Suomen kansan vanhat runot (The Ancient Songs of the Finnish People), or SKVR, is an edition of traditional Finnic-language verse containing around 100,000 different songs, and including the majority of the songs that were the sources of the Finnish epic Kalevala and related poetry. The collection is available, free, online.
The original fourteen volumes (published in around 32 physical volumes) were published by the Finnish Literature Society from 1908 to 1948. [1] : 25 A supplement, containing, among other things, some of the field notes of Cristfried Ganander and Elias Lönnrot, was added in 1997. The supplement also contains poems on highly sexual subjects, such as spells to obtain a sexual partner or to improve sexual performance, which had previously been considered unsuitable for publication. [2] [1] : 26 Most of the songs in the collection come from the archives of the Finnish Literature Society, but many come from elsewhere, including archives in other countries.
SKVR includes over 89,000 poetic texts in Kalevala-meter, though it is also rich in prose stories and other poetic forms. It does not include all Finnish folklore; around 60,000 texts, for example, are held in unpublished form by the Finnish Literature Society. [1] : 26
The songs in SKVR are organised into fourteen regions from which they were collected; most volumes then arrange the material by geographical location within the region, and then into four genres: [1] : 26
Each of these genres is further divided into several subgroups. For example, in 1918 F. A. Hästesko published a sub-genre classification for incantations, which was used in SKVR. [3] [1] : 26
The regions covered are as follows:
| SVKR series number | number of parts | Suomalainen kirjallisuuden seuran toimitusksia series number(s) | editor | years | region |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | 4 | 121 | A. R. Niemi | 1908–21 | Vienan lääni |
| II | 1 | 144 | A. R. Niemi | 1921 | Aunus, Tver, and Novgorodin-Karjala |
| III | 3 | 139 | Väinö Salminen and V. Alava | 1915–24 | Länsi-Inkeri |
| IV | 3 | 140 | Väinö Salminen | 1925–28 | Keski-Inkeri |
| V | 3 | 141 | Väinö Salminen | 1929–31 | Itä- and Pohjois-Inkeri |
| VI | 2 | 142 | J. Lukkarinen | 1934–36 | Savo |
| VII | 5 | 143 | A. R. Niemi with Kaarle Krohn and V. Alava | 1929–33 | Raja- and Pohjois-Karjala |
| VIII | 1 | 145 | Y. H. Toivonen | 1932 | Varsinais-Suomi |
| IX | 4 | 146 (first publ. Monumenta Tavastica/Hämeen muistomerkkejä, 1–2) | Hämäläis-osakunta Keisarillisessa Suomen Aleksanterin Yliopistossa | 1917–18 (first publ. 1915–17) | Häme |
| X | 2 | 147 | T. Pohjankanervo and J. Lukkarinen | 1933–34 | Satakunta |
| XI | 1 | 148 | J. Lukkarinen | 1933 | Etelä-Pohjanmaa |
| XII | 2 | 149 | Martti Haavio | 1934–35 | Pohjois-Pohjanmaa |
| XIII | 4 | 150 | Väinö Salminen | 1936–45 | Etelä-Karjala |
| XIV | 1 | 151 | Väinö Salminen | 1948 | Uusimaa |
| XV | 1 | 685 | Matti Kuusi and Senni Timonen | 1997 | various |
A selection of poems is presented in normalised Finnish and in English translation in Finnish Folk Poetry: Epic. An Anthology in Finnish and English, edited and translated by Matti Kuusi, Keith Bosley and Michael Branch (Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran toimituksia, 329, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 1977).
An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
The Kalevala is a 19th-century compilation of epic poetry, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling an epic story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and retaliatory voyages between the peoples of the land of Kalevala called Väinölä and the land of Pohjola and their various protagonists and antagonists, as well as the construction and robbery of the epic mythical wealth-making machine Sampo.
Eino Leino was a Finnish poet and journalist who is considered one of the pioneers of Finnish poetry and a national poet of Finland. His poems combine modern and Finnish folk elements. Much of his work is in the style of the Kalevala and folk songs in general. Nature, love, and despair are frequent themes in Leino's work. He is beloved and widely read in Finland today.
Elias Lönnrot was a Finnish polymath, physician, philosopher, poet, musician, linguist, journalist, philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. He is best known for synthesizing the Finnish national epic, Kalevala from short ballads and lyric poems he gathered from Finnish oral tradition during several field expeditions in Finland, Russian Karelia, the Kola Peninsula and Baltic countries. In botany, he is remembered as the author of the 1860 Flora Fennica, the first scientific text written in Finnish rather than in Latin.
Finnish mythology commonly refers of the folklore of Finnish paganism, of which a modern revival is practiced by a small percentage of the Finnish people. It has many shared features with Estonian and other Finnic mythologies, but also with neighbouring Baltic, Slavic and, to a lesser extent, Norse mythologies.
In prosody, alliterative verse is a form of verse that uses alliteration as the principal device to indicate the underlying metrical structure, as opposed to other devices such as rhyme. The most commonly studied traditions of alliterative verse are those found in the oldest literature of the Germanic languages, where scholars use the term 'alliterative poetry' rather broadly to indicate a tradition which not only shares alliteration as its primary ornament but also certain metrical characteristics. The Old English epic Beowulf, as well as most other Old English poetry, the Old High German Muspilli, the Old Saxon Heliand, the Old Norse Poetic Edda, and many Middle English poems such as Piers Plowman, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Layamon's Brut and the Alliterative Morte Arthur all use alliterative verse.
Flyting or fliting, is a contest consisting of the exchange of insults between two parties, often conducted in verse.
Finnish poetry is the poetry from Finland. It is usually written in the Finnish language or Swedish language, but can also include poetry written in Northern Sámi or other Sámi languages. It has its roots in the early folk music of the area, and still has a thriving presence today.
Finnish literature refers to literature written in Finland. During the European early Middle Ages, the earliest text in a Finnic language is the unique thirteenth-century Birch bark letter no. 292 from Novgorod. The text was written in Cyrillic and represented a dialect of Finnic language spoken in Russian Olonets region. The earliest texts in Finland were written in Swedish or Latin during the Finnish Middle Age. Finnish-language literature was slowly developing from the 16th century onwards, after written Finnish was established by the Bishop and Finnish Lutheran reformer Mikael Agricola (1510–1557). He translated the New Testament into Finnish in 1548.
In English poetry, trochaic tetrameter is a meter featuring lines composed of four trochaic feet. The etymology of trochaic derives from the Greek trokhaios, from the verb trecho, meaning I run. In modern English poetry, a trochee is a foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Thus a tetrameter contains four trochees or eight syllables.
Kaarle Krohn was a Finnish folklorist, professor and developer of the geographic-historic method of folklore research. He was born into the influential Krohn family of Helsinki. Krohn is best known outside of Finland for his contributions to international folktale research. He devoted most of his life to the study of the epic poetry that forms the basis for the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala.
Folk poetry is poetry that is part of a society's folklore, usually part of their oral tradition. When sung, folk poetry becomes a folk song.
Kanteletar is a collection of Finnish folk poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot. It is considered to be a sister collection to the Finnish national epic Kalevala. The poems of Kanteletar are based on the trochaic tetrameter, generally referred to as "Kalevala metre".
Kalevala Day, known as Finnish Culture Day by its other official name, is celebrated each 28 February in honor of the Finnish national epic, Kalevala. The day is one of the official flag flying days in Finland.
Synty is an important concept in Finnish mythology. Syntysanat ('origin-words') or syntyloitsut ('origin-charms') provide an explanatory, mythical account of the origin of a phenomenon, material, or species, and were an important part of traditional Finno-Karelian culture, particularly in healing rituals. Although much in the Finnish traditional charms is paralleled elsewhere, 'the role of aetiological and cosmogonic myths' in Finnic tradition 'appears exceptional in Eurasia'. The major study remains that by Kaarle Krohn, published in 1917.
The corpus of traditional riddles from the Finnic-speaking world is fairly unitary, though eastern Finnish-speaking regions show particular influence of Russian Orthodox Christianity and Slavonic riddle culture. The Finnish for 'riddle' is arvoitus, related to the verb arvata and arpa.
Voknavolok is a rural locality (selo) under the administrative jurisdiction of the Town of Kostomuksha of the Republic of Karelia, Russia. Population: 427 (2010 Russian census).
Elias Lönnrot is a monument in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, by a Finnish sculptor Emil Wikström, unveiled in 1902.
The Children of Mon and Man is an epic poem based on Vietnamese folk poetry and mythology, published in 2008 by Vietnamese linguist Bùi Viêt Hoa. The epic is written in the official language of Vietnam, i.e. Vietnamese, and follows the traditional seven-byte poem dimension of the Vietnamese people.
Finnic incantations or charms are a body of traditional literature in the Finnic languages whose purpose was to effect magical change on the world. They were most often used to ward off diseases and injuries and to ensure economic prosperity in farming, hunting, fishing and cattle-raising, though spells were used in various social situations and everyday tasks. Such incantations were in widespread use from the first extensive documentation of Finnic-language cultures around the late eighteenth century through to the advance of modernisation in the early twentieth; one marker of this popularity is that more than 30,000 verse spells were collected from Finland and Karelia and published in the series Suomen Kansan Vanhat Runot.