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Updated: May 5, 2025
'When the beer was ready, all the heroes of Kalevala came to drink it, and Lemminkainen drank so much that he became intoxicated. But Osmotar, now that she had made the beer, did not know how to keep it, for it was still running out of the tubs and over everything.
The Finnish epic, 'Kalevala, tells how Ilmarinen the Smith 'forged an eagle of fire, with 'boat's walls between the wings, after which he 'sat down on the bird's back and bones, and flew.
They are as much children of nature as the Lucy of Wordsworth's poetry. It might be said of them as the poet of the Kalevala sang of himself: "Winds and waters my instructors." These were O'Grady's own earliest companions, and no man can find better comrades than earth, water, air and sun.
The 'Kalevala' contains an instance of this practice, where it is said that no one was so hardy as to clasp hands with Wainamoinen, who is at once the Orpheus and the Prometheus of Finnish mythology. These Runoias, or rhapsodists, complain, of course, of the degeneracy of human memory; they notice how any foreign influence, in religion or politics, is destructive to the native songs of a race.
Perhaps an Algonquin brave would scorn the assistance of a girl. In the 'Kalevala, the old hero, Wainamoinen, and his friend Ilmarinen, set off to the mysterious and hostile land of Pohjola to win a bride.
And he dragged all the waters in the lands of Lapland and of Kalevala, and caught fish of every sort, only Aino, now the water-maiden, never came into his net. 'Fool that I am, he said at length, 'surely I was once wise, had at least a bit of wisdom, but now all my power has left me.
In distant Karjala, a part of Kalevala, was a great ox, the largest in the world. It took a weasel seven days to travel round his neck and shoulders; the swallow had to fly a whole day without resting, to get from one horn-tip to the other; the squirrel travelled thirty days, starting from the tail, before he reached the shoulders.
Yet it cherishes the hope that this tyranny shall pass over: 'they are gods, and behold they shall die, and the waves be upon them at last. As the 'Kalevala, and as all relics of folklore, all Marchen and ballads prove, the lower mythology the elemental beliefs of the people do survive beneath a thin covering of Christian conformity.
The subject of these courses was in general the "Study of Literature," treating in different years of different special topics, from the literature of Northern to that of Southern Europe, from the Kalevala and the Niebelungen Lied to the Provençal poets; from Wolfram von Eschenbach to Rousseau; from the cycle of romances of Charlemagne and his peers to Dante and Shakespeare.
Wainamoinen replied: 'It is indeed folly that has brought me into this trouble. I was happy enough at home before I went on this expedition. Then Louhi asked him to tell her who he was of all the great heroes. Wainamoinen replied: 'Formerly I was honoured as a great singer and magician: I was called the "Singer of Kalevala," the wise Wainamoinen.
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