Society is composed of prosperous households and scattered villages; the poems deal with the highest life but that is only with the life of the richer farmers separated a little from the village. Nothing causes more violent anger to any of the heroes than for his wife to demean herself by going to talk ‘down in the village’. It reflects a quiet and moderately contented people but shorn of all the higher and more majestic aspects of national life or tradition: they are governed from above by an alien power. Rarely does such a word as king come in: there is no courtly grandeur, no castles (where they are mentioned it is often mere bad translation).
Patriarchs, stout yeomen with white beards are the most majestic figures to be seen (when their wife is not there). The power of mothers is the most arresting characteristic. Even old Väinämöinen consults his mother on most occasions of difficulty: this tying to the apron-strings goes on even after death; and instructions are issued occasionally from the grave. The housewife’s opinion is universally put first. The feelings towards mothers and sisters are far the most genuine and deep and powerful throughout. A confirmed villain of loose morals and wife-beating propensities as the lively Lemminkainen (as he is always called) shows only his best most and affectionate feelings for his mother. The great tragedy of Kullervo (the reckless peasant boy) is one of brother and sister.
Beyond Finland we are often carried in sleighs or boats, or by more swift and magic means, to Pohja, a mirky misty northland country, sometimes evidently thought of as Lappland, more often it is no one seems clear where, whence magic comes and all manner of marvels; where Luohi [sic] dwells who hid the Sun and moon. Sweden, the Lapps, Estonia are often mentioned: Saxony (which is our present enemy) rarely and distantly. Russia our ally not often and usually unpleasantly; of a heartless virago of a wife it is said ‘all estranged is now thy brother and his wife is like a Russian’; and of the most desperate and miserable life it is said to be ‘as a prisoner lives in Russia only that the jail is wanting’.
VI
I have now tried to suggest without any detailing of plot or retailing of tit-bits to hint at the style and quality of the Kalevala, the Land of Heroes. Its style of course largely depends on all these beliefs and social characteristics I have talked of: there are however some very curious tricks[?] of a more accidental and individual character which so colour the whole that they seem worth mentioning before I cease from my meandering discourse.
There is the curious thing I should like to call ‘super-adding’ by which often a comparison as even after a statement the next line contains a great enlargement of it, often with reckless alteration of detail or of fact: colours, metals, names are piled up not for their distinct representation of ideas so much as just for the emotional effect. There is a strange and often effectively lavish use of the words gold and silver, and honey, which are strewn up and down the lines. Colours are rarer; rather do we get gold and silver, moonlight and sunlight, an intense delight in both of which is frequently breaking forth.
There are many such details as these; the incantations, or prayers of deprecation are more essential; they perpetually recur in the presence of any evil or evil feared, and vary from five lines to five hundred, which is the length of the splendid ‘Kine-song’ of Ilmarinen’s wife; while most delightful too are ‘songs of origin’ – you have only got to know the accurate detailed history of the origin birth and ancestry of anyone (I don’t say any thing because there is practically no such distinction for the Kalevala) to have the power to stop the evil and cure the damage he has done or otherwise deal with him. The songs of the ‘Origin of Iron’ and the ‘Origin of Beer’ are the most delightful.
To conclude – although it is clear that to our artificial rather over-selfconscious modern taste, a lot of cheap smiles can be got out of these poems (above all out of a bad or mediocre translation) – yet that is not the attitude in which I wish to put them before you. There is a certain humour (in conversation between characters and so forth) which it is justifiable to smile at, but it is really to incur laughter for [our] own weakness, our own dulled vision, as of old age, if we laugh too loftily at the simplicity of the balder passages of the Land of Heroes: unless indeed we laugh for pleasure at the finding of something so fresh and delightful.
But there are passages which are not only entertaining stories of magic and adventure, quaint myths, or legend; but which are truly lyrical and delightful even in translation, and this high poetical feeling is continually occurring in lines, or couplets, or numbers of lines up and down the Runos but so unlevel as to make purple passage quot[ation] useless. The episodes too and situations are by no means inferior (often vastly superior) to the ballads of much more famous countries than Finland. We are dealing with a popular poetry: overburdened with no technique; unconscious and uneven.
But the delight of Earth, the wonder of it; the essential feeling as of the necessity for magic; that juggling with the golden moon and silver sun (such are they) that is man’s universal pastime: these are the things to seek in the Kalevala. All the world to wheel about in, the Great Bear to play with and Orion and the Seven Stars all dangling magically in the branches of a silver birch enchanted by Väinämöinen; the splendid sorcerous scandalous villains of old to tell of when you have bathed in the ‘Sauna’ after binding the kine at close of day into pastures of little Suomi in the Marshes.
[The formal text apparently ends here, but the following page is clearly sequential and contains an introduction and notes for passages to be read aloud.]
VII
Quotation
The translation I am going to use is that of the ‘Everyman’ series (2 vols) W.H. Kirby: who sometimes seems to plump unnecessarily for the prosy and verbally preposterous, though the great difficulty of course, of the original style is hard to exaggerate. As far as I can see he seems to have tried as nearly as possible the task of making each line correspond to each line of the original which hasn’t improved things: but occasionally he is very good indeed.
If anyone does not know the story (and there is time) I can scarcely do better than read the bald summary in the preface to this edition.
Passages:
The favourites among the Finns are the episodes of ‘Aino’ and ‘Kullervo’
1) Aino R. III 530 (circa) to end: R. IV (140–190) 190–470
2) Kullervo R. 31:. 1–200 34 1–80 35 (170) 190–290 36 (60–180) 280–end
3) The ‘Kine-Song’ (cp. above page) 32 60–160 210–310
(This includes the classic example of ‘wheedling’: the bear of course is the most hated of all animals to the farmer’s wife: this is how she addresses him. 32 310–370;. 390–430;. 450–470)
4) Origin of Iron IX 20–260
5) Origin of Beer XX 140–250:. 340–390
6) Forging of Sampo X 260–430
7) Great Ox XX 1–80
8) Joukahainen III 270–490
9) Tormenting of the Bride XXII 20–120; (130–190) (290–400)
Notes and Commentary
67 not originally written for this society. See Introduction to the Essays. Tolkien first delivered this talk to the Sundial Society of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on 22 November 1914. He gave it again to the Essay Club of Exeter College in February of 1915.
the sudden collapse of the intended reader. I have been unable to find any further information on the identity of the reader or the nature of the collapse.
litterature. Tolkien uses this spelling throughout, chiefly in abbreviations, as ‘litt’.
68 the original which is vastly different to any translation. While at Exeter College, Tolkien checked out C.N.E. Eliot’s A Finnish Grammar from the library in order to try to read Kalevala in its original language. He was already, it would seem, working on the theory expressed in Manuscript A of ‘On Fairy-stories’ that ‘Mythology is language and language is mythology’ (Tolkien On Fairy-stories, p. 181).
Stead’s Books for the Bairns. A series of books for young people published by W.T. Stead, an Eng
lish journalist, philanthropist and politician. Books for the Bairns repackaged classics, fairy tales, fables, nursery rhymes, Great Events in British History, and the Gospels, giving them all a moral and Christian perspective aimed at reforming the world. Books for the Bairns, First Series 1806–1920, were well-known to young people of Tolkien’s generation.
Indo-European languages. The Indo-European language theory, derived from nineteenth-century comparative philology and mythology, reconstructed by phonological correspondences and principles of sound-change a hypothetical pre-historic language called Proto-Indo-European from which the modern Indo-European language families have descended. Finnish, related to Hungarian and (distantly) to Turkish is not Indo-European but Finno-Ugric.
the above beloved pink covers. While there are no pink covers mentioned ‘above’, Tolkien’s later typewritten essay notes that Stead’s Books for the Bairns had pink covers.
Thorfinn in Vinland the good. Thorfinn Karlsefni was an eleventh-century Icelander who tried to establish a colony in ‘Vinland’, previously so named by Leif Eríksson and thought to be somewhere on the north-east coast of North America. His expedition is mentioned in two fourteenth-century Icelandic manuscripts, the Hauksbók (Book of Haukr), and the Flateyjarbók (Flat-island Book).
69 when I first read the Kalevala. According to both Humphrey Carpenter and John Garth, Tolkien first read Kirby’s translation some time in 1911, his last year at King Edward’s School. He went up to Oxford in the autumn of that year, and checked out Charles Eliot’s Finnish Grammar from the Exeter College Library.
the clumsiness of a translation. Not only did Tolkien dislike Kirby’s translation, his stated principle that ‘Mythology is language and language is mythology’ (see entry for ‘original translation’ above) would invalidate any translation of a work as faithfully representing the original.
H. Mods. Classical Honour Moderations, a first round of examinations at Oxford University, in which the student can get a First (highly desirable), a Second (good but not great), and a Third (a weak pass). Tolkien got a Second.
70 Troilus to need a Pandarus. Tolkien could be thinking of the story as told in Chaucer’s poem Troilus and Criseyde or in Shakespeare’s play Troilus and Cressida. In both works, Cressida’s uncle, Pandarus, acts as go-between for the lovers.
71 queer troglodyte story. The primary meaning of troglodyte is ‘cave-dweller’ (from Greek trogle, ‘hole’, with the extended sense ‘hermit’). Tolkien presumably meant a story which has been isolated from the rest of society. Also see the usage by Andrew Lang in the entry below for Andaman Isles.
72 Andaman Isles. The Andaman Isles, a territory of India, are situated in the Indian Ocean halfway between the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. In Custom and Myth, Andrew Lang twice refers to Andaman Islanders, first querying: ‘If a tertiary troglodyte was like a modern Andaman Islander ... would he stand and meditate in awe on the fact that a tree was taller than he ...?’ (p. 233); and next suggesting that, ‘If the history of religion and of mythology is to be unravelled, we must examine what the unprogressive classes in Europe have in common with Australians and Bushmen and Andaman Islanders’ (p. 241). Worth noting is Tolkien’s much later suggestion in both the A and B drafts of ‘Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics’ (conjecturally dated by Michael Drout to c. 1933–35) that contemporary critics might substitute ‘Andaman-islanders ... for Anglo-Saxons’ (Beowulf and the Critics, pp. 33, 81).
Hausa Folktales. The Hausa are a Sahelian people occupying a territory ranging over Northeastern Nigeria and Southeastern Niger. In The British Folklorists: A History, Richard Dorson notes that ‘Within a five-year period, 1908–1913, four folklore and language collections were published on the Hausa’ (p. 368). Dorson cites Major Arthur John Newman Tremearne’s Hausa Folktales, published in 1914. An article entitled ‘Hausa Folktales’ by ‘F.W.H.M.’ was published in the journal African Affairs, Oxford University Press, 1914; XIII 457. Appearing at the time when Tolkien was writing, these sources would have been available to him. The skeptical view of comparative mythology here expressed foreshadows Tolkien’s later and equally dismissive opinion of the comparative approach in his essay ‘On Fairy-stories’.
the Mabinogion. The great literary repository of Welsh mythology. It exists for the most part in two manuscripts, the White Book of Rhydderch (Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch, AD 1300–1325) and the Red Book of Hergest (Llyfr Coch Hergest, 1375–1425). It was translated into English by Lady Charlotte Guest in 1838–49. Tolkien had copies of all three volumes in his library.
74 Väinämöinen. The primeval singer and oldest culture-hero, first of the ‘big three’ heroes of Kalevala, the other two being Ilmarinen the smith and Lemminkainen the rascally playboy. Väinämöinen is the first-born and most folkloric of the three, having aspects of shamanism in his character.
Petrograd is in Finland. Tolkien is speaking geographically, not politically, though in the case of Finland the two often overlap, since Finland became a Grand Duchy of Russia in 1809. Petrograd (changed from St. Petersburg in 1914) is at the head of the Gulf of Finland, at the base of the Karelian isthmus. Karelia, which has a large Finnish population, is divided now between Finland and Russia. Many of the runos collected by Lönnrot, especially those concerning Kullervo, came from Karelia.
75 Elias Lönnrot in 1835 made a selection. In 1835 Elias Lönnrot, a Finnish physician and folklore collector, published a selection from his extensive collection of runos or songs, now called the Old Kalevala.
Lönnrot was not the only collector. Earlier collectors included Zachris Topelius, Matthias Castrén, Julius Krohn, and Krohn’s son Kaarle Krohn. For a complete discussion see Domenico Comparetti, Traditional Poetry of the Finns, London: Longmans Green, 1898, and Juha Pentikäinen, Kalevala Mythology, trans. Ritva Poom, Indiana University Press, 1989.
published again in 1849. The augmented, standard edition of Kalevala from which all current translations are made.
78 ‘Hiawatha’ is not a genuine storehouse of Indian folklore, but a mild and gentle bowdlerising of the Kalevala. For more on this, and for its relation to Tolkien’s invented languages, see John Garth’s essay on Tolkien and Longfellow, ‘The road from adaptation to invention’ in Tolkien Studies Vol. XI, pp. 1–44.
L[ongfellow]’s names are often too good to be inventions. See Garth’s essay (cited above) for an extended discussion of the relationship among the names in Kalevala, ‘Hiawatha’, and Tolkien’s Qenya/Quenya.
the Kal[evala]’s first rush into translations in Scandinavian and German. There was indeed a ‘rush into translations’ starting with a translation into Swedish of the Old (1835) Kalevala by Matthias Castrén (a Finn) in 1841. In 1845 Jakob Grimm included thirty-eight lines from Runo 19 in a presentation to the German Academy of Sciences, and a complete translation into German of the New (1849) Kalevala was produced by Anton Schiefner in 1852.
‘Chanting the Hundredth Psalm that Grand old Puritan Anthem’. Tolkien’s syntax makes it hard to figure out exactly who said what to whom about what, but apparently it is an ‘American appreciation’ quoted in the London Daily News as praising Longfellow’s ‘The Courtship of Miles Standish’ for containing ‘one of the most marvellous lines in all English.’ The line in question (misquoted in Tolkien’s text) describes Priscilla Mullens, the object of the Courtship, ‘singing the hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puritan anthem’. Equally unclear is the object of Tolkien’s obvious sarcasm, whether it is the American appreciator of the quote, the London Daily News for its taste in poetry, or Longfellow for calling a Hebrew Psalm a ‘Puritan anthem’. Or all of these.
79 Ilmarinen. One of the ‘big three’ heroes of Kalevala. His name is formed from ilma, ‘sky’, with the occupational suffix ri. He has the epithets seppo, ‘craftsman’, and takoja, ‘hammerer, forger’. He was originally the maker of the sky, Finnish kirjokansi the ‘decorated/many-coloured lid’, and is the forger of the Sampo, the mysterious creation which is the object of contention in Kalevala.
Kaukomieli. A by-name or epithet for Lemminkainen, the reckless playboy, third of the ‘Big Three’. Magoun translates Kaukomieli as ‘man with a far-roving mind’; Friburg as ‘far-minded’, Kuusi, Bosley and Branch as ‘far-sighted’ or ‘proud’.
80 ‘speeches in part’. A convention of folk tale and folk poetry in which inanimate but personified objects have voices and speak for themselves, usually to or about human characters. The harp in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ telling the giant that Jack is stealing it is an example. Tolkien used the convention in The Hobbit when he had the Trolls’ purse speak to Bilbo, who was trying to steal it.
82 Ahti and his wife Vellamo dwell in the waters. Ahti appears most often as a by-name for Lemminkainen, while Kirby gives Ahto as the name of the God of the Sea and of the Waters, husband of Vellamo, according to Kirby ‘the goddess of the Sea and of the Waters, the spouse of Ahto.’ Ahti as a variant of Ahto does, however, occasionally appear as the name of a water-god.
The Kalevala
[Typescript draft]
I am afraid this paper was not originally written for this society, which I hope it will pardon since I produce it mainly to form a stop-gap to night, and to entertain you as far as possible in spite of the sudden collapse of the proper speaker. I hope you will also forgive, besides its second-hand character its quality – which is hardly that of a paper, rather a disconnected soliloquy accompanied by a leisurely patting on the back of a pet volume. If I continually drop into talking of these poems as if no one in the room had ever heard of them but myself, you must attribute it to the strange chance that no one had when I read the paper before; and you must also attribute it to the ‘pet’-attitude. I am very fond of these poems – they are literature so very unlike any of the things that are familiar to general readers, or even to those who stray in the more curious by-paths – they are so very un-European, and yet could only come from Europe.
The Story of Kullervo Page 8