The Kalevala | Page 9

the butterfly, and is looked upon as a messenger of the Supreme Deity. It may be
interesting to observe here that the Bretons in reverence called butterflies, "feathers from
the wings of God."
As to inanimate nature, certain lakes, rivers, springs, and fountains, are held in high
reverence. In the Kalevala the oak is called Pun Jumalan (God's tree). The mountain-ash

even to this day, and the birch-tree, are held sacred, and peasants plant them by their
cottages with reverence.
Respecting the giants of Finnish mythology, Castren is silent, and the following notes are
gleaned from the Kalevala, and from Grimm's Teutonic Mythology. "The giants," says
Grimm, "are distinguished by their cunning and ferocity from the stupid, good-natured
monsters of Germany and Scandinavia." Soini, for example a synonym of Kullervo, the
here of the saddest episode of the Kalevala when only three days old, tore his swaddling
clothes to tatters. When sold to a forgeman of Karelia, he was ordered to nurse an infant,
but he dug out the eyes of the child, killed it, and burned its cradle. Ordered to fence the
fields, he built a fence from earth to heaven, using entire pine-trees for fencing materials,
and interweaving their branches with venomous serpents. Ordered to tend the herds in the
woodlands, he changed the cattle to wolves and bears, and drove them home to destroy
his mistress because she had baked a stone in the centre of his oat-loaf, causing him to
break his knife, the only keepsake of his people.
Regarding the heroes of the Kalevala, much discussion has arisen as to their place in
Finnish mythology. The Finns proper regard the chief heroes of the Suomi epic,
Wainamoinen, Ilmarinen, and Lemminkainen, as descendants of the Celestial Virgin,
Ilmatar, impregnated by the winds when Ilma (air), Light, and Water were the only
material existences. In harmony with this conception we find in the Kalevala, a
description of the birth of Wainamoinen, or Vaino, as he is sometimes called in the
original, a word probably akin to the Magyar Ven, old. The Esthonians regard these
heroes as sons of the Great Spirit, begotten before the earth was created, and dwelling
with their Supreme Ruler in Jumala.
The poetry of a people with such an elaborate mythology and with such a keen and
appreciative sense of nature and of her various phenomena, was certain, sooner or later,
to attract the attention of scholars. And, in fact, as early as the seventeenth century, we
meet men of literary tastes who tried to collect and interpret the various national songs of
the Finns. Among these were Palmskold and Peter Bang. They collected portions of the
national poetry, consisting chiefly of
wizard-incantations, and all kinds of pagan
folk-lore. Gabriel Maxenius, however, was the first to publish a work on Finnish national
poetry, which brought to light the beauties of the Kalevala. It appeared in 1733, and bore
the title: De Effectibus Naturalibus. The book contains a quaint collection of Finnish
poems in lyric forms, chiefly incantations; but the author was entirely at a loss how to
account for them, or how to appreciate them. He failed to see their intimate connection
with the religious worship of the Finns in paganism.
The next to study the Finnish poetry and language was Daniel Juslenius, a celebrated
bishop, and a highly-gifted scholar. In a dissertation, published as early as 1700, entitled,
Aboa vetus et nova, he discussed the origin and nature of the Finnish language; and in
another work of his, printed in 1745, he treated of Finnish incantations, displaying withal
a thorough understanding of the Finnish folk-lore, and of the importance of the Finnish
language and national poetry. With great care he began to collect the songs of Suomi, but
this precious collection was unfortunately burned.

Porthan, a Finnish scholar of great attainments, born in 1766, continuing the work of
Juslenius, accumulated a great number of national songs and poems, and by his profound
enthusiasm for the promotion of Finnish literature, succeeded in founding the Society of
the Fennophils, which to the present day, forms the literary centre of Finland. Among his
pupils were E. Lenquist, and Chr. Ganander, whose works on Finnish mythology are
among the references used in preparing this preface. These indefatigable scholars were
joined by Reinhold Becker and others, who were industriously searching for more and
more fragments of what evidently was a great epic of the Finns. For certainly neither of
the scholars just mentioned, nor earlier investigators, could fail to see that the runes they
collected, gathered round two or three chief heroes, but more especially around the
central figure of Wainamoinen, the hero of the following epic.
The Kalevala proper was collected by two great Finnish scholars, Zacharias Topelius and
Elias Lonnrot. Both were practicing physicians, and in this capacity