Wastrel’s Reviews > The Kalevala > Status Update

The mother put that in words
that's what she said to her child
but the dauhter did not heed
did not hear the mother's words:
she went weeping into the yard
pining into the farmyard.
She says with this word
she spoke with this speech:

'How do the lucky ones feel
and how do the blessed think?
This is how the lucky feel
how the blessed think -
like water stirring
or a ripple on a trough.
But how do the luckless feel
and how do the calloos think?
This is how the luckless feel
how the calloos think -
like hard snow under a ridge
like water in a deep well.

Often in my gloom
now, often, a gloomy child
my mood is to tread dead grass
and through undergrowth to crawl
on turf to loiter
in a bush to roll about
my mood no better than tar
my heart no whiter than coal.
Better it would have been for me
and better it would have been
had I not been born, not grown
not sprung to full size
in these evil days
in this joyless world.
Had a died a six-night old
and been lost an eight-night old
I would not have needed much -
a span of linen
a tiny field edge
a few tears from my mother
still fewer from my father
not even a few from my brother

...

In my heart there is a hurt
in my head there is an ache
but the hurt would not hurt more
and the ache would not more ache
if I, hapless, were to die
were cut off, mean one
from these great sorrows
from these low spirits.
Now would be the time for me
to part from this world -
the time to go to death, the
age to come to Tuonela:
father would not weep for me
mother would not take it ill
sister's face would not be wet
brother's eyes would not shed tears
though I rolled in the water
fell into the fishy sea
down below the deep billows
upon the black mud.

The mother started weeping
and a stream of tears rolling
and then she began to say
the woebegone to complain:
'Don't, luckless mothers
ever in this world
don't lull your daughters
or rock your children
to marry against their will
as I, a luckless mother
have lulled my daughters
reared my little hens.'

The mother wept, a tear rolled
her plentiful waters rolled
out of her blue eyes
to her luckless cheeks

[...]

The water reaching the ground
began to form a river
and three rivers grew
from the tears she wept
that came from her head
that went from beneath her brow
In each river grew three fiery rapids;
on each rapid's foam
three crags sprouted up
and on each crag's edge
a golden knoll rose
and on each knoll's peak
there grew three birches;
in each birch's top
there were three golden cuckoos.

The cuckoos started calling:
the first called love, love!
the second bridegroom, bridegroom!
and the third joy, joy!
That which called out love, love!
called out for three months
to the loveless girl
lying in the sea;
that which called bridegroom, bridegroom!
called out for six months
to the comfortless bridegroom
sitting and longing;
that which called out joy, joy!
called out for all her lifetime
to the mother without joy
weeping all her days.

The mother put this in words
listening to the cuckoo:
'Let a luckless mother no
listen long to the cuckoo!
When the cuckoo is calling
my heart is throbbing
tears come to my eyes
waters down my cheeks
flow thicker than peas
and fatter than beans:
by an ell my life passes
by a span my body grows old
my whole body is blighted
when I hear the spring cuckoo.'

At first glance, it's tempting to think that this feels very modern - a female perspective on the injustice of arranged marriage, centering female grief (despite the fact that the man is the more important character in the epic as a whole).

But, of course, it isn't. Because this isn't modern, but it's also not ancient: this story was written in the 1840s, pieced together from (often unrelated) fragments of oral literature.

And Victorians - even Finnish Victorians - had no problem acknowledging female suffering and injustice. Indeed, it was one of the primary drivers of their culture, and it's repeatedly placed at the centre of so, so many stories from that era.

But the editor mentions in passing that Lonrot chose between (at least) two different versions of a story in which a young woman out away from home encountered a sleazy older man who complemented her on her clothing, resulting in her coming home crying to her mother.

The story we get is the one he preferred - a story of female tragedy and victimisation.

In the OTHER story, the young woman stabs the rude man to death with her knife, and then runs home crying to her mother... who reassures her, no, that's OK, the guy was a sleazy fuckhead who was totally asking for it, he's been going around sleazing on all the young women, well done for getting rid of everybody's problem, girl!

THAT'S what was considered inappropriate by Victorians. That's what you couldn't publish in the 19th century. Women suffering the cruelties and evil of men (the inferior and bestial sex) in noble, uplifting, tragic silence - that was fine, that was great, that was everywhere. Women actually doing something about it ('lowering themselves to the level of men', as they'd have put it then) was gross and improper in decent literature...

[the version of sexism where women had 'nothing to complain about' and it was wrong to suggest otherwise was a much later development]