by Honi A.

Created on: November 24, 2009

In 1894, Elias Lonnrot, a humble country doctor from Finland, printed the conclusive text of Kalevala; it was the product of a work carried on over a few decades, during which Lonnrot took numerous trips to Karelia to find new ballades, lyric songs and incantations of the population from that region.

Around the middle of the first millennium, after they separated by their Hungarian relatives, the Finnish people started their migration to North. At the beginning of the Christian era, they settle in Karelia and populate the territory where they live until these days by pushing the Lapps further to North. The vikings who lived in the South of Finland tried to impose their reign through the rest of the country also. This domination lasted until 1809, when the Swedish influence is replaced by the Russian one. After 1815, as a reaction to the progressive Russification of Finland, comes to life a national movement, extremely animated, which, for the first time, was interested in the popular lyrics. So, next to the citadin culture with Latin and Swedish origins, there was now, in the rustic side a popular one, developed far away from any outside influences.

Kalevala is the product of this popular and oral literature, but unlike the "Edda" or the "Song of the Nibelungs", which were composed by professional singers on bases of legends or ballads, the songs from "Kalevala" are the work of simple people, who sang them from generation to generation on every festivity they had.

The characters of the epos, Vainamoinen, the Magus poet, Ilmarinen, the blacksmith, Lemminkainen, the Finish Don Juan and others are engaged in numerous adventures and feelings throughout the confrontation between Kalevala, the land of Kalev and Pohjola, the great North, the land of the witches. Here, in the gloomy North, lives a beautiful girl which will marry only the one that will know how to make a Sampo, an enchanted mill that will ensure prosperity to those who own it. The mistress of Pohjola, Louhi, obliges Vainamoinen to send Ilmarinen to her, to make the enchanted mill. After long and hard work, Ilmarinen manages to create the mill and to obtain the hand of the girl from Pohjola.

With this union, everyone expected peace between the two lands, but the silence is only of surface because the main theme of the epic is the war between the heroes of Kalevala and Louhi and her allies. Once finished, Sampo is hidden in a cave sealed with nine locks. Because the people of Kalevala felt aggrieved they go to Pohjola to demand half of the goods came from the mill. Louhi gathers her army, but they are all put to sleep by Vainamoinen and his enchanted songs. Taking advantage of this situation, the heroes of Kalevala break into the cave and take the Sampo to a ship, to be taken back to their country.

Before they get home Louhi wakes up and with her army follows the heroes, taking the aspect of an eagle. The battle starts on the sea and in the confrontation the mill falls into the water and breaks forever. But Vainamoinen gathers the remaining pieces, which bring prosperity to Kalevala. Louhi comes up with all this revenge plans and she manages to steal the Sun and the Moon, and so begins the fight for the light. Vainamoinen and Ilmarinen manage to bring them back to their people and so end all the fights between the two lands.

In the end, appears the Christian element, when is mentioned that the son of Marjatta is conceived when his mother ate some blue berries and when is born is crowned to be the king of the whole Karelia.

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