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"The Sampo is forged, a rogue screws,
there's a wedding, a murder, the blues,
a serf bites the dust,
the Sampo gets bust
and Finland receives the Good News."
I somehow missed Joerg's (?) initial reference, but have to add my two clacks worth about the beauty and inspiration of Kalevala, the last flower of a heroic age when words meant more than iron.
Although the English translation by Keith Bosley is more accurate, and also easily available (in Oxford World Classics) I especially love the W. F. Kirby translation, which more accurately captures the musical verse form ('dueling skalds') which so inspired Longfellow (in Hiawatha) and, less directly, Sibelius. I've stolen from it often, for example in the following Odaylan myth that forms part of Taroskarla, the sacred founding myth of the Far Place.
THE SPEAR CALLED COURAGE In the seasons of the Far Walkers, the hosts of Unlife have twice spilled out of Ginijji to overrun our land. These we call the Chaos-breaking, for each time the clans united to force the Predark back from our steads and herds and tulas.
In the First Chaos-Breaking, the advancing armies were broken when the god-talkers of the tribes summoned Black Thunderbird, Storm Eagle, the Wrath of Orlanth.
In the Second Chaos-Breaking, a horde of goat-kin and tusk riders reached the very walls of Alda Chur. An Odaylan named Harla Day-Of-Life witnessed the peril, she who is known as Gottidotter, of the Orlarnii clan of the Tovtaros.
In that time of need, Harla walked the ancient paths beyond the Storm Eagle Tree, beyond the very edges of Karulinoran, the tula of Orlanth, to the dark forest of Vidblain. It was in Vidblain that she found the spear called 'Courage', the spear Odayla claimed from his uncles as he prepared for the Three Element Dance.
Using the powers of the spear, Harla rallied the clans of the Far Walkers, Bluefoot and Earth-Reaper alike, and united they drove back the armies of despair. She then took the spear, and hid it deep within the gors and gallt. We have forgotten exactly where, but know that it waits patient, and will be found by the right hands at the right time.
For that spear is cousin to all of us who have wrestled the Great Bear.
Then Odayla, god and hunter
Took the great spear carved of Courage,
Marked it with three cutting edges
And with Life and Death he bound it.
"With the Unlife now I struggle,
I shall turn the twisted powers
That they slay no more my people
Nor shall fall upon my tribesfolk,
Neither shall destroy my children
Nor the beast tribes cut and injure."
Then the God a spear constructed
Not a long one, not a short one,
But of middle length he forged it.
On the blade an alynx sitting,
On the edge a bear was standing,
At the joint a pierce-cloud trotting,
On the shaft a sun-colt running,
At the end a rock deer leaping.
The verse is derived in part from my favourite Runo, Kalevala 46, The Bear Hunt.
Cheers
John
nysalor_at_primus.com.au John Hughesjohnp.hughes_at_dva.gov.au
Of what use are we singers
what good we cuckoo-callers
if no fire spurts from our mouth
no brand from beneath our tongues
and no smoke after our words!
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