'One of the great mythic poems of Europe' The New York Times Sharing its title with the poetic name for Finland - 'the land of heroes' - Kalevala is the soaring epic poem of its people, a work rich in magic and myth which tells the story of a nation through the ages from the dawn of creation. Sung by rural Finns since prehistoric times, and formally compiled by Elias Lönnrot in the nineteenth century, it is a landmark of Finnish culture and played a vital role in galvanizing its national identity in the decades leading to independence. Its themes, however, reach beyond borders and search the heart of human existence. Translated with an Introduction by Eino Friberg

It was the Kalevala that initiated the process leading to the foundation of Finnish identity during the nineteenth century and was, therefore, one of the crucial factors in the formation of Finland as a new nation in the twentieth century.

This prose translation of Finland's national folk epic vividly recounts the folkways of Kaeol-Finnish peasant life.

The national folk epic of Finland is here presented in an English translation that is both scholarly and eminently readable. To avoid the imprecision and metrical monotony of earlier verse translations, Francis Magoun has used prose, printed line for line as in the original so that repetitions, parallelisms, and variations are readily apparent. The lyrical passages and poetic images, the wry humor, the tall-tale extravagance, and the homely realism of the Kalevala come through with extraordinary effectiveness.

Discover mighty eagles and mythical heroes in this beautifully illustrated prose retelling of Finland's classic epic

The Key to the Kalevala was originally published in Finland in 1916. Now this insightful and detailed exploration of the ancient origins of Finnish mythology is available in English. Students of the ancient traditions and mystical teachings will find no better introduction to the profound esoteric meaning of the Kalevala, the Finnish National Epic, than Ervast's book. This translation is authorized by Ervast's study-school in Finland, whose members have worked to preserve his insights into his culture's past and the spiritual evolution of humanity. We also have the good fortune of being able to use Eino Friberg's beautiful translation of Kalevala (1988) into the modern American idiom. The combined work of Ervast and Friberg results in a unique, insightful, and aesthetically pleasing offering.

Louhi's plan to steal the sun and the moon backfires when the gods learn of her mischievous scheme.

Since its initial publication in the early nineteenth century, Elias Lonnrot’s Finnish epic Kalevala has attracted international interest and scholarship. However, the author comments that the distorting lenses of translation, cultural difference and historical distance, have rendered the work a cryptic and often misinterpreted text outside of its country of origin. Even within Finland, scholars have found it difficult at times to judge the relation of the Kalevala to its oral sources. Lonnrot’s meticulous notes and discussions of intent and accomplishment make clear what he changed and how he went about it, but give us less inkling of why. This study's view is that the key to understanding Lonnrot’s changes lies in Romantic aesthetics and in the intellectual and socio-political agendas which they encode. Lonnrot created a Romantic epic out of Baltic-Finnic folk poetry, an epic complete with the narrative, generic, gendered and political characteristics of literary epics in nineteenth century’ Europe.

This book explores J. R. R. Tolkien’s unique and warm relationship to the Kalevala, a poem usually hailed as the Finnish and Karelian national epic, compiled, edited and partly revisioned from older folk poetry by Finnish scholar Elias Lönnrot in the 19th century. J. R. R. Tolkien, an Oxford academic and the greatest author of the 20th-century fantasy, creator of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, was fascinated from early on by the Kalevala. Tolkien himself described the Kalevala as “a germ” of his fantasy fiction.