Week 13 Essay: Song Significance in Finnish Lore

I think this is the first time I’ve ever opted for the essay option instead of the extra reading, so yay!

Finnish mythology places a heavy emphasis on songs and singing. The entirety of the Kalevala in the form we can read it in today was actually a scattered collection of stories collected and compiled by Elias Loennrot. Traveling all over Finland in the early 1800’s, Loennrot gathered the bits and pieces of Finland’s famous oral epic through monograph, which he used to record the songs from the voices of singers who upheld the tradition of reciting the ancient verses. Though there were many variations of the stories in dialect and verse, all kept with the same metre and style. While the stories may have changed over time, the songs themselves remained true in melody and metre even over great distances between singers.

Poem-singing brothers Poavalia and Triihvo Jamanen reciting the Kalevala

Image: I.K. Inha

The Kalevala is unique not only because of the stories it carries, but also because of the style and metre in which it is traditionally sung. A type of trochaic tetrametre in where a long, unstressed syllable is followed by a short, unstressed one, the metre in which these songs are sung is known as the Kalevala metre.

In the Kalevala itself, we see the significance of songs and singing as demonstrated by the hero/sorcerer Väinämöinen. In the confrontation between him and the young, haughty Joukahainen, what proceeds is a battle of verses and melody which result in the transformation of living creatures and objects into mundane features, the sky into torrents, and Joukahainen himself bound and sinking into the Earth by Väinämöinen’s superior mastery of the songs.

Even now, Finnish culture still holds singing in high regard and many Finns retain singing as traditional past-time. One of the most common hobbies of many Finns is participating in choir At dinner parties where shots of vodka are taken after a meal, it is customary for the toastmaster to lead the group in a dinner or drinking song before each shot is taken.

Songs and singing are an important and central theme in Finnish mythology. As demonstrated by the traditional retelling of the Kalevala through song and the power which is wielded through singing evidenced by the hero Väinämöinen, singing in itself is powerful. Were it not through the shared reverence for singing and song carried across the Finnish nation, the Kalevala may not have survived after having been scattered and spread across such great distances.