The Kalevala

Overview

Compiler

Elias Lönnrot (1802–84), district physician at Kajaani and later Professor of Finnish at Helsinki, who assembled the poem from oral songs he and others had collected

Sources

Runes (runo-songs) sung by peasant singers, mostly in Viena (White Sea) Karelia on the Russian side of the border, also in Finnish Karelia, Ingria and Savo; chief singers included Arhippa Perttunen and Ontrei Malinen

Editions

The 'Old Kalevala' (1835, 32 runos, about 12,000 lines; its preface is dated 28 February, now Kalevala Day) and the 'New Kalevala' (1849, 50 runos, 22,795 lines), the standard text

Language

Finnish, with many Karelian dialect forms; Lönnrot normalised spelling and language for a reading public

Metre

The 'Kalevala metre': unrhymed trochaic tetrameter, eight-syllable lines, bound by alliteration and by parallelism, in which a line is restated in different words in the next

Setting

A mythical North: Kalevala (or Väinölä), the land of the heroes, set against Pohjola, the cold, dark 'North Farm' ruled by the witch Louhi; also Tuonela, the land of the dead

Main characters

Väinämöinen the old singer, Ilmarinen the smith, Lemminkäinen the reckless adventurer, Kullervo the slave-born avenger, Louhi, mistress of Pohjola, and the women Aino and Marjatta

Central object

The Sampo, a mysterious mill of plenty forged by Ilmarinen, stolen back from Pohjola and shattered in a sea battle

Translations on this site

W. F. Kirby (1907, the quotation text of this guide), in trochaic verse close to the Finnish line by line; and John Martin Crawford (1888), the first complete English version, made partly through Anton Schiefner's German

Reception

Foundational for Finnish national identity under Russian rule; inspired Sibelius, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha (1855) and J. R. R. Tolkien

Context

The Kalevala is both very old and quite modern. Its materials are the runes, or sung poems, of the Finnish and Karelian peasantry, a tradition of oral poetry in the same eight-syllable metre that reaches back perhaps two thousand years and survived longest in the remote villages of Viena Karelia, on the White Sea side of the Russian border. Its shape, however, was given by one nineteenth-century man, Elias Lönnrot (1802–84), the son of a village tailor from Sammatti in southern Finland, who studied medicine at Turku and Helsinki and from 1833 served for twenty years as district physician in the small town of Kajaani in the north-east (Pentikäinen 1989) (DuBois 1995).

Lönnrot made eleven collecting journeys between 1828 and 1844, many of them on foot, into Finnish and Russian Karelia, Ingria and Lapland. He was building on the work of earlier scholars, above all the Turku professor H. G. Porthan and the collector Zacharias Topelius the elder, who had already suggested that the scattered songs about Väinämöinen might be the remains of a lost epic. In the village of Vuonninen in 1833 he heard Ontrei Malinen, and at Latvajärvi in 1834 the old singer Arhippa Perttunen sang to him over several days, giving him thousands of lines. Such singers usually performed single episodes and charms, not long sequences; Lönnrot's task, as he saw it, was to fit them together (Pentikäinen 1989) (Kuusi 1977) (Honko 1990).

The first result was the so-called Old Kalevala, published in two volumes (1835–36), the first with a preface dated 28 February, a date now kept in Finland as Kalevala Day. It had 32 runos. Lönnrot then published a collection of lyric songs, the Kanteletar (1840), and continued collecting, as did younger helpers such as D. E. D. Europaeus. The enlarged New Kalevala of 1849, in 50 runos and 22,795 lines, is the version normally read and translated. Lönnrot ordered the episodes, joined variants, invented connecting lines, transferred deeds from one hero to another and gave the whole a beginning in the Creation and an end in the coming of Christianity (Magoun 1969) (Honko 1990).

The poem appeared at a decisive moment. Finland had been part of the Swedish kingdom for centuries, but in 1809 it became an autonomous Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire. Educated Finns, who mostly spoke Swedish, began to ask what made them a nation, and the slogan attributed to A. I. Arwidsson captured the mood: we are no longer Swedes, we cannot become Russians, so let us be Finns. The Kalevala gave the Finnish language, until then mostly the speech of peasants, an epic of its own, comparable to Homer, and it became the central text of the movement that led, in 1917, to independence (Wilson 1976) (Anttonen 2005).

The poem's influence spread far beyond Finland. Jean Sibelius drew on it from his Kullervo symphony (1892) to the Lemminkäinen legends, Pohjola's Daughter, Luonnotar and Tapiola; the painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela gave its scenes their classic images, among them the Aino triptych, Lemminkäinen's Mother and The Defence of the Sampo (Goss 2009). Through Anton Schiefner's German translation (1852) its metre reached Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose The Song of Hiawatha (1855) imitates it (Moyne 1963). J. R. R. Tolkien read Kirby's translation as a young man, began a prose and verse retelling of the Kullervo cycle in 1914, and remade Kullervo as Túrin Turambar in his legendarium (Tolkien 2015). The site offers two English versions: W. F. Kirby's (1907), quoted in this guide, and John Martin Crawford's (1888), the first complete version in English (Kirby 1907) (Crawford 1888).

Plot overview

After a proem in which the singer invites a companion to sing the old songs with him, the poem begins with the Creation. Ilmatar, daughter of the air, floats for centuries on the primeval sea; a teal lays eggs on her knee, and from their broken shells come earth, sky, sun, moon and stars. Her son Väinämöinen, born already old, clears and sows the land. A young Lapp singer, Joukahainen, challenges him to a contest of wisdom, is sung into a swamp, and to save himself promises Väinämöinen his sister Aino, who drowns herself rather than marry an old man. Väinämöinen sets out to woo in Pohjola, the dark North ruled by Louhi; she promises him her daughter if he can forge the Sampo, a magic mill of plenty, and the smith Ilmarinen forges it, though the maiden refuses him for the time.

The reckless Lemminkäinen carries off the island girl Kyllikki, then goes to woo in Pohjola himself; set impossible tasks, he is killed at the river of Tuonela and hacked to pieces, but his mother rakes his body from the river and brings him back to life. Väinämöinen, needing three magic words to finish a boat, seeks them in the land of the dead and then in the belly of the buried giant Antero Vipunen. Väinämöinen and Ilmarinen race to Pohjola to woo the maiden; she chooses Ilmarinen, who performs Louhi's tasks, and a long sequence of runos describes the wedding feast, the bride's laments and instruction, and the homecoming. Lemminkäinen, uninvited, kills the master of Pohjola in a duel, hides on an island of women, and fails in a war of revenge.

Kullervo, son of Kalervo, survives the massacre of his family by his uncle Untamo and grows up a slave of terrible strength. Sold to Ilmarinen, he is mocked by Ilmarinen's wife, who bakes a stone into his bread; he drives wolves and bears home in place of her cattle and they kill her. He finds his surviving family, unknowingly seduces his lost sister, who drowns herself, takes revenge on Untamo, and kills himself on his own sword. The widowed Ilmarinen forges a bride of gold, which is cold to the touch, and then carries off Louhi's second daughter, who so insults him that he turns her into a seagull.

Hearing of Pohjola's prosperity, Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen sail to steal the Sampo. Väinämöinen makes a kantele, a harp, from the jawbone of a great pike, and his music enchants the whole of creation; he sings the people of Pohjola to sleep and the Sampo is carried off. Louhi pursues them in the shape of a huge eagle, the Sampo is broken in the battle, and its fragments sink to enrich the sea or drift ashore to bring fortune to Finland. Louhi takes revenge with plague, a bear, and the theft of the sun and moon, but each time she is defeated. In the last runo the virgin Marjatta conceives by eating a cranberry and bears a son who is baptised King of Karelia; rebuked by the infant, Väinämöinen sails away in a copper boat, leaving his kantele and songs to his people.

Part by part

Characters

Kalevala heroes

Väinämöinen

Son of Ilmatar, born old, the 'eternal singer' and sage. His power lies in knowledge of origins and in song; he clears the land, wins contests of wisdom, travels to the dead in search of words, makes the kantele, and leads the theft of the Sampo. As a lover he always fails, and the poem shows him weeping, foolish and in the end rebuked and displaced. In the oral tradition he may once have been a god of water or a mythical first shaman.

Ilmarinen

The 'eternal smith' who forged the sky and forges the Sampo. He wins the Maiden of Pohjola, loses her to Kullervo's revenge, forges a bride of gold, and joins the expedition for the Sampo. He is a figure of craft and practical skill, less wise than Väinämöinen and less wild than Lemminkäinen.

Lemminkäinen

Also called Kaukomieli and Ahti, a handsome, boastful warrior and seducer. He abducts Kyllikki, dies in Pohjola and is restored to life by his mother, kills the master of Pohjola, hides on the island of women, and spoils the theft of the Sampo by singing at the wrong moment. Kirby spells him Lemminkainen.

Kullervo

Son of Kalervo, born a slave after his family is massacred by his uncle Untamo. Of terrible strength and bitter temper, he ruins every task he is given, takes revenge on Ilmarinen's wife, seduces his own sister without knowing her, destroys Untamo's people and kills himself on his sword. He is the poem's tragic figure and the model for Tolkien's Túrin.

Pohjola

Louhi

The gap-toothed Mistress of Pohjola, a powerful sorceress who rules the North. She bargains her daughters for the Sampo, keeps it in a copper mountain, pursues the heroes in the shape of a giant eagle, and takes revenge with plague, a bear and the theft of the sun and moon. She is the heroes' great antagonist and one of the most formidable women in epic.

The Maiden of Pohjola

Louhi's elder daughter, the bride sought by all the heroes. She sets Väinämöinen impossible tasks, chooses Ilmarinen, and is lamented and instructed at her wedding. As Ilmarinen's wife she bakes a stone in Kullervo's bread and is killed by his wolves and bears.

The master of Pohjola

Louhi's husband, a minor figure, killed by Lemminkäinen in a duel after a contest of magic.

The blind cowherd

An old herdsman of Pohjola (in Finnish Märkähattu, 'wet-hat') whom Lemminkäinen insults; he waits at the river of Tuonela and kills the hero with a water-snake.

Women

Ilmatar

Daughter of the air and mother of Väinämöinen, who floats on the primeval sea and gives shape to the world after the eggs break on her knee. Lönnrot gave her this creative role, which in many oral variants belonged to Väinämöinen himself.

Aino

Joukahainen's young sister, promised to the old Väinämöinen. She drowns herself rather than marry him, and returns as a salmon to mock his failure to know her. Her story is one of the best loved in the poem.

Lemminkäinen's mother

A wise woman who warns her son, searches for him across the world, rakes his body from the river of death and restores him to life. She is the poem's image of a love that defies death.

Kyllikki

The 'flower of the island', abducted by Lemminkäinen. When she breaks her vow not to go dancing in the village, he leaves her.

Kullervo's sister

Lost while gathering berries, she is seduced by Kullervo before either knows the other, and throws herself into a torrent when she learns the truth.

Marjatta

A pure virgin who conceives by eating a cranberry and bears a son in a stable; the child is baptised King of Karelia. She is modelled on the Virgin Mary of Karelian legend songs.

Others

Joukahainen

A young Lapp singer who challenges Väinämöinen, is sung into a swamp, promises his sister Aino, and later shoots Väinämöinen's horse from under him in revenge.

Antero Vipunen

A dead giant sage buried under the earth, whose stomach holds all the words of origin. He swallows Väinämöinen and, tormented by his hammering, sings him the knowledge he seeks.

Untamo and Kalervo

Brothers whose quarrel turns into a feud; Untamo destroys Kalervo's household and enslaves the infant Kullervo, who later annihilates Untamo's people.

Ukko

The supreme god of the sky and thunder, invoked in prayer throughout the poem; he strikes the new spark of fire when the sun and moon are stolen.

Tuoni

Lord of Tuonela (also called Manala), the land of the dead, across a black river. His daughter and son appear in the stories of Väinämöinen and Lemminkäinen.

Osmotar

The woman who brews the first beer (Runo 20).

Virokannas

The old man who baptises Marjatta's son, after Väinämöinen's judgment is overturned by the infant.

Themes

The power of the word

In the Kalevala, song is the highest form of power. Väinämöinen defeats Joukahainen by singing, builds boats with words, heals wounds by reciting the origins of iron, and needs three missing words to complete his work. Knowledge of how a thing came to be gives power over it, and much of the poem consists of these charms of origin, preserved from the healing and magical practice of the tietäjä, the traditional sage (Siikala 2002) (Kuusi 1977).

The emphasis on song is also self-referential. The poem begins and ends with a singer speaking of his art, and the kantele is the instrument that moves the whole of creation. The Kalevala celebrates the tradition from which it is made.

Craft, wealth and the Sampo

Alongside the singer stands the smith. Ilmarinen forges the sky, the Sampo, the rake that saves Lemminkäinen, the golden bride and a false sun and moon. His craft creates wealth but cannot create life or love. The Sampo, the greatest product of craft, brings prosperity to whoever holds it and becomes the object of the poem's central struggle.

The fate of the Sampo makes wealth a common inheritance rather than a possession: shattered, it enriches the sea and the land. This ending fitted well with the nineteenth-century vision of the Finnish people as heirs to a shared treasure (Wilson 1976).

Marriage and women's lives

Wooing drives much of the plot, but the poem keeps returning to marriage as seen by the bride: Aino's despair at being promised to an old man, the Maiden of Pohjola's laments, the instruction of the bride and the old woman's story of her own marriage, Kyllikki's abduction, the golden bride. Much of this material comes from Karelian women's songs and laments, and it gives the epic a range of voices unusual in heroic poetry (DuBois 1995).

The women of the Kalevala are also powerful in their own right. Ilmatar shapes the world, Louhi rules a land and outwits the heroes, and Lemminkäinen's mother brings her son back from death.

North and South: Kalevala and Pohjola

The opposition between Kalevala and Pohjola organises the epic. Pohjola is dark, cold and dangerous, ruled by a witch, the source of disease and frost; yet it also has the brides and the wealth that the heroes desire. The rivalry moves from courtship to feud to war, and ends with the transfer of prosperity from North to South.

Scholars have read the opposition in mythical terms, as a contrast between this world and an otherworld, and in historical ones, as an echo of conflicts between Finns and Sámi or between farming and hunting peoples. Lönnrot himself inclined to a historical reading of the heroes as ancient chieftains (Pentikäinen 1989) (Honko 1990).

Death and the otherworld

Tuonela, the land of the dead across a black river, is a constant presence. Väinämöinen goes there for words and for an auger, Lemminkäinen dies at its river, and Ilmarinen must catch its pike. The poem treats the boundary between life and death as crossable by those with knowledge, and its images of journeys to the dead have been connected with shamanic traditions of northern Eurasia (Siikala 2002).

The old order and the new

The Kalevala moves from the Creation to the coming of Christianity. Its last runo replaces the old sage with a child king, and its final image is of Väinämöinen departing. The ending can be read as the triumph of the new faith, as a lament for the passing of the old culture, or as a promise of its return. The tension between these readings mirrors the situation of the Kalevala itself, an ancient pagan tradition gathered by a Lutheran doctor for a modern nation (Pentikäinen 1989).

Fate, upbringing and tragedy

Kullervo's story raises the question of whether character is fate or the product of circumstance. Born into feud and slavery, deprived of love, he becomes destructive, and Väinämöinen's comment blames his rearing. The cycle has been read as a study of the damage done by injustice, and as a tragedy in the Greek sense, in which a man unknowingly commits a crime against his own blood (Tolkien 2015).

Motifs

Parallelism

Nearly every statement in the Kalevala is made twice, the second line repeating the first with different words: 'Born of Ilmatar, his mother'. This parallelism is the basic structural principle of the metre and of the poem; it slows the narration, gives it a ritual weight, and makes it suited to performance by two singers (Kuusi 1977).

Origins (synty)

The poem constantly tells the origin of things: the world, iron, beer, fire, the bear, the kantele. In Finnish folk belief, knowing the origin of something gave power over it, so these passages are both stories and spells (Siikala 2002).

Impossible tasks

Every wooing in Pohjola involves impossible tasks set by Louhi or her daughter: forging the Sampo, catching the elk of Hiisi, ploughing the field of vipers, catching the pike of Tuonela. The heroes succeed through craft, magic, or the help of the bride herself.

Journeys to Tuonela

Heroes repeatedly cross to the land of the dead, by boat or on foot, to seek knowledge or perform tasks, and return or fail to return. The motif links the epic to shamanic journeys.

Mothers and their advice

Mothers warn, advise and save their sons: Väinämöinen's mother speaks from the grave, Lemminkäinen's mother restores him to life, and Kullervo's mother alone grieves at his departure. Ignoring a mother's advice almost always leads to disaster.

Symbols

The Sampo

A magic object of uncertain form, which grinds grain, salt and money and brings prosperity to whoever holds it. It has been read as a mill, a world pillar, a sun symbol, a shield, a cult image and much else. In the poem it is the source of wealth and the object of the central conflict, and after its destruction a symbol of the welfare of the land.

The kantele

The Finnish harp, made by Väinämöinen from a pike's jawbone and then from birch. Its music moves all creation, and Väinämöinen leaves it to his people when he departs. It became a national symbol of Finnish culture and of the Kalevala itself.

The world-egg

The broken egg from which the cosmos is made, an image of creation from fragments. It has an unexpected parallel in Lönnrot's own method of making a whole from scattered songs.

The copper boat

The vessel in which Väinämöinen departs at the end, sailing to the meeting of earth and sky. It symbolises both the end of the old era and the promise of return.

Critical debates

Collector or author? Lönnrot's role

For much of the nineteenth century the Kalevala was presented as a genuine folk epic, the remains of an ancient poem that Lönnrot had restored, as philologists of the time believed Homer's poems had been assembled from popular songs. Lönnrot himself was more candid. In his prefaces he explained that because the singers arranged the episodes in different ways, he felt entitled to arrange them himself, and that he had joined variants and added lines where needed.

Modern scholarship generally treats the Kalevala as a 'national epic composed from folk poetry', a work by Lönnrot built from authentic oral materials. Comparison with the collected originals, published in the vast series Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot, shows that only a small proportion of the lines are his own, but that the structure, the plot and many characters' roles are his. Lauri Honko argued that Lönnrot should be seen as a singer in his own right, a performer of the tradition in written form, while others stress his debt to romantic theories of epic (Honko 1990) (Honko 2002) (DuBois 1995) (Magoun 1969).

What is the Sampo?

The Sampo has generated more interpretations than any other element of the poem. Earlier scholars saw it as a mill of plenty, as the poem describes; others as a world pillar or axis supporting the heavens, a sun symbol, a decorated shield (one interpretation of its 'pictured cover'), a sacred idol, a ship, a treasure or a symbol of agriculture and settled life. Some have tied it to Viking-age trade or to particular objects.

No interpretation has won general agreement, partly because the oral songs themselves give contradictory pictures, and partly because Lönnrot used the Sampo to bind together materials of different origin. The very indeterminacy of the object may be part of its power (Pentikäinen 1989) (Siikala 2002) (Kuusi 1977).

The Kalevala and Finnish nationalism

The Kalevala became central to Finnish national identity in a way few epics have. It was taught in schools, celebrated on Kalevala Day, used to argue for the dignity of the Finnish language, and drawn on by artists in the 'Karelianist' movement of the 1890s, a time of growing Russian pressure on Finnish autonomy. William A. Wilson showed how the poem was read as history and used to support political programmes, and how some of these uses, especially in the 1920s and 1930s, were nationalist and expansionist (Wilson 1976).

Later scholars have examined the 'invention of tradition' involved and the ways in which folklore studies and the nation-state shaped each other. The poem's relationship with nationalism is thus a subject of scholarship in its own right (Anttonen 2005) (Wilson 1976).

Karelian origins and the border

Most of the best songs Lönnrot used were collected in Viena Karelia (Archangel Karelia), a region of the Russian Empire inhabited by Orthodox Karelians, outside the Grand Duchy of Finland. The Finnish national epic was therefore largely sung by people who were not Finnish subjects. This fact gave Karelia a special place in Finnish imagination as the home of the old culture, and was later drawn into arguments about the Russian–Finnish border, especially after independence and in the wars of 1939–44 (Wilson 1976).

Contemporary scholarship emphasises that the songs belonged to many regional traditions, including Ingrian and Savo ones, and that the Karelian singers' own culture had its own identity, not simply a preservation of a Finnish past (DuBois 1995) (Kuusi 1977).

Kullervo as tragic hero

Kullervo has often been called the most tragic figure in the Kalevala and compared with Oedipus or Hamlet. Some readers emphasise fate and the curse of the feud; others see a social tragedy of a slave deprived of love; others a psychological study of rage. Lönnrot composed the cycle from several songs, and its unity is largely his.

The episode has had a remarkable afterlife. Sibelius made it the subject of his first major work, and Tolkien, who called the Kullervo story the germ of his attempt to write legends of his own, reworked it in the story of Túrin. Verlyn Flieger's edition of Tolkien's Story of Kullervo documents this link (Tolkien 2015) (Goss 2009).

Marjatta and the Christian ending

The final runo has been read in sharply different ways. For some it is a Christian triumph, in which the pagan sage yields to the new king; for others it is a lament for the old culture, softened by Väinämöinen's promise of return. Some nineteenth-century readers found the ending awkward and felt that it broke the poem's pagan unity.

The material is traditional: Karelian singers had legend songs about Mary and her child in the same metre, and the baptism by Virokannas also has traditional roots. But the decision to end the epic with this scene was Lönnrot's, and it gives the poem a historical shape, from creation to Christianisation, modelled on the idea that the epic told the people's history (Pentikäinen 1989) (Honko 1990).

Translating the Kalevala

English translators have had to decide whether to keep the trochaic metre. Crawford (1888) and Kirby (1907) did, as Longfellow had done in imitation; the metre, natural in Finnish where every word is stressed on its first syllable, can sound monotonous in English. Magoun (1963) chose prose to be faithful to sense, Eino Friberg (1988) a loosened form of the original metre, and Keith Bosley (1989) a flexible syllabic verse (Crawford 1888) (Kirby 1907) (Magoun 1963) (Friberg 1988) (Bosley 1989).

Kirby's translation, reissued with an introduction by Michael Branch in 1985, remains valued for following the Finnish closely line by line, despite its archaic diction (Kirby 1985). The resemblance between the Kalevala metre and Hiawatha also led to an early controversy in which Longfellow was accused of plagiarism; Ernest Moyne's study set out the relationship (Moyne 1963).

Key passages

Questions for study

1. Is the Kalevala a folk epic or a work by Elias Lönnrot?

   Consider what Lönnrot collected, what he did with it, what he said in his prefaces, and how modern scholars describe the poem.

2. Why does the poem begin with the Creation and end with the birth of Marjatta's son?

   Think about the poem as a history of the world and of a people, and about what kind of ending Lönnrot chose.

3. What kind of hero is Väinämöinen?

   Compare his powers with those of warrior heroes such as Akhilleus or Beowulf, and look at his failures as well as his victories.

4. What is the Sampo, and why does its meaning matter?

   Consider how the poem describes it, the range of interpretations, and what its destruction means for the two lands.

5. How does the poem present marriage and the lives of women?

   Look at Aino, the wedding songs of Runos 22–23, Kyllikki, Louhi and Lemminkäinen's mother.

6. Why is song so powerful in the Kalevala?

   Consider the singing contest, the charms of origin, the search for words, and the kantele.

7. Is Kullervo's tragedy caused by fate, society or character?

   Look at his birth, upbringing, his treatment by Ilmarinen's wife, the encounter with his sister, and Väinämöinen's final comment.

8. How do Kalevala and Pohjola differ, and how are they connected?

   Think about geography, wealth, women and the course of the conflict from courtship to war.

9. Why did the Kalevala matter so much to Finland in the nineteenth century?

   Consider the political situation under Russia, the status of the Finnish language, and the uses of the poem by artists and politicians.

10. What is lost and what is gained in translating the Kalevala into English?

    Compare Kirby's and Crawford's trochaic versions with what you know of the Finnish metre, and consider why later translators chose prose or freer verse.

Further reading

• Anttonen, Pertti J. Tradition through Modernity: Postmodernism and the Nation-State in Folklore Scholarship. Studia Fennica Folkloristica 15. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2005.
• Bosley, Keith, trans. The Kalevala: An Epic Poem after Oral Tradition by Elias Lönnrot. The World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
• Crawford, John Martin, trans. The Kalevala: The Epic Poem of Finland. 2 vols. New York: John B. Alden, 1888.
• DuBois, Thomas A. Finnish Folk Poetry and the Kalevala. New York: Garland, 1995.
• Friberg, Eino, trans. The Kalevala: Epic of the Finnish People. Edited by George C. Schoolfield. Helsinki: Otava, 1988.
• Goss, Glenda Dawn. Sibelius: A Composer's Life and the Awakening of Finland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
• Honko, Lauri, ed. Religion, Myth, and Folklore in the World's Epics: The Kalevala and Its Predecessors. Religion and Society 30. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1990.
• Honko, Lauri, ed. The Kalevala and the World's Traditional Epics. Studia Fennica Folkloristica 12. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2002.
• Kirby, W. F., trans. Kalevala: The Land of the Heroes. 2 vols. Everyman's Library. London: J. M. Dent, 1907.
• Kirby, W. F., trans. Kalevala: The Land of the Heroes. Introduction by M. A. Branch. London: Athlone Press, 1985.
• Kuusi, Matti, Keith Bosley and Michael Branch, eds. and trans. Finnish Folk Poetry: Epic. An Anthology in Finnish and English. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 1977.
• Magoun, Francis Peabody, Jr., trans. The Kalevala, or Poems of the Kaleva District. Compiled by Elias Lönnrot. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963.
• Magoun, Francis Peabody, Jr., trans. The Old Kalevala and Certain Antecedents. Compiled by Elias Lönnrot. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969.
• Moyne, Ernest J. Hiawatha and Kalevala: A Study of the Relationship between Longfellow's "Indian Edda" and the Finnish Epic. FF Communications 192. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1963.
• Pentikäinen, Juha Y. Kalevala Mythology. Translated and edited by Ritva Poom. Expanded edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. First English edition 1989.
• Siikala, Anna-Leena. Mythic Images and Shamanism: A Perspective on Kalevala Poetry. FF Communications 280. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 2002.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. The Story of Kullervo. Edited by Verlyn Flieger. London: HarperCollins, 2015.
• Wilson, William A. Folklore and Nationalism in Modern Finland. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976.