The Kalevala

The Kalevala is the epic poem of Finland. Although its stories go back thousands of years, the poem was only compiled in the mid-1800s by Elias Lönnrot. Because we all want to know where we come from (and it is even better if it is from someplace magical), the Kalevala begins with a creation myth: in Canto 1, ‘In the Beginning’, after inviting the singers to begin, we are introduced to the first man, Väinämöinen, who comes into existence in an unusual way, as does the earth (created from pieces of a duck egg). The Kalevala follows our long-named hero as he roams the newly-formed world to find a wife. After much difficulty, he marries the beautiful Ilmarinen, but it is never so easy as that because he has a rival: Lemminkäinen, an unpleasant jerk, is also interested in Ilmarinen (but only after he dies and is brought back to life by his mother), and trouble naturally follows. There are some elements here which are recognisable from other creation stories, like the Metamorphoses, where humans are punished in spectacular ways: here, a woman, who displeases the powerful, arrogant and impatient Lemminkäinen, is turned into a bird. Beyond dealing in the human conflicts, the Kalevala explains how the Earth came to be and how it was populated by animals and covered in vegetation. Often these natural occurrences come about by virtue of magic or by accident, and the ways in which the ancient Finns explained how the world came into existence is no more fantastical or likely than the Christian version of events, or the ancient Greeks’. The unabridged reading of this poem is very long – just over thirteen hours – and would be difficult to follow in audiobook form were it not for the frequent, poetic repetition of phrases or identifiers (‘steady old Väinämöinen’, ‘He said with this word / he spoke with this speech’), and for the majestic and enthusiastic reading of Keith Bosley, who both translates the Kalevala and reads it for us. He sounds dignified and stentorian, with a melodious English accent, but his excitement about the poem is palpable in his reading, and draws the listener in.

Joanna Theiss, Sound Commentary