Questions tagged [the-kalevala]
Questions about The Kalevala, a 19th-century Finnish work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral sources. Use this tag with the [finnish-literature] tag.
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How is Wainamoinen "old" at the start of the second Rune?
At the end of the first rune of the Kalevala (Crawford's translation), Wainamoinen has just been born. These are the last four lines of this rune:
Thus our hero, Wainamoinen,
Thus the wonderful ...
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How are we supposed to know that Wainamoinen is the son?
I've just read the first rune of the Kalevala (Crawford's translation). Most of it is about the "maiden", "daughter of the Ether", and how her travels in the sea lead to the creation of the world. It ...
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Does the Kalevala rely on the concepts of good and evil?
In the preface to his translation of the Kalevala (1888), John Martin Crawford wrote (my emphasis):
A deeper and more esoteric meaning of the Kalevala, however, points to a contest between Light ...
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What is a "proem", and why was this word used in the translation of the Kalevala?
The contents of Crawford's translation of the Kalevala begin, after the frontmatter that's not part of the original text, with something called a "Proem". Here it is.
Obvious question: what is a ...
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In the Kalevala, what is Väinämöinen?
The character of Väinämöinen is central to the Finnish epic the Kalevala. But from reading about him and the stories online, I can't figure out whether he was a god or a mortal man. Some of the myths ...
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