{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_Custom_and_Myth_Kaleva/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_Custom_and_Myth_Kaleva","id":"wikisource_Custom_and_Myth_Kaleva","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Custom_and_Myth/Kaleva","summary":null,"tags":["Finland","Subpages"],"text":"'KALEVALA'; OR, THE FINNISH NATIONAL EPIC.\n\nIt is difficult to account for the fact that the scientific curiosity\nwhich is just now so busy in examining all the monuments of the primitive\ncondition of our race, should, in England at least, have almost totally\nneglected to popularise the 'Kalevala,' or national poem of the Finns.\nBesides its fresh and simple beauty of style, its worth as a storehouse\nof every kind of primitive folklore, being as it is the production of an\nUrvolk, a nation that has undergone no violent revolution in language or\ninstitutions\u2014the 'Kalevala' has the peculiar interest of occupying a\nposition between the two kinds of primitive poetry, the ballad and the\nepic. So much difficulty has been introduced into the study of the first\ndevelopments of song, by confusing these distinct sorts of composition\nunder the name of popular poetry, that it may be well, in writing of a\npoem which occupies a middle place between epic and ballad, to define\nwhat we mean by each.\n\nThe author of our old English 'Art of Poesie' begins his work with a\nstatement which may serve as a text: 'Poesie,' says Puttenham, writing in\n1589, 'is more ancient than the artificiall of the Greeks and Latines,\ncoming by instinct of nature, and used by the savage and uncivill, who\nwere before all science and civilitie. This is proved by certificate of\nmerchants and travellers, who by late navigations have surveyed the whole\nworld, and discovered large countries, and strange people, wild and\nsavage, affirming that the American, the Perusine, and the very\ncanniball, do sing, and also say, their highest and holiest matters in\ncertain riming versicles.' Puttenham is here referring to that instinct\nof primitive men, which compels them in all moments of high-wrought\nfeeling, and on all solemn occasions, to give utterance to a kind of\nchant.\nSuch a chant is the song of Lamech, when he had 'slain a man to\nhis wounding.' So in the Norse sagas, Grettir and Gunnar\nsing when they have anything particular to say; and so in the\nM\u00e4rchen\u2014the primitive fairy tales of all nations\u2014scraps\nof verse are introduced where emphasis is wanted. This craving\nfor passionate expression takes a more formal shape in the lays which,\namong all primitive peoples, as among the modern Greeks to-day,\nare sung at betrothals, funerals, and departures for distant lands.\nThese songs have been collected in Scotland by Scott and Motherwell;\ntheir Danish counterparts have been translated by Mr. Prior. In\nGreece, M. Fauriel and Dr. Ulrichs; in Provence, Damase Arbaud; in Italy,\nM. Nigra; in Servia, Talvj; in France, G\u00e9rard de Nerval\u2014have\ndone for their separate countries what Scott did for the Border.\nProfessor Child, of Harvard, is publishing a beautiful critical collection\nof English Volkslieder, with all known variants from every country.\n\nA comparison of the collections proves that among all European lands\nthe primitive 'versicles' of the people are identical in\ntone, form, and incident. It is this kind of early expression\nof a people's life\u2014careless, abrupt, brief, as was necessitated\nby the fact that they were sung to the accompaniment of the dance\u2014that\nwe call ballads. These are distinctly, and in every sense, popular\npoems, and nothing can cause greater confusion than to apply the same\ntitle, 'popular,' to early epic poetry. Ballads are\nshort; a long ballad, as Mr. Matthew Arnold has said, creeps and halts.\nA true epic, on the other hand, is long, and its tone is grand, noble,\nand sustained. Ballads are not artistic; while the form of the\nepic, whether we take the hexameter or the rougher laisse of\nthe French chansons de geste, is full of conscious and admirable\nart. Lastly, popular ballads deal with vague characters, acting\nand living in vague places; while the characters of an epic are heroes\nof definite station, whose descendants are still in the land,\nwhose home is a recognisable place, Ithaca, or Argos. Now, though\nthese two kinds of early poetry\u2014the ballad, the song of the people;\nthe epic, the song of the chiefs of the people, of the ruling race\u2014are\ndistinct in kind, it does not follow that they have no connection, that\nthe nobler may not have been developed out of the materials of the lower\nform of expression. And the value of the 'Kalevala'\nis partly this, that it combines the continuity and unison of the epic\nwith the simplicity and popularity of the ballad, and so forms a kind\nof link in the history of the development of poetry. This may\nbecome clearer as we proceed to explain the literary history of the\nFinnish national poem.\n\nSixty years ago, it may be said, no one was aware that Finland possessed\na national poem at all. Her people\u2014who claim affinity with\nthe Magyars of Hungary, but are possibly a back-wave of an earlier tide\nof population\u2014had remained untouched by foreign influences since\ntheir conquest by Sweden, and their somewhat lax and wholesale conversion\nto Christianity: events which took place gradually between the middle\nof the twelfth and the end of the thirteenth centuries. Under\nthe rule of Sweden, the Finns were left to their quiet life and undisturbed\nimaginings, among the forests and lakes of the region which they aptly\ncalled Pohja, 'the end of things'; while their educated\nclasses took no very keen interest in the native poetry and mythology\nof their race. At length the annexation of Finland by Russia,\nin 1809, awakened national feeling, and stimulated research into the\nsongs and customs which were the heirlooms of the people.\n\nIt was the policy of Russia to encourage, rather than to check, this\nreturn on a distant past; and from the north of Norway to the slopes\nof the Altai, ardent explorers sought out the fragments of unwritten\nearly poetry. These runes, or Runots, were chiefly sung\nby old men called Runoias, to beguile the weariness of the long\ndark winters. The custom was for two champions to engage in a\ncontest of memory, clasping each other's hands, and reciting in\nturn till he whose memory first gave in slackened his hold. The\n'Kalevala' contains an instance of this practice, where\nit is said that no one was so hardy as to clasp hands with W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen,\nwho is at once the Orpheus and the Prometheus of Finnish mythology.\nThese Runoias, or rhapsodists, complain, of course, of the degeneracy\nof human memory; they notice how any foreign influence, in religion\nor politics, is destructive to the native songs of a\nrace.\n'As for the lays of old time, a thousand have been scattered to\nthe wind, a thousand buried in the snow; . . . as for those which the\nMunks (the Teutonic knights) swept away, and the prayer of the priest\noverwhelmed, a thousand tongues were not able to recount them.'\nIn spite of the losses thus caused, and in spite of the suspicious character\nof the Finns, which often made the task of collection a dangerous one,\nenough materials remained to furnish Dr. L\u00f6nnrot, the most noted\nexplorer, with thirty-five Runots, or cantos. These were\npublished in 1835, but later research produced the fifteen cantos which\nmake up the symmetrical fifty of the 'Kalevala.' In\nthe task of arranging and uniting these, Dr. L\u00f6nnrot played the\npart traditionally ascribed to the commission of Pisistratus in relation\nto the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey.' Dr. L\u00f6nnrot\nis said to have handled with singular fidelity the materials which now\ncome before us as one poem, not absolutely without a certain unity and\ncontinuous thread of narrative. It is this unity (so faint compared\nwith that of the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey') which\ngives the 'Kalevala' a claim to the title of epic.\n\nIt cannot be doubted that, at whatever period the Homeric poems took\nshape in Greece, they were believed to record the feats of the supposed\nancestors of existing families. Thus, for example, Pisistratus,\nas a descendant of the Nelid\u00e6, had an interest in securing certain\nparts, at least, of the 'Iliad' and the 'Odyssey'\nfrom oblivion. The same family pride embellished and preserved\nthe epic poetry of early France. There were in France but three\nheroic houses, or gestes; and three corresponding cycles of \u00e9pop\u00e9es.\nNow, in the 'Kalevala,' there is no trace of the influence\nof family feeling; it was no one's peculiar care and pride to\nwatch over the records of the fame of this or that hero. The poem\nbegins with a cosmogony as wild as any Indian dream of creation; and\nthe human characters who move in the story are shadowy inhabitants of\nno very definite lands, whom no family claim as their forefathers.\nThe very want of this idea of family and aristocratic pride gives the\n'Kalevala' a unique place among epics. It is emphatically\nan epic of the people, of that class whose life contains no element\nof progress, no break in continuity; which from age to age preserves,\nin solitude and close communion with nature, the earliest beliefs of\ngrey antiquity. The Greek epic, on the other hand, has, as M.\nPreller points out, 'nothing to\ndo with natural man, but with an ideal world\nof heroes, with sons of the gods, with consecrated kings, heroes, elders,\na kind of specific race of men. The people exist only as\nsubsidiary to the great houses, as a mere background against which stand\nout the shining figures of heroes; as a race of beings fresh and rough\nfrom the hands of nature, with whom, and with whose concerns, the great\nhouses and their bards have little concern.' This feeling\u2014so\nuniversal in Greece, and in the feudal countries of medi\u00e6val Europe,\nthat there are two kinds of men, the golden and the brazen race, as\nPlato would have called them\u2014is absent, with all its results,\nin the 'Kalevala.'\n\nAmong the Finns we find no trace of an aristocracy; there is scarcely a\nmention of kings, or priests; the heroes of the poem are really popular\nheroes, fishers, smiths, husbandmen, 'medicine-men,' or wizards;\nexaggerated shadows of the people, pursuing on a heroic scale, not war,\nbut the common daily business of primitive and peaceful men. In\nrecording their adventures, the 'Kalevala,' like the shield of Achilles,\nreflects all the life of a race, the feasts, the funerals, the rites of\nseed-time and harvest of marriage and death, the hymn, and the magical\nincantation. Were this all, the epic would only have the value of an\nexhaustive collection of the popular ballads which, as we have seen, are\na poetical record of the intenser moments in the existence of\nunsophisticated tribes. But the 'Kalevala' is distinguished from such a\ncollection, by presenting the ballads as they are produced by the events\nof a continuous narrative, and thus it takes a distinct place between the\naristocratic epics of Greece, or of the Franks, and the scattered songs\nwhich have been collected in Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, and\nItaly.\n\nBesides the interest of its unique position as a popular epic, the\n'Kalevala' is very valuable, both for its literary beauties and for the\nconfused mass of folklore which it contains.\n\nHere old cosmogonies, attempts of man to represent to himself the\nbeginning of things, are mingled with the same wild imaginings as are\nfound everywhere in the shape of fairy-tales. We are hurried from\nan account of the mystic egg of creation, to a hymn like that of the\nAmbarval Brothers, to a strangely familiar scrap of a nursery story,\nto an incident which we remember as occurring in almost identical words\nin a Scotch ballad. We are among a people which endows everything\nwith human characters and life, which is in familiar relations with\nbirds, and beasts, and even with rocks and plants. Ravens and\nwolves and fishes of the sea, sun, moon, and stars, are kindly or churlish;\ndrops of blood find speech, man and maid change to snake or swan and\nresume their forms, ships have magic powers, like the ships of the Ph\u00e6acians.\n\nThen there is the oddest confusion of every stage of religious development:\nwe find a supreme God, delighting in righteousness; Ukko, the lord of\nthe vault of air, who stands apart from men, and sends his son, W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen,\nto be their teacher in music and agriculture.\n\nAcross this faith comes a religion of petrified abstractions like\nthose of the Roman Pantheon. There are gods of colour, a goddess\nof weaving, a goddess of man's blood, besides elemental spirits\nof woods and waters, and the manes of the dead. Meanwhile,\nthe working faith of the people is the belief in magic\u2014generally\na sign of the lower culture. It is supposed that the knowledge\nof certain magic words gives power over the elemental bodies which obey\nthem; it is held that the will of a distant sorcerer can cross the lakes\nand plains like the breath of a fantastic frost, with power to change\nan enemy to ice or stone. Traces remain of the worship of animals:\nthere is a hymn to the bear; a dance like the bear-dance of the American\nIndians; and another hymn tells of the birth and power of the serpent.\nAcross all, and closing all, comes a hostile account of the origin of\nChristianity\u2014the end of joy and music.\n\nHow primitive was the condition of the authors of this medley of beliefs\nis best proved by the survival of the custom called exogamy. This\ncustom, which is not peculiar to the Finns, but is probably a universal\nnote of early society, prohibits marriage between members of the same\ntribe. Consequently, the main action, such as it is, of the 'Kalevala'\nturns on the efforts made by the men of Kaleva to obtain brides from the\nhostile tribe of Pohja.\n\nFurther proof of ancient origin is to be found in what is the great\nliterary beauty of the poem\u2014its pure spontaneity and simplicity. It is\nthe production of an intensely imaginative race, to which song came as\nthe most natural expression of joy and sorrow, terror or triumph\u2014a class\nwhich lay near to nature's secret, and was not out of sympathy with the\nwild kin of woods and waters.\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0'These songs,' says the prelude, 'were found by the wayside, and\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0gathered in the depths of the copses; blown from the branches of the\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0forest, and culled among the plumes of the pine-trees. These lays\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0came to me as I followed the flocks, in a land of meadows honey-sweet,\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0and of golden hills. . . . The cold has spoken to me, and the rain\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0has told me her runes; the winds of heaven, the waves of the sea, have\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0spoken and sung to me; the wild birds have taught me, the music of\n\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0many waters has been my master.'\n\nThe metre in which the epic is chanted resembles, to an English ear, that\nof Mr. Longfellow's 'Hiawatha'\u2014there is assonance rather than rhyme; and\na very musical effect is produced by the liquid character of the\nlanguage, and by the frequent alliterations.\n\nThis rough outline of the main characteristics of the 'Kalevala' we shall\nnow try to fill up with an abstract of its contents. The poem is longer\nthan the 'Iliad,' and much of interest must necessarily be omitted; but\nit is only through such an abstract that any idea can be given of the\nsort of unity which does prevail amid the most utter discrepancy.\n\nIn the first place, what is to be understood by the word 'Kalevala'?\nThe affix la signifies 'abode.' Thus, 'Tuonela'\nis 'the abode of Tuoni,' the god of the lower world; and\nas 'kaleva' means 'heroic,' 'magnificent,'\n'Kalevala' is 'The Home of Heroes.' The\npoem is the record of the adventures of the people of Kalevala\u2014of\ntheir strife with the men of Pohjola, the place of the world's\nend. We may fancy two old Runoias, or singers, clasping hands\non one of the first nights of the Finnish winter, and beginning (what\nprobably has never been accomplished) the attempt to work through the\n'Kalevala' before the return of summer. They commence\nab ovo, or, rather, before the egg. First is chanted the\nbirth of W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen, the benefactor and teacher of men.\nHe is the son of Luonnotar, the daughter of Nature, who answers to the\nfirst woman of the Iroquois cosmogony. Beneath the breath and\ntouch of wind and tide, she conceived a child; but nine ages of man\npassed before his birth, while the mother floated on 'the formless\nand the multiform waters.' Then Ukko, the supreme God, sent\nan eagle, which laid her eggs in the maiden's bosom, and from\nthese eggs grew earth and sky, sun and moon, star and cloud. Then\nwas W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen born on the waters, and reached a barren\nland, and gazed on the new heavens and the new earth. There he\nsowed the grain that is the bread of man, chanting the hymn used at\nseed-time, calling on the mother earth to make the green herb spring,\nand on Ukko to send clouds and rain. So the corn sprang, and the\ngolden cuckoo\u2014which in Finland plays the part of the popinjay\nin Scotch ballads, or of the three golden birds in Greek folksongs\u2014came\nwith his congratulations. In regard to the epithet 'golden,'\nit may be observed that gold and silver, in the Finnish epic, are lavished\non the commonest objects of daily life.\n\nThis is a universal note of primitive poetry, and is not a peculiar\nFinnish idiom, as M. Leouzon le Duc supposes; nor, as Mr. Tozer seems\nto think, in his account of Romaic ballads, a trace of Oriental influence\namong the modern Greeks. It is common to all the ballads of Europe,\nas M. Amp\u00e8re has pointed out, and may be observed in the 'Chanson\nde Roland,' and in Homer.\n\nWhile the corn ripened, W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen rested from his\nlabours, and took the task of Orpheus. 'He sang,'\nsays the 'Kalevala,' of the origin of things, of the mysteries\nhidden from babes, that none may attain to in this sad life, in the\nhours of these perishable days. The fame of the Runoia's\nsinging excited jealousy in the breast of one of the men around him,\nof whose origin the 'Kalevala' gives no account. This\nman, Joukahainen, provoked him to a trial of song, boasting, like Empedocles,\nor like one of the old Celtic bards, that he had been all things.\n'When the earth was made I was there; when space was unrolled\nI launched the sun on his way.' Then was W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen\nwroth, and by the force of his enchantment he rooted Joukahainen to\nthe ground, and suffered him not to go free without promising him the\nhand of his sister Aino. The mother was delighted; but the girl\nwept that she must now cover her long locks, her curls, her glory, and\nbe the wife of 'the old imperturbable W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen.'\nIt is in vain that her mother offers her dainty food and rich dresses;\nshe flees from home, and wanders till she meets three maidens bathing,\nand joins them, and is drowned, singing a sad song: 'Ah, never\nmay my sister come to bathe in the sea-water, for the drops of the sea\nare the drops of my blood.' This wild idea occurs in the\nRomaic ballad, \u03b7 \u03ba\u03bf\u03c1\u03b7 \u03c4\u03b1\u03be\u03b9\u03b4\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03b1,\nwhere a drop of blood on the lips of the drowned girl tinges all the\nwaters of the world. To return to the fate of Aino. A swift\nhare runs (as in the Zulu legend of the Origin of Death) with the tale\nof sorrow to the maiden's mother, and from the mother's\ntears flow rivers of water, and therein are isles with golden hills\nwhere golden birds make melody. As for the old, the imperturbable\nRunoia, he loses his claim to the latter title, he is filled with sorrow,\nand searches through all the elements for his lost bride. At length\nhe catches a fish which is unknown to him, who, like Atlas, 'knew\nthe depths of all the seas.' The strange fish slips from\nhis hands, a 'tress of hair, of drowned maiden's hair,'\nfloats for a moment on the foam, and too late he recognises that 'there\nwas never salmon yet that shone so fair, above the nets at sea.'\nHis lost bride has been within his reach, and now is doubly lost to\nhim. Suddenly the waves are cloven asunder, and the mother of\nNature and of W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen appears, to comfort her son,\nlike Thetis from the deep. She bids him go and seek, in the land\nof Pohjola, a bride alien to his race. After many a wild adventure,\nW\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen reaches Pohjola and is kindly entreated by\nLoutri, the mother of the maiden of the land. But he grows homesick,\nand complains, almost in Dante's words, of the bitter bread of\nexile. Loutri will only grant him her daughter's hand on\ncondition that he gives her a sampo. A sampo is a mysterious\nengine that grinds meal, salt, and money. In fact, it is the mill\nin the well-known fairy tale, 'Why the Sea is Salt.'\n\nW\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen cannot fashion this mill himself, he must\nseek aid at home from Ilmarinen, the smith who forged 'the iron\nvault of hollow heaven.' As the hero returns to Kalevala,\nhe meets the Lady of the Rainbow, seated on the arch of the sky, weaving\nthe golden thread. She promises to be his, if he will accomplish\ncertain tasks, and in the course of those he wounds himself with an\naxe. The wound can only be healed by one who knows the mystic\nwords that hold the secret of the birth of iron. The legend of\nthis evil birth, how iron grew from the milk of a maiden, and was forged\nby the primeval smith, Ilmarinen, to be the bane of warlike men, is\ncommunicated by W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen to an old magician.\nThe wizard then solemnly curses the iron, as a living thing,\nand invokes the aid of the supreme God Ukko, thus bringing together\nin one prayer the extremes of early religion. Then the hero is\nhealed, and gives thanks to the Creator, 'in whose hands is the\nend of a matter.'\n\nReturning to Kalevala, W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen sends Ilmarinen\nto Pohjola to make the sampo, 'a mill for corn one day, for salt\nthe next, for money the next.' The fatal treasure is concealed\nby Loutri, and is obviously to play the part of the fairy hoard in the\n'Nibelungen Lied.'\n\nWith the eleventh canto a new hero, Ahti, or Lemminkainen, and a new\ncycle of adventures, is abruptly introduced. Lemminkainen is a\nprofligate wanderer, with as many loves as Hercules. The fact that he is\nregarded as a form of the sea-god makes it strange that his most noted\nachievement, the seduction of the whole female population of his island,\nshould correspond with a like feat of Krishna's. 'Sixteen thousand and\none hundred,' says the Vishnu Purana, 'was the number of the maidens; and\ninto so many forms did the son of Madhu multiply himself, so that every\none of the damsels thought that he had wedded her in her single person.'\nKrishna is the sun, of course, and the maidens are the dew-drops;\nit is to be hoped that Lemminkainen's connection with sea-water\nmay save him from the solar hypothesis. His first regular marriage\nis unhappy, and he is slain in trying to capture a bride from the people\nof Pohjola. The black waters of the river of forgetfulness sweep\nhim away, and his comb, which he left with his mother, bursts out bleeding\u2014a\nfrequent incident in Russian and other fairy tales. In many household\ntales, the hero, before setting out on a journey, erects a stick which\nwill fall down when he is in distress, or death. The natives of\nAustralia use this form of divination in actual practice, tying round\nthe stick some of the hair of the person whose fate is to be ascertained.\nThen, like Demeter seeking Persephon\u00ea, the mother questions all\nthe beings of the world, and their answers show a wonderful poetic sympathy\nwith the silent life of Nature. 'The moon said, I have sorrows\nenough of my own, without thinking of thy child. My lot is hard,\nmy days are evil. I am born to wander companionless in the night,\nto shine in the season of frost, to watch through the endless winter,\nto fade when summer comes as king.' The sun is kinder, and\nreveals the place of the hero's body. The mother collects\nthe scattered limbs, the birds bring healing balm from the heights of\nheaven, and after a hymn to the goddess of man's blood, Lemminkainen\nis made sound and well, as the scattered 'fragments of no more\na man' were united by the spell of Medea, like those of Osiris\nby Isis, or of the fair countess by the demon blacksmith in the Russian\nM\u00e4rchen, or of the Carib hero mentioned by Mr. McLennan,\nor of the ox in the South African household tale.\n\nWith the sixteenth canto we return to W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen,\nwho, like all epic heroes, visits the place of the dead, Tuonela.\nThe maidens who play the part of Charon are with difficulty induced\nto ferry over a man bearing no mark of death by fire or sword or water.\nOnce among the dead, W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen refuses\u2014being\nwiser than Psyche or Persephon\u00ea\u2014to taste of drink.\nThis 'taboo' is found in Japanese, Melanesian, and Red Indian\naccounts of the homes of the dead. Thus the hero is able to return\nand behold the stars. Arrived in the upper world, he warns men\nto 'beware of perverting innocence, of leading astray the pure\nof heart; they that do these things shall be punished eternally in the\ndepths of Tuoni. There is a place prepared for evil-doers, a bed\nof stones burning, rocks of fire, worms and serpents.' This\nspeech throws but little light on the question of how far a doctrine\nof rewards and punishments enters into primitive ideas of a future state.\nThe 'Kalevala,' as we possess it, is necessarily, though\nfaintly, tinged with Christianity; and the peculiar vices which are\nhere threatened with punishment are not those which would have been\nmost likely to occur to the early heathen singers of this runot.\n\nW\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen and Ilmarinen now go together to Pohjola,\nbut the fickle maiden of the land prefers the young forger of the sampo\nto his elder and imperturbable companion. Like a northern Medea,\nor like the Master-maid in Dr. Dasent's 'Tales from the\nNorse,' or like the hero of the Algonquin tale and the Samoan\nballad, she aids her alien lover to accomplish the tasks assigned to\nhim. He ploughs with a plough of gold the adder-close, or field\nof serpents; he bridles the wolf and the bear of the lower world, and\ncatches the pike that swim in the waters of forgetfulness. After\nthis, the parents cannot refuse their consent, the wedding-feast is\nprepared, and all the world, except the s\u00e9duisant Lemminkainen,\nis bidden to the banquet. The narrative now brings in the ballads\nthat are sung at a Finnish marriage.\n\nFirst, the son-in-law enters the house of the parents of the bride,\nsaying, 'Peace abide with you in this illustrious hall.'\nThe mother answers, 'Peace be with you even in this lowly hut.'\nThen W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen began to sing, and no man was so hardy\nas to clasp hands and contend with him in song. Next follow the\nsongs of farewell, the mother telling the daughter of what she will\nhave to endure in a strange home: 'Thy life was soft and delicate\nin thy father's house. Milk and butter were ready to thy\nhand; thou wert as a flower of the field, as a strawberry of the wood;\nall care was left to the pines of the forest, all wailing to the wind\nin the woods of barren lands. But now thou goest to another home,\nto an alien mother, to doors that grate strangely on their hinges.'\n'My thoughts,' the maiden replies, 'are as a dark\nnight of autumn, as a cloudy day of winter; my heart is sadder than\nthe autumn night, more weary than the winter day.' The maid\nand the bridegroom are then lyrically instructed in their duties: the\ngirl is to be long-suffering, the husband to try five years' gentle\ntreatment before he cuts a willow wand for his wife's correction.\nThe bridal party sets out for home, a new feast is spread, and the bridegroom\ncongratulated on the courage he must have shown in stealing a girl from\na hostile tribe.\n\nWhile all is merry, the mischievous Lemminkainen sets out, an unbidden\nguest, for Pohjola. On his way he encounters a serpent, which he slays\nby the song of serpent-charming. In this 'mystic chain of verse' the\nserpent is not addressed as the gentle reptile, god of southern peoples,\nbut is spoken of with all hatred and loathing: 'Black creeping thing of\nthe low lands, monster flecked with the colours of death, thou that hast\non thy skin the stain of the sterile soil, get thee forth from the path\nof a hero.' After slaying the serpent, Lemminkainen reaches Pohjola,\nkills one of his hosts, and fixes his head on one of a thousand stakes\nfor human skulls that stood about the house, as they might round the hut\nof a Dyak in Borneo. He then flees to the isle of Saari, whence he is\ndriven for his heroic profligacy, and by the hatred of the only girl whom\nhe has not wronged. This is a very pretty touch of human nature.\n\nHe now meditates a new incursion into Pohjola. The mother of Pohjola (it\nis just worth noticing that the leadership assumed by this woman points\nto a state of society when the family was scarcely formed) calls to her\naid 'her child the Frost;' but the frost is put to shame by a hymn of the\ninvader's, a song against the Cold: 'The serpent was his foster-mother,\nthe serpent with her barren breasts; the wind of the north rocked his\ncradle, and the ice-wind sang him to sleep, in the midst of the wild\nmarsh-land, where the wells of the waters begin.' It is a curious\ninstance of the animism, the vivid power of personifying all the beings\nand forces of nature, which marks the 'Kalevala,' that the Cold speaks to\nLemminkainen in human voice, and seeks a reconciliation.\n\nAt this part of the epic there is an obvious lacuna. The story goes to\nKullervo, a luckless man, who serves as shepherd to Ilmarinen. Thinking\nhimself ill-treated by the heroic smith's wife, the shepherd changes his\nflock into bears and wolves, which devour their mistress. Then he\nreturns to his own home, where he learns that his sister has been lost\nfor many days, and is believed to be dead. Travelling in search of her\nhe meets a girl, loves her, and all unwittingly commits an inexpiable\noffence. 'Then,' says the 'Kalevala,' 'came up the new dawn, and the\nmaiden spoke, saying, \"What is thy race, bold young man, and who is thy\nfather?\" Kullervo said, \"I am the wretched son of Kalerva; but tell me,\nwhat is thy race, and who is thy father?\" Then said the maiden, \"I am\nthe wretched daughter of Kalerva. Ah! would God that I had died, then\nmight I have grown with the green grass, and blossomed with the flowers,\nand never known this sorrow.\" With this she sprang into the midst of the\nfoaming waves, and found peace in Tuoni, and rest in the waters of\nforgetfulness.' Then there was no word for Kullervo, but the bitter moan\nof the brother in the terrible Scotch ballad of the Bonny Hind, and no\nrest but in death by his own sword, where grass grows never on his\nsister's tomb.\n\nThe epic now draws to a close. Ilmarinen seeks a new wife in\nPohja, and endeavours with W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen's help to\nrecover the mystic sampo. On the voyage, the Runoia makes a harp\nout of the bones of a monstrous fish, so strange a harp that none may\nplay it but himself. When he played, all four-footed things came\nabout him, and the white birds dropped down 'like a storm of snow.'\nThe maidens of the sun and the moon paused in their weaving, and the\ngolden thread fell from their hands. The Ancient One of the sea-water\nlistened, and the nymphs of the wells forgot to comb their loose locks\nwith the golden combs. All men and maidens and little children\nwept, amid the silent joy of nature; nay, the great harper wept, and\nof his tears were pearls made.\n\nIn the war with Pohjola the heroes were victorious, but the sampo\nwas broken in the fight, and lost in the sea, and that, perhaps, is\n'why the sea is salt.' Fragments were collected, however,\nand Loutri, furious at the success of the heroes of Kalevala, sent against\nthem a bear, destructive as the boar of Calydon. But W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen\ndespatched the monster, and the body was brought home with the bear-dance,\nand the hymn of the bear. 'Oh, Otso,' cry the singers,\n'be not angry that we come near thee. The bear, the honey-footed\nbear, was born in lands between sun and moon, and he died not by men's\nhands, but of his own will.' The Finnish savants are probably\nright, who find here a trace of the beast-worship which in many lands\nhas placed the bear among the number of the stars. Propitiation\nof the bear is practised by Red Indians, by the Ainos of Japan, and\n(in the case of the 'native bear') by Australians.\nThe Red Indians have a myth to prove that the bear is immortal, does\nnot die, but, after his apparent death, rises again in another body.\nThere is no trace, however, that the Finns claimed, like the Danes,\ndescent from the bear. The Lapps, a people of confused belief,\nworshipped him along with Thor, Christ, the sun, and the\nserpent.\n\nBut another cult, an alien creed, is approaching Kalevala.\nThere is no part of the epic more strange than the closing canto, which\ntells in the wildest language, and through the most exaggerated forms\nof savage imagination, the tale of the introduction of Christianity.\nMarjatta was a maiden, 'as pure as the dew is, as holy as stars\nare that live without stain.' As she fed her flocks, and\nlistened to the singing of the golden cuckoo, a berry fell into her\nbosom. After many days she bore a child, and the people despised\nand rejected her, and she was thrust forth, and her babe was born in\na stable, and cradled in the manger. Who should baptize the babe?\nThe god of the wilderness refused, and W\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen would\nhave had the young child slain. Then the infant rebuked the ancient\nDemigod, who fled in anger to the sea, and with his magic song he built\na magic barque, and he sat therein, and took the helm in his hand.\nThe tide bore him out to sea, and he lifted his voice and sang: 'Times\ngo by, and suns shall rise and set, and then shall men have need of\nme, and shall look for the promise of my coming that I may make a new\nsampo, and a new harp, and bring back sunlight and moonshine, and the\njoy that is banished from the world.' Then he crossed the\nwaters, and gained the limits of the sea, and the lower spaces of the\nsky.\n\nHere the strange poem ends at its strangest moment, with the cry,\nwhich must have been uttered so often, but is heard here alone, of a\npeople reluctantly deserting the gods that it has fashioned in its own\nlikeness, for a faith that has not sprung from its needs or fears.\nYet it cherishes the hope that this tyranny shall pass over: 'they\nare gods, and behold they shall die, and the waves be upon them at last.'\n\nAs the 'Kalevala,' and as all relics of folklore, all\nM\u00e4rchen and ballads prove, the lower mythology\u2014the\nelemental beliefs of the people\u2014do survive beneath a thin covering\nof Christian conformity. There are, in fact, in religion, as in\nsociety, two worlds, of which the one does not know how the other lives.\nThe class whose literature we inherit, under whose institutions we live,\nat whose shrines we worship, has changed as outworn raiment its manners,\nits gods, its laws; has looked before and after, has hoped and forgotten,\nhas advanced from the wilder and grosser to the purest faith.\nBeneath the progressive class, and beneath the waves of this troublesome\nworld, there exists an order whose primitive form of human life has\nbeen far less changeful, a class which has put on a mere semblance of\nnew faiths, while half-consciously retaining the remains of immemorial\ncults.\n\nObviously, as M. Fauriel has pointed out in the case of the modern\nGreeks, the life of such folk contains no element of progress, admits no\nbreak in continuity. Conquering armies pass and leave them still reaping\nthe harvest of field and river; religions appear, and they are baptized\nby thousands, but the lower beliefs and dreads that the progressive class\nhas outgrown remain unchanged.\n\nThus, to take the instance of modern Greece, the high gods of the\ndivine race of Achilles and Agamemnon are forgotten, but the descendants\nof the Penest\u00e6, the villeins of Thessaly, still dread the\nbeings of the popular creed, the Nereids, the Cyclopes, and the Lamia.\n\nThe last lesson we would attempt to gather from the 'Kalevala'\nis this: that a comparison of the thoroughly popular beliefs\nof all countries, the beliefs cherished by the non-literary classes\nwhose ballads and fairy tales have only recently been collected, would\nprobably reveal a general identity, concealed by diversity of name,\namong the 'lesser people of the skies,' the elves, fairies,\nCyclopes, giants, nereids, brownies, lami\u00e6. It could then\nbe shown that some of these spirits survive among the lower beings of\nthe mythology of what the Germans call a cultur-volk like the\nGreeks or Romans. It could also be proved that much of the narrative\nelement in the classic epics is to be found in a popular or childish\nform in primitive fairy tales. The question would then come to\nbe, Have the higher mythologies been developed, by artistic poets, out\nof the materials of a race which remained comparatively untouched by\nculture; or are the lower spirits, and the more simple and puerile forms\nof myth, degradations of the inventions of a cultivated class?\n\nFootnotes","title":"Custom and Myth/Kaleva","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":6460}