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 Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 6:56 pm
Morgandria ncsweet I can understand her calling on him, what I thought was strange was that it went on and on about how alone she was (which gave them impression that there wast any other beings around), but then suddenly there's this other God (who was there all the time). I think it's a particular flaw of these sorts of sagas, recorded by observers and then reconstituted, in that the native storytellers and their audiences understood things in a way that they didn't feel needed to be said or explained to an observer. I think to them it would have been obvious who and what and where their Gods were, and so elaboration wasn't nescessary in their stories. The person writing this all down, and making it into an epic poem, can't include information that he himself wasn't aware of, and didn't have told to him. Yeah, similar things seem to be happening in Rune II. It starts out talking about how Wainamoinen wanders the land all alone for a while but he gets lonely and suddenly there are more people and spirits. Still a good read though. I'm quite enjoying it.
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 7:31 pm
Gods, this preface never ends!
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Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 11:56 pm
Sanguina Cruenta Gods, this preface never ends! Morgandria I think it's a particular flaw of these sorts of sagas, recorded by observers and then reconstituted, in that the native storytellers and their audiences understood things in a way that they didn't feel needed to be said or explained to an observer. I think to them it would have been obvious who and what and where their Gods were, and so elaboration wasn't nescessary in their stories. The person writing this all down, and making it into an epic poem, can't include information that he himself wasn't aware of, and didn't have told to him. That makes sense. CalledTheRaven Yeah, similar things seem to be happening in Rune II. It starts out talking about how Wainamoinen wanders the land all alone for a while but he gets lonely and suddenly there are more people and spirits. I noticed that too. Quote: Still a good read though. I'm quite enjoying it. Definitely very interesting, and lovely to read (once one gets past the preface xd )
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Posted: Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:01 am
I do like the trochaic quatrameter.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 2:58 am
Okay question.
Reading Rune II, need to clarify a couple of things that turn up in the first stanza.
Now this guy Pellerwoinen, I'm assuming he's someone who existed at the same time as Wainamoinen, son of the land like Wainamoinen is son of the sea? Is that right? I was trying to work out where this guy came from, whether Wainamoinen knew about him somehow or met him living on the land he came to or what.
And is Pellerwoinen the same person as Sampsa? Is Sampsa a childhood nickname?
Also interesting: the oak tree being the tree of heaven, birch tree being sacred, cuckoo being sacred.
Bonus points to the translator, fitting "soliloquizing" into his metre. I bet he bragged about that one for ages.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 7:27 am
I was also a little confused about that. As with Rune I and his mother, they were just talking about him being alone and then POW another guy!
I do think that Samsa is just Pellerwoinen's childhood nickname though.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 7:56 am
Thoughts on the preface: Quote: The skull of the Finn belongs to the brachycephalic (short-headed) class of Retzius. Indeed the Finn-organization has generally been regarded as Mongol, though Mongol of a modified type. His color is swarthy, and his eyes are gray. He is not inhospitable, but not over-easy of access; nor is he a friend of new fashions. Steady, careful, laborious, he is valuable in the mine, valuable in the field, valuable oil shipboard, and, withal, a brave soldier on land. Oh gods, no. Skull measurement. Anthropology at it's lowest and most racist, folks. Apparently, all the Finns and Mongols are good for is working in mines and doing hard physical labor. gonk Quote: In the earliest age of Suomi, it appears that the people worshiped the conspicuous objects in nature under their respective, sensible forms. All beings were persons. The Sun, Moon, Stars, the Earth, the Air, and the Sea, were to the ancient Finns, living, self-conscious beings. Gradually the existence of invisible agencies and energies was recognized, and these were attributed to superior persons who lived independent of these visible entities, but at the same time were connected with them. This is actually a pretty good description of how the gods are both embodied in their respective domains but at the same time exists outside them. For a 19th Century writer coming from a Christian standpoint, that's a pretty good thing to recognize, even though he does do the typical "Sun, Moon, Stars, Earth, Air, Sea" thing instead of focusing on the other, less material traits of the gods. Quote: These deities are invariably described as gracious and tender-hearted, probably because they are all females with the exception of Tapio and his son, Nyrikki, a tall and stately youth who is engaged in building bridges over marshes and forest-streams, through which the herds must pass on their way to the woodland-pastures. Nyrikki also busies himself in blazing the rocks and the trees to guide the heroes to their favorite hunting-grounds. Sima-suu (honey-mouth), one of the tiny daughters of Tapio, by playing on her Sima-pilli (honey-flute), also acts as guide to the deserving hunters. It's interesting that the children of Tapio are both liminal and pastoral gods who bridge the worlds of the wild forest and the human world. Nyrikki literally builds bridges as well as blazes the trees, and Sima-suu leads them home with music. I'm interested in hearing more about these deities, given that these sort of deities are usually important to my life. I might learn something. Quote: This important office is also filled by a hideous old deity named Mammelainen, whom Renwall, the Finnish lexicographer, describes as "femina maligna, matrix serpentis, divitiarum subterranearum custos," a malignant woman, the mother of the snake, and the guardian of subterranean treasures. From this conception it is evident that the idea of a kinship between serpents and hidden treasures frequently met with in the myths of the Hungarians, Germans, and Slavs, is not foreign to the Finns. This is actually much more widespread than the author believes. Serpents are connected with wealth and rivers in many places... Within my own tradition I know that there are depictions of Jupiter fighting serpents at rivers in Celtic Spain and that Cernunnos, if you accept that he has cthonic aspects, is connected to wealth (torcs), rivers (he appears on the Nautes Pillar, dedicated by sailors), and is sometimes depicted with a ram-headed serpent. The translator has more about serpents hoarding wealth further down in the preface, but I could write a lot more about that than will fit in a forum post.... Quote: Whenever one of the heroes of the Kalevala wishes to overcome the aggressive power of an evil force, as a wound, a disease, a ferocious beast, or a venomous serpent, he achieves his purpose by chanting the origin of the inimical force. The thought underlying this idea evidently is that all evil could be obviated had we but the knowledge of whence and how it came. Last comment on the preface, just to say that this is a really interesting idea. It's definitely the same idea I've always used when encountering something that frightened me as a kid: learn about it and where it comes from, and the fear disappears. On to the proem now... Primary Epic FTW!
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 8:17 am
You seriously read all the preface just now? I kept wanting to shoot myself so it took me like two weeks xd
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 8:39 am
Sanguina Cruenta You seriously read all the preface just now? I kept wanting to shoot myself so it took me like two weeks xd I just took a class on epic last semester where we read The Odyssey, the Aeneid, the Metamorphoses, Gilgamesh, the Iliad, Paradise Lost, and a slew of other things in a very, very short period of time... I learned to read this sort of material really quickly. Comments on the proem: In most epics the proem serves as an "invocation of the muses", sort of to invoke the power from which the speaker gains their ability to speak... Because the speaker in primary epic (that is, oral epic) is not an author but rather a conduit for a higher power, this is usually a divine force. Interestingly, the proem of the Kalevala invokes not muses or gods but the land itself and its people, indicating that the power of this epic comes from history and a sense of place. This makes the speaker a representative of the entire nation of the Finns and not just an isolated hero. I also thought the passage about taking hands with a brother was interesting. Could this brother be the audience? If this is the case, then does the invitation to join hands with the narrator make the audience an active participant in the epic? This is really great storytelling, right from the get-go.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 8:51 am
Alrenn Sanguina Cruenta You seriously read all the preface just now? I kept wanting to shoot myself so it took me like two weeks xd I just took a class on epic last semester where we read The Odyssey, the Aeneid, the Metamorphoses, Gilgamesh, the Iliad, Paradise Lost, and a slew of other things in a very, very short period of time... I learned to read this sort of material really quickly. Yes but those things are all interesting. Prefaces are BORING. xd
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 9:01 am
Sanguina Cruenta Alrenn Sanguina Cruenta You seriously read all the preface just now? I kept wanting to shoot myself so it took me like two weeks xd I just took a class on epic last semester where we read The Odyssey, the Aeneid, the Metamorphoses, Gilgamesh, the Iliad, Paradise Lost, and a slew of other things in a very, very short period of time... I learned to read this sort of material really quickly. Yes but those things are all interesting. Prefaces are BORING. xd I guess that's why my friends and family tell me I'll be a professor one day. I like prefaces. lol
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 12:03 pm
Okay, I'm back with Runes I and II. These are going to be more rambling and less well thought out than my posts on the preface and proem, simply because I don't know much about the Finnish worldview or pantheon. So I'm going to ask a bunch of questions and write whatever pops into my head. Notes on Rune I: Like most great mythological cycles, the Kalevala starts with the very beginning - the creation of the world. I like how it is only through the meeting of water and sky (with Ilmatar the water-mother and the duck coming down from the heavens) that the earth can be created with the aid of the fire in Ilmatar's limbs. That's a pretty complete cosmos. Also, golden eggs = solar symbols? Also, I like that Wainamoinen does not enter the world through the actions of the gods but rather through his own actions. That makes him a very likeable hero, even though he is currently just emerging from the womb (I assume that is what the prison is). Notes on Rune II: The earth is first sown by a youth -- fertility, promise of next generation, maybe? The name change fits right into the genre and reminds me of how in Irish epic Cúchulainn's childhood name was Setanta. I wonder what the etymology of Pellerwoinen and Sampsa is. In any case, the creation of cosmos is almost complete. It just needs a tree to link the heavens with the earth -- oak, of course, a tree associated with sky, solar, and storm gods in many other traditions (Jupiter, Zeus, Llew... I don't know enough about Scandinavian traditions to draw more parallels). Do the Finns have a conception of a World Tree? Interesting that Wainamoinen must trim the great oak in order for life to thrive beneath it. Also, it is interesting that he can only do this with the power of the oceans. The falling of the tree also serves to create the cosmos, as its various pieces establish the four directions. The fire in the center of the oak fits in with some UPG that I had a while back working on a general IE cosmology, although I don't think that the Kalevala comes from an IE tradition. I really like how this Rune deals with the transition from wild forest and a human life governed by external forces to a clearing of the land and the establishment of agriculture and human dominance over the landscape. My inner anthropologist is fascinated. Quote: Ancient mother, thou that livest Far below the earth and ocean, Mother of the fields and forests, Bring the rich soil to producing, Bring the seed-grains to the sprouting, That the barley well may flourish. This is a great prayer. Even though it's from a totally different tradition than mine, I think I will write this one down and keep it for possible future use. This whole speech of Wainamoinen contains lots of great invocations of the Earth and Ukko who controls the rain and weather that could be adapted for use in any agricultural society.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 12:07 pm
I wouldn't say "trim it". I would say "cut the damn thing down".
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 12:19 pm
Sanguina Cruenta I wouldn't say "trim it". I would say "cut the damn thing down". I wrote these as I read. I wrote the trim part before the "cutting the damn thing down" part. XD I never edited it out. Oops.
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Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2011 6:13 pm
Random comment - if you google "Kalevala Book Discussion" - this thread is the number 1 result. xd
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