On the Kalevala and Tolkien

By Bjarke Friborg

Translated from Danish by Martin Hardgrave

From Athelas in English 1994. Copyright Imladris - Danmarks Tolkienforening

During a six month stay at Snoghøj Scandinavian High School I became intensely fascinated by Finland, and when I had the opportunity to work there one summer I jumped at the chance. I had previously seen a performance (re-interpreted for children) of the Finnish mythology, but I now had the opportunity to read it in its etirity together with a stay in the country where it was born. It was a great experience! The Kalevala, as it is called, is to some extent a good work in its own right, and to some extent both the language and the mythology had an influence on Tolkien, and I wish to draw other people's attention to this exciting area. It is my impression that Finland is often regarded as another Nordic country like Denmark, Norway and Sweden, but the truth is that it shares a different cultural tradition, and it has its own unique mythology, which demands a closer examination. It is no coincidence that Tolkien was so inspired, or that the fledgeling Finnish Tolkien Society has experienced a flood of members!

The credit for the writing down of the Kalevala goes to the Swedish-speaking Finnish doctor Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884). Like the rest of Europe, Finland was in the grip of national romanticism, and collectors of oral history swarmed through the country districts to write down and preserve the old stories for posterity. Two points should be made here: the Finns had been under Swedish occupation for 600 years, and only when they came under Russian control in 1809 was Finnish made the official language, and to loosen their ties to Sweden they were allowed to enjoy their own culture for a while! Researching their cultural roots thus became a part of the reconstruc-tion of their national self-respect, and the fact that the mythology had never beofre been put down on paper made the project even more exciting. For maybe two thousand years the oral tradition had flourished and developed in the Baltic, but in more modern times one forgot the old habits. Lönnrot wandered about in Karelia on the border between Finland and Russia, of whose natural beauty the legends often boast (many lakes etc.). Through his medical background he won the inhabitants' respect, and he collected a substantial number of stories. In 1835 the first edition was published, and the final version came out in 1849 and was twice as large as the previous. Initially it was greeted with some scepticism, but after attracting attention and praise abroad it rapidly achieved great popularity, as did the illustrations of the painter Akseli Gallen-Kalelas. The nicest thing is that the Kalevala is well structured in itself Lönnrot edited only slightly (maybe 5%).

The Finnish language is handicapped by the preconception that it is boring, long-winded and difficult, some even saying ugly. Certainly it is very different, not being an Indo-European language but belonging to the Finno-Ugric group of languages (comprising Finnish and Hungarian). The Danish philologist Rasmus Rask (1787-1832) once praised it highly: "The Finnish language is the most natural, regular, easily formed and sonorous language on Earth. It possesses the most marvellous harmony between consonants and vowels, resembling Italian in that respect. It has none of the unpleasant hisses or harsh sounds that one finds in the Lapp and Slavic languages. It possesses a definite tone, like French. It has more forms and fewer inflectional endings and irregularities than Latin, that is to say a greater number of advantages and fewer imperfections. It has an inexhaustible wealth of word branches and collocations, like Greek and German. It seems to have sought out and united the best of all the other European languages. But as nothing is perfect, Finnish lacks what are possibly the most important ingredients: widespread use in books, close ties to neighbouring languages and the honour of being spoken in a fine Palace". Tolkien was fascinated by the language: "It was like discovering a wine-cellar filled with bottles of amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me". He immediately abandoned neo-Gotic as the basis for Elvish and developed a new language which was strongly influenced by Finnish "fundamental and remarkable" said Humphrey Carpenter in his biography of Tolkien. An attraction of Finnish is that genders are on an equal footing, in contrast to Japanese and German, for example, which are decidedly masculine languages. This equality is also found in the mythology. One often finds men's and women's different experiences equally represented (one is even given the point of view of a beech tree!). Mothers are always important persons, giving sound advice or saving their sons from death; and note that the original divinity is the goddess of the air (Ilmatar), who had children from the foaming sea. Later Heaven is taken over by Jumala, a male divinity. It is seemingly characteristic of the oldest religions that the air is connected with feminity, whilst more recent religions testify to the change to masculine power, as is the case now. The Finnish mythology came into being during this transfer and has continued in that form. Note that Finland was the first European land to grant suffrage to women (1906).

The content of the mythology is reminiscent of others, but is characteristic in several ways. It is far more cohesive than for example the Edda, which is attributed to the rather late transfer to the written form. In fact the religion survived up to the 15th century, when the Christian missionaries did something unusual they actually talked to the Finns, and didn't just forcibly convert them. I don't know the explanation, but I imagine that they found elements which they thought were to the good. Maybe it was because Sweden and Finland were such close neighbours? In any case it survived the other European religions, and a Finn told me that there are still places in the most inaccessible forests in the North where they don't quite follow the old religion, but where they remember certain names and places...! Another explanation could be that the mythology is not so much a "package deal" with exactly defined gods as it is a way of thought and life in concert with nature. There are many vivid descriptions of nature, and as has been said, one gets to see a beech tree's point of view. The gods are not outstanding personalities; they are rather animated nature which has not wholly left their source. Here also the Kalevala hints at originality, cf. the strong female element. In return there are four main characters whom one comes to know very well. In Tolkien's words (from the biography): "This strange people and these new gods, this race of unhypocritical low-brow scandalous heroes. The more I read of it, the more I felt at home and enjoyed myself! These mythological ballads are full of that very primitive undergrowth that the literature of Europe has on the whole been steadily cutting and reducing for many centuries with different and earlier completeness among different people. I would that we had more of it left something of the same sort that belonged to the English". Maybe he was already thinking in his early university years of inventing such a mythology and dedicating it to his country?

The Kalevala isn't geographically defined, but it appears to be the Southern part of Finland, the land of heroes. Beyond this stands Pohjola (the North), the land of witches. For Tolkien good and evil were clearly seperated, but reality for the Finns was less clear-cut. For them the North is a matriarchy and the South a patriarchy. Pohjola is also the name of the Witch who rules the North. She is portrayed both as a monster and as a concerned, loving mother. Her daughter is so, so fair, and all the men in the Kalevala try to reach her, but fail for various reasons. As all has gone wrong for the Four Great Ones, they steal Sampo, which is a sort of eternal mill (giver of fertility). In the turmoil that is aroused Sampo is hidden and the Witch hides the Sun and Moon, while the old gods and men are powerless. It is then that the influence of Christianity is felt in a very special way the story of the Christ child is retold in Finnish cercumstances! Marjatta is a shepherdess who eats an enchanted cow-berry, which makes her pregnant. In fact, the berry jumpedin her mouth itself, but her mother quite naturally refuses to believe it, and shuns her daughter. She is not permitted to borrow anyone's sauna (!), and has to give birth in the wild. She asks wise, old Väynämöinen to acknowledge the newborn, but he refuses. Marjatta becomes very angry, and gives him an earful: "You are just an obdurate old man. Take your kantela (Finnish stringed instrument) and go" (freely translated). He thus sails away, but forsees that he will return home when he is needed... (the rest of the tale was read out on Danish TV one Christmas Eve, let it be an appeal to families, this story is adjusted the Nordic world, and an introduction to the fascinating Finland).

The Four Great Ones are four men who are well suited to the Finnish mentality. The relationship between them is reciprocal: what one of them isn't or doesn't experience, the others are or experience:

Väynämöinen is the bringer of culture; the first and oldest person, all-wise, and who gave music and minstrelsy to the Finns. He is tough and dogged, sad and melancholic (a Nordic archetype?), and immortal. In return he is im-potent: when a young woman is promised to him she commits suicide, and he of course cannot obtain Pohjola's daughter. His opposite is Lemminkäinen, warrior and bachelor, who charms all the ladies. He dies, though, during the tasks he is set by the Witch's daughter! His mother resurrects him later. Ilma-rinen, on the other hand, is the middle-aged sky-smith, who, to complete his apprenticeship, had to finish the vault of the sky: look for yourself he left no mark to be seen! It is also he who makes Sampo! He symbolizes the Fin-nish work ethic, he is honest, peaceful, and manly, and after waiting for many years he manges to marry Pohjola's daughter! The wedding is the culmina-tion of the story: here are met man and woman, Pohjola and Kalevala. Happiness is short-lived though, as the shepherd boy Kullervo kills Pohjola's daughter after she humiliates him. Kullervo represents the dark, strident and wild. He unwittingly commits incest with his sister, and on discovering it commits suicide in bitterness and despair. That theme was picked up by Tolkien, who adapted the tragedy of Kullervo in the story of Túrin.

Tolkien's adaptation has exactly the same turn of events. Both Túrin and Kullervo are taken from their parents when small, and are raised somewhere else, where they are disdained. They leave after killing their tormentors. After that everything goes wrong for them (Kullervo finds his family again but his clumsiness ruins everything, and Túring kills his best friend in an accident). They are encumbered with ominous names (like Son of Misfortune, and the Blood-stained). The mothers are faithful supporters, but die. The sisters are lead away (in the Finnish forests, or by dragon magic), and brother and sister meet unawares and commit incest. She drowns herself, and he commits suicide with his sword. He asks his sword about the deed, and it answers that it has killed innocents before, and it would gladly tase guilty blood! In spite of the remarkable similarities in the construction of the tales, there remain several interesting differences: Túrin is a noble hero, armed with a magic sword and Kullervo is a neglected boy who only has his father's old knife (which Pohjola's daughter destroys). Túrin becomes a warrior-lord and mixes with princes and elves, wheras Kullervo becomes a shepherd and mixes with peasants. Túrin is up against the curse of an evil dragon and deliberate scheming, whilst Kullervo strives against the natural turn of events and his own bitterness and strenght. This contrasts the simple Finnish peasant community with the highly developed, mediæval Middle-earth. Maybe Tolkien's conservative tendencies are shown here: even though the hobbits are not exactly hero-types from the start, they become more aristocratic/cultivated later on. Such a development is not found for the Finnish characters. Moreover, Tolkien's Christian standpoint shines through: the complicated struggle between good and evil, wheras the Kalevala contains a more original, down-to-earth struggle, where challenges are found in nature and inside oneself, even though it is very much a fantastic world. After all, Tolkien composed out of desire, the Finns out of need: the poetry gave them abundance when they had to whet their appetites on bark-bread, pearls when reality consisted of stone, and a golden container when they scarcely owned a tin bucket. In addition everyone gathered round when the minstrels performed the old verses it created solidarity, and the verses contain many educational elements: even recipes (for mead) can be found in these myths.

The Kalevala is thus a really exciting work, which should be read by all at the first opportunity, and which will captivate you. It is no wonder that Tolkien was so impressed and that he took inspiration from it. Are the silmarils a parallel to Sampo, I wonder? Many parallels can be found, and also with other mythologies, and if anyone has any comments about this introduction to the Finnish national epic they should write to Athelas .