*This is SO COOL* From Kalevala to Middle-Earth: Tolkein's love for Finland's MYTHS-Irish in Finland 

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Although there is some violence and tragic episodes in Kalevala, one topic that goes through the poems is the power of words, magic and songs and the value and strength of people that had knowledge or specific skills. I have no idea how good or bad the translations are; I can imagine it is a super demanding work to translate this kind of ancient poetry. The reason why Kalevala is in the form of poems is clear: there was no written version of it until Lönnrot wrote it down. The singers who performed these poems to him had to memorize everything; the stories had survived over centuries as songs.

Kalevala is a tuff book to read even for a native Finnish speaker. Old language and poems which can be very difficult to understand at least for me. But there are more simplified versions too.

Did you know writer Lönnrot walk throug Finland from house to house and wrote those stories they told. That is the way how Kalevala was born.

"Animistic" stems from animism, meaning things have spirits, like in ancient pagan religions. Doesn't have anything to do with animosity.

Like our Jaegers March(Jääkärimarssi)war song chants;"We shall rise like revenge of Kullervo.."

You should check songs from a Finnish band Amorphis. They base lot of their songs to Kalevala, maybe that way it's easier to get into these stories. Look from yt the song bee or there is numerous to chose. Also you can find kind of original sung poets of Kalevala from yt, in finnish played with with finnish traditional instrument Kantele. Them being in finnish makes them hard to follow, but you can get overall feeling of those pentatonic poems. All in all, Kalevala is truly worth of checking, and i guess that you can find copy in english in your local library.

Unlike in many other lore, Kalevalas main character Väinämöinen is not a warrior, but a poet, with magical kantele.

Keith bosleys translation is very good its in modern english so its easier to read than the original which is full of weird old dialect words, it also has very good introduction, its part the oxford world's classics series. He has also translated an anthology of authenthic epic folk poetry called Finnish folk poetry epic(FFPE) that also has commentary section explaining each poem. The kalevala and the folk poetry it is based on/inspired by are very different but both are very much worth reading.

This far Kalevala has been partially or totally translated to 61 languages. First mention I've found 1840🤗

For anyone interested, you can find the English translation of Kalevala (from 1888) for free on Project Guthenberg. Some parts may be hard to comprehend without the cultural context but one should be able to follow the general gist of it =)

Welcome to Finland some day!

I did have to laugh at the "little iguana " on the Dragon-Helm of Dor-Lómin.

Emil Petaja was an American writer that wrote four (loosely) Kalevala-based scifi books in 1960's. They were Saga of Lost Earths, The Star Mill, The Stolen Sun and Tramontane. In English, you don't need to learn Finnish to read those 😀

I can almost imagine how a hundred years ago people were looking for myths and subjects of stories, while looking for them to some extent the searcher's own imagination always adds something to the story. In Finland at the beginning of the 20th century, there were a group of artists who purposefully searched for and at the same time created text, music and art - which laid the foundation for the nation's own culture, which contributed to the rooting of ideas that led to a change of opinion and the nation's independence.

Finlad radio has: Alavilla mailla hallan vaara. Meaning: At low country may frosty.

Rise of nationalism was one reason for Lönnrot's work. Back then it was thought that each nation (and its people) should have a national epic (like the greeks). Well, Finland had a rich poetic culture, which Lönnrot decided to combine into a single book (with some heavy editing.)

If you want to learn more and you can read Finnish, I can recommend the book "Kalevalalipas" (by Matti Kuusi ja Pertti J. Anttonen) about the writing history of Kaleva, and if you are interested in Finnish mutology, I can recommend the book "Itämerensuomalainen Mytologia" (by Anna-Leena Siikala). Unfortunately, those books are not available in English because there is not enough international interest in Finnic mythology and folklore.

"Silmarillion" is great book Tolkien wrote,

"I wonder if there is blood and guts". Well, there was a baby without name who grew to be a bad man doing bad things and that's why in Kalevala babies without names have to be killed. Applies to modern day, if a child dies during birth, he/she will be given name before burial or bad things tend to happen in future.

We have Ukko Ylijumala, Ukko the supreme God, who reings supreme. Oldest sites for worship Ukko are dated some 7000 yrs back.

As much as the Kalevala may be a great work of epic poetry and an exercise in nation building and advancing the Finnish identity, it is not *exactly* representative of the mythology and ancient history of the original rune songs. Lönnrot had to tie in together many disparate myths and characters that were in fact not in the least bit connected, changing their actions and character in the process. For example, Joukahainen's sister rejecting Väinämöinen and drowning herself (it's actually based on a poem of a maiden's suicide, but with Väinö and the sister simply inserted in). Sometimes Lönnrot would make edits that are absolutely silly and even ridiculous from the standpoint of someone who has read into the runesongs. For example, he simply mashed together the characters of Lemminkäinen (a powerful shaman and demi-God from the primeval age), Kaukomieli (a viking age king of Kvenland who ruled at Köyliö), and Ahti Saarelainen (a wealthy viking age king and sea hero) into one singular character and just tied each one of their stories into one longer story. In terms of the narrative it'd make sense for him to do that, but don't go into the Kalevala with the expectations of getting an accurate image or ancient Finnish myth and iron age-viking age history, A lot of authentic tradition, ritual, beliefs, myths, teachings and the like ARE still there; but they've been shaped and molded to greater and lesser extents in order to tell a single reader-satisfying narrative. For the raw original mythopoetry, you'll have to read Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot.

Lönnrot who composed Kalevala from the folk-tales, was inspired by the tale of Oedipus when writing Kullervo.

Irish in Finland is great!

And so from one cube the different sides wove different items. One side wove copper, one silver, one gold. The fourth side produced wheat. Guess which is more valuable.

The Kalevala has been translated into more than 60 languages. The poems/songs have been passed down verbally from generation to generation. The oldest themes, the origin of Earth, have been interpreted to have their roots in distant, unrecorded history and could be as old as 3,000 years. The newest events, e.g. the arrival of Christianity, seem to be from the Iron Age. There is a nice 15-minute video on RU-vid from about five years ago, where a lady named Andrea talks about the Finnish national epic Kalevala on her book channel "Infinite Text". ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HYMM7S2lWfU.html

I love the tales about Aino the virgin and Louhi the ruler of north. In Kalevala female characters were strong and powerful. Aino would rather drown herself than become a wife for an old man she had no desire to couple with (she was repulsed by him) She wanted to be free to love whoever she chooses and not be tamed down and ruled by an old dude which doesn't give her pleasure (in bed). Louhi was a powerful rich widow chieftain in North with excellent business skills and she was described to be having bad teeth and having extremely beautiful daughters every chieftain desired to marry. So she put those suitors in for impossible tests. If one passes them it would give her more fortune and give her daughters richness. If not, then more will come with better business propositions. Lemminkäinen story is very interesting too in female perspective. He was a stupid pretty boy and tried to get in every women's pants but he ended up in pieces in a river and her mom dragged the pieces from a death river and patched him up. For gods giving her some mercy and her son getting a second chance.

There is the old film Sampo a.k.a. The Day the Earth Froze. It is loosely based on the myth of Sampo. Definitely only a take on the mythology. Very colorful. Then there is the tv series by the classic theatre director Kalle Holmberg, totally different, violent, bleak and poetic by one of Finland's major authors (read anything by him, do), Paavo Haavikko, a myth himself. The series, called Rauta-Aika (The Age of Iron) also tells of Sampo (one of the essential stories of Kalevala), but bc of production problems the part of Kullervo was never made. The motto of the series is telling: 'Forget Kalevala' - it is not a filmatization made of it.

The accidental incest might have been a reality in the world of old where book keeping on who was realted to who was poor, and people didn´t travle that far and the area was sparsely populated, specially so true in Finland. On top of that, when parents died, the children might end up with different foster parents that might lived in a other village over. When they was split at a very low age, accidental incest might not been that uncommon

The path linking the Tolkien, Lord of the Rings and Finnish Mythology (Kalevala) goes way, way deeper. If you follow that path - if you truly want to to understand it all - then eventually, you'll have to be truly fluent in Finnish - and not only modern day Finnish - but the old one as well. I'm a Finnish person. Even I don't understand all of the old words. Most of them, but not all. But they are beautiful. Old Finnish is Elven language. Here's a Finnish Folk Song Group, called "Värttinä" (Spindle). They use old, almost forgotten words, in their songs. This song is called "Emoton" which means (afaik) "Motherless": ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VjsSMIXOnn0.html&ab_channel=V%C3%A4rttin%C3%A4FanClub Jo nyt jouvuin mie poloinen jouvuin puulle pyörivälle varvulle vapisevalle jouvuin mie poloinen lehelle liekkuvalle Tuota tiiä mie en itsekkään minkä tien otan etehen juonen juostakseni valihen tiiä minkä tien otan etehen Ennen osasi minun emoseni ennen osasi tehä omenan taisi emoni taimen istutella ei osant tuota kasvatella Mie kasvoin isotta ilman kasvoin varsin vanhemmatta korvessa miun kotini majani marjavarsilla on miun majani Taiten taivas kirjaeltu oikein tehty otavainen miten lie elämä miulla miten lie elämä miulla mustakulmalla Ennen osasi minun emoseni ennen osasi tehä omenan taisi emoni taimen istutella ei osant tuota kasvatella Ennen osasi minun emoseni ennen osasi tehä omenan taisi emoni taimen istutella ei osant tuota kasvatella Pani paikalle paikalle pahalle pani pimeän pilven reunalle koivun juurille juurille koville yön syvänälle syksyiselle Ennen osasi...

Viewer discretion advised 4 hours of Kalevala meets Spaghetti Western. RAUTA AIKA 1 ja 2 osat 1982: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Lo-8pBCtjlY.html RAUTA AIKA 3 ja 4 osat 1982: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-d0he3mCnu6k.html

Dear lady, I think I have some answers for you. The myth of the tragic hero runs deep in most ancient cultures. These motifs, these universal typical stories are called archetypes. There are many, many and they tend to pop up in most places, in distant and unrelated cultures. They reflect something universal in humanity. Pyramids for example... Another one would be the myth of creation through sacrifice. A huge number of cultures have some version of a story where a master builder is working on something but anything he builds during the day collapses during the next night. That is until he decides to sacrifice the first person he sees the next morning by building that person into the wall. And that always turns out to be his wife. It's basically a universal metaphor saying that if you really want to create something of true value that lasts, you have to sacrifice something dear for it, put a part of yourself into it. Funny you should mention Oedipe. I'm a musicologist and my master's dissertation was based on that parallel. Finnish composer Jean Sibelius set Kullervo to music, and Romanian composer George Enescu wrote an opera about Oedipe (as did others), so I discussed the diverse ways these two composers (who were each other's contemporaries) treated this very similar subject. Yet there can be no relationship between these two stories themselves. Oedipe is by Sophocles, Kullervo is folklore, moreover it comes from a people which doesn't even speak a Indo-European language. To Tolkien's point: Finnish mythology is very much non-Greek. And one last thing: animism doesn't mean animosity. It's an umbrella term used to describe religions and mythologies which deal with the spirit world, the spirits of ancestors and so on. Most ancient religions, tribal cultures are animistic. Yet your instinct is right because both words come from Latin "anima" which means soul. It's also the source of "animal".

They are making Kalevala movie

The Finnish Kalevala is really hard to read since it uses such old version of Finnish and its written in poetic form 😃

Maybe you have reacted to a Finnish band called Amorphis and their lyrics are mostly based on stories of Kalevala. I recommend "The bee".

Well like he said, Finland is one of the last countries in Europe that became christian. Even that most of the people are listed as christians i think most of them does not believers. Most finnish more like atheistic people that does not believe in God. Still we are spiritualistic persons and down to earth. Something similar as American natives are. Actually some "indian tribes" described finnish as a "white man who are like us" becouse the similarity to respect the nature and earth. Also finnish sauna culture reminded swet tents they had. For that reason some of those "indians" and finnish mixed together and those people are called findians. Well this has nothing to do with kalevala, but i have tought that this has been very interesting and historical topic. Here is liks for Findians if you got interested that kind of topic. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eq43Yqi5-UE.html&pp=ygUIZmluZGlhbnM%3D ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bcs_orvo9j4.html

Animistic means animal deities.

I am so sorry to say, but you really have to learn that sacred art of Listening, before open your mouth!! Begining of this is pure pain!! No worries, it gets better! :D

There are no sweet endings in eternal winter.

Check out the Bock Saga, if you are into this sort of stuff...go back further in pre-history. It is a tall, fascinating tale. ;)

Just like said at 10:40 we in Finland have Paganism that has been preserved for centuries if not millennia and in recent years it has been resurfacing more and more while Christian faith is here mostly just as a thing that happens to be an option more than widespread belief system. I was personally raised via Finnish paganism and folklore in Northern-Savonia region, which is practically just centuries old forest all over. I used to just vanish for a week into the forests as a kid with a "Puukko"- knife, flint stone and flask for water. Anyone who asked where I was, was answered by my relatives just with "Oh, Joni is having some spiritual time by himself.". To me it was just that, a spiritual journey. Before entering to the forest, I always asked a permission from the "Metsänpeitto"- spirit to enter it's domain. There weren't any sounds but the forest itself. I usually wandered around almost in a trance, slept in a moss, drank from springs, ate berries and hunted my own food with snares and my Puukko. If I went somewhere closer to the lakes, I took some fishing line and hook with me. Later on when we moved to the city I joined scouts, but left after two years 'cause I was the only one who actually wanted to live by the forest instead of eating bought food on some designated cantina and having to take part on sermons on which I had no interest nor beliefs at all. I had to get my dad to explain to the head scout that I was raised in the forests in order of them letting me live by the forest on the camping trips, which I eventually got bullied for as the youngest scout. Finnish forests are the holiest place to me in the world, so I guess I would have been some kinda wood elf in Tolkien's eyes. 😅

Also .. Finnish gods.. try it

Kalevala wasnt written like youd think. Elias Lönnrot was writer , journalist, who travelled across the country and collected poems from the people. Some 22 000 verses were formed into 50 poems which made Kalevala 1841.

Yes. "Tolkein"

lol

We're weird bunch of ppl, but we are pretty old tribe :)

When ppl learn (maby ever) that finland is not scandinavian country,only denmark,sweden and norway r scandinavian countries,just a little part of finland is in scandinavia,small part of northwest of finland is.

I will watch as much i can before shouting bullshit! :D just a warning

Finland isn't in Scandinavia. I just needed to say that. And Kalevala is a mix of Finnish, Karelian and Ingrian myths. But it was collected during the height of 1800s Finnish nationalism, so the Karelian and Ingrian input was hidden and ignored. Either way it is also one of the only sources for Finnish myths. The sources are very scarce compared to Greek myths for example. The Greeks wrote their myths down BACK WHEN THEY WERE CREATED... Finland never had a writing system of our own, until the vikings came and we had some use of their runes... but even those runes weren't used to write myths. So only in the medieval times Swedish priests brought Latin and its letters to Finland... so the first written Finnish myths are from the medieval times, even though the stories might be thousands of years old

Hellas = Greece. Official name of the country.. corrected typo/

Finns are badass. Most heartly people, but yhe most feared warriors, if you pissthem off....

could have been interesting if you actually had some knowledge of Tolkiens work.

I had to stop listening at the "OMG, adorable language nerd!". No shit. Glad you're interested, though. Quite un-American. I don't even like Tolkien that much but calling a literary giant adorable and a nerd for doing what a writer and a philologist does is a bit condescending and clueless.

H Lauren love your work, next Dimash Ikanaide, Ikanaide, Ikanaide, Ikanaide, Ikanaide, Ikanaide, Ikanaide, Ikanaide.Have tissues nearby

Finland is not Scandinavian.

Only americans read the bible.

Jesus Christ is the truth the life and the way and will be. Truth never vanish like these pagan religions have vanished because they dosent work but ofcourse its good to educate yourself to know the truth Aamen 🙏✝️♥️