The Kanteletar

by Elias Lönnrot, Keith Bosley (Translator)

This is the first appearance in English of The Kanteletar (1840-1), the companion volume to the Finnish national epic poem The Kalevala.

Based on Finnish oral tradition, The Kanteletar (roughly "zither-daughter", a kind of muse) is a selection from a treasury of nearly seven hundred lyrics and ballads that celebrate the everyday life of a rural society at work and play. The ballads range from a beautiful sequence of legends about the Virgin Mary, through the grim tales of Elina, to a hilarious account of a dragon that refuses to devour its victims.

Genres: Poetry, Mythology, Classics, Finnish Literature, Folklore

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1840

About the author

Elias Lönnrot was a Finnish philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for composing the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic compiled from national folklore.

Lönnrot was born in Sammatti, in the province of Uusimaa in Finland. He studied medicine at the Academy of Turku. To his misfortune the year he joined was the year of the Great Fire of Turku, burning down half the town – and the University. Lönnrot (and many of the rest of the University) moved to Helsinki, where he graduated in 1832.

He got a job as district doctor of Kajaani in Northern Finland during a time of famine in the district. The famine had prompted the previous doctor to resign, making it possible for a very young doctor to get such a position. Several consecutive years of crop failure resulted in enormous losses of population and livestock; Lönnrot wrote letters to the State departments, asking for food, not medicines. He was the sole doctor for the 4,000 or so people of his district, at a time where doctors were rare and very expensive, and where people did not buy medicines from equally rare and expensive pharmacies, but rather trusted to their village healers and locally available remedies.

His true passion lay in his native Finnish language. He began writing about the early Finnish language in 1827 and began collecting folk tales from the rural people about that time.

Lönnrot went on extended leaves of absence from his doctor's office; he toured the countryside of Finland, Sapmi (Lapland), and nearby portions of Russian Karelia to support his collecting efforts. This led to a series of books: Kantele, 1829–1831 (the kantele is a Finnish traditional instrument); Kalevala, 1835–1836 (possibly Land of Heroes; better known as the "old" Kalevala); Kanteletar, 1840 (the Kantele Maiden); Sananlaskuja, 1842 (Proverbs); an expanded second edition of Kalevala, 1849 (the "new" Kalevala); and Finsk-Svenskt lexikon, 1866–1880 (Finnish-Swedish Dictionary).

Lönnrot was recognised for his part in preserving Finland's oral traditions by appointment to the Chair of Finnish Literature at the University of Helsinki. He died on March 19, 1884 in Sammatti, in the province of Uusimaa.

Reviews

[Stephanie Ricker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently finished The Kanteletar, which is a collection of Finnish folk songs and poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot, the same fellow who compiled Finland’s epic, The Kalevala. The works vary widely in age, as many of the poems have been passed down in folklore for hundreds of years, but Elias compiled them in the 1800s. I’m a big fan of Finnish poetry and mythology, but I get the feeling not a lot of other folks are these days, outside of Finland; getting my hands on a copy of The Kanteletar took some work. Most Finnish poetry is written in trochaic tetrameter, which is the same foot used in Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha,” and the effect is hypnotic, especially in longer works like the The Kalevala. Kanteletar means (more or less) “zither-daughter,” a sort of muse. Some of the poems are beautiful, some are just bizarre outside of context, and they’re all intriguing.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm sure lots of other people share my fascination with Finnish poetry. Where are they?

[Katrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kirjalle antoisin heti viisi tähteä. Siis Lönnrotin tekstille. Tämä kirja kuitenkin oli ulkoasun puolesta heikko, löysin monta virheitäkin. Sen takia vaan neljä tähteä. Oli se myös aika vaikea ymmärtää, mutta se on ihan vaan minusta kiinni. Tämä on loistava teos ja iloitsin kun löysin Amorphiksen sanoitukset sieltä. Oli myös hienoa, kun puhutiin Mielikkistä ja muista Suomen jumaloista. Tuli myös hyvin esille, että kristillinen usko oli tullut maahan, mutta vanhat tavat vieläkin elävät sen kanssa rinnakkain. Suomen karu luonne tulee selvästi ilmeen, Suomen tuska ja kuolemantoive, mutta löytyyhän sieltä toivoakin..

[Eve Lumerto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for Kalevala aftershock.