In the canon
The Kalevala
- Form
- Form Epic Poem
- Year
- Year 1835
- Originally in
- Originally in Finnish
- Pages
- Pages 680
Two singers sit knee to knee, hands clasped, rocking forward and back as they trade lines of a song older than memory. Elias Lönnrot, a country doctor, walked the forests of Karelia to hear them, writing down thousands of verses before those voices fell silent, then stitched them into one epic for a people who had never been handed one.
I am driven by my longing, And my understanding urges That I should commence my singing; And begin my recitation.
The blurb, the gist, the why of the day and the work itself are in the app. The first button needs it on this device; the second gets it there.