a hint at its own estimate of itself as an inspiration of poesy and song, but we hear the Finnish minstrel cracking up his own profession, if with greater quaintness, with greater cunning and subtlety than was normally used by the minstrel of mediaeval England and France in similar passages of advertisement. In the Kalevala Beer is the cause of much enthusiasm, but the oft-repeated ‘ale is of the finest, best of drinks for prudent people’ implies (as do the rest of the poems) a certain moderation in the use of good things. The joys of drunkenness at any rate do not seem to have the same appeal as other vices, though good drink’s value in setting free the imagination (and the tongue) was often praised (R. XXI 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 cuckoo calls no longer ...’
Beyond all this personification however there is a wealth of mythology. Every tree, wave, and hill has its nymph and spirit, distinct from the character, apparently, of each individual object. There is the nymph of the Blood and the Veins; the spirit of the rudder; there is the moon and his children, and the Sun and his (they are both masculine); there is a dim and awesome figure, the nearest approach to regal dignity in the poems, Tapio, God of the Forest, and his spouse Mielikki, and their fairy-like 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 in the heavens (Jumala whose name is used for God in the Bible, but who in the poems is usually a god of the air and clouds); and there is 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 other new and strange characters for acquaintance – Pakkanen the Frost; Lempo the spirit of Evil; Kankahatar, the goddess of weaving – but a catalogue does not inspire those that have not yet been introduced, and bores those that have. The division between the offspring of the nymphs, sprites, and other beings (you can seldom call them Gods – it is much too Olympian) and the human characters is hardly drawn at all. Väinämöinen, most venerable of evergreen patriarchs, mightiest of culture-heroes (he is the God of Music in Esthonia), most human of liars, 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 you some impression of the delightful variety of the Land of Heroes. If you are not of the temper, or think you are not, for getting on with these divine and heroic personages, I assure you, as I did before, that they behave most charmingly: they all obey the great rule of the game in the Kalevala, which is to tell at least three lies before imparting accurate information, however trivial. It seems to have become a formula or polite behaviour, for no one in the Kalevala is believed until his fourth statement (which he modestly prefaces with ‘all the truth I now will tell you, though at first I lied a little’.) So much for the religion (if you can call it such) and the imaginary background.
The Story of Kullervo Page 10
