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Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 07 May 13 - 01:11 PM That is so terrible and so completely unnecessary. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 06 May 13 - 11:04 PM Children are burned as witches by their fundamentalist families in parts of Nigeria. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 06 May 13 - 12:17 PM Yes, that's true. Unfortunately, young or middle-aged women were sometimes accused of witchcraft too. But most of the time, a witch is old, I think. This is not related to folkore such as we are discussing here, but it's a good thing to be aware of: the religious page of my newspaper had an article by a minister who visited a village in Ghana to which women accused of witchcraft are banished. I can't recall all the pathetic reasons for which women are banished, but here's one I recall clearly: A woman can be labelled a witch and driven from her village and her family if people around her get sick from something, but she doesn't. Isn't that terrible? Other villagers might have eaten some spoiled food which she didn't eat, but the villages don't know anything about microbes and food poisoning, and so she loses her home and family. Or the other villagers might have suffered a viral infection to which she had already developed immunity. Stories like this make you realize the value of education. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 06 May 13 - 04:55 AM And, apparently there are also versions with references to the Mistress of Pohjola. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 04 May 13 - 11:32 PM But, oddly it doesn't say an unpleasant old woman... just an unpleasant woman. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 04 May 13 - 01:13 AM @leeneia: Yes. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 03 May 13 - 11:35 AM Are you familiar with Mussorgsky's music about Baba Yaga? (I bet you are.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PjIiavyAag The music makes me think that the chicken legs aren't holding still. Creepy! This is good music to play when you're angry about something. Put it on and turn the volume up good and high. In our house there was no carpeting on the stairs, so it really helped to stomp up and down the stairs at the same time. =============== "Syöjätär can also be used to describe an evil or unpleasant woman..." Let us bear in mind that the line between a witch and a woman getting old, demented, ill-tempered or crippled could be dangerously thin in the days of yore. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 02 May 13 - 07:47 PM Interestingly, Syöjätär can also be used to describe an evil or unpleasant woman, though I like the idea of Kalervonpoika as a witch's slave! |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 02 May 13 - 06:38 PM @leeneia: I read it on the SurLalune fairy tales page :) |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 02 May 13 - 11:31 AM Yes, that's it! How did you find that out? By the way, I checked on Amazon, and that set of books (the Junior Classics) came with Collier's Encyclopedia. Our set was the 1938 version. Someone is asking $200 for that set today - a set in fine condition. There's another thing I remember from 'Vasilisa the Beautiful.' Baba Yaga mixes poppy seeds with dirt and orders the little girl to retrieve every tiny seed. The magic doll organizes an army of ants, who expertly get every seed out for her. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 01 May 13 - 05:44 PM Refresh. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 30 Apr 13 - 06:03 PM @leeneia: I think that'd be Vasilisa The Beautiful. Baba Yaga's counterpart in these folktales is either an old crone (akka) or Syöjätär. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 30 Apr 13 - 03:40 PM All these orphans remind me of one of my favorite fairy tales when I was a kid . It was about a Russian girl who was driven out by her stepmother and finds herself in the cottage of Baba Yaga. The cottage is on chicken legs, which gives you some idea of what Baba Yaga's like. The girl has a little, magical doll whose eyes twinkle and which speaks when given a tiny offering of beer and bread. Is the doll her mother's spirit? Could be. At one point the doll says something I have remembered all my life. It said, "The morning is wiser than the evening." More than once in my life I have found that a problem I couldn't solve at night had become clear by morning. And also, anger that wanted to be expressed in the evening had changed into an intelligent plan for changing things by morning. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 29 Apr 13 - 06:19 PM refresh. Syöjätär often appears as a wicked stepmother in folktales from Karelia where the hero/heroine must look after her horses. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 29 Apr 13 - 02:39 AM Is "Syöjätär" meant literally or metaphorically? eg. is the implication that the mistress is literally a witch, or that she's a witch metaphorically? |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 28 Apr 13 - 08:22 PM BTW, IMO this is an example of how some oral tales are actually LESS brutal than the literary versions. (notice how the boy doesn't pray to Ukko to kill the wife, just to make the firewood not catch fire. Also, in the literary version created by Lönnrot, Ilmarinen's wife makes a series of promises to Kullervo before cursing him. In the literary version, too, there's a scene of the woman baking a stone into the bread, which doesn't exist in this song version (and maybe other variants) The folk version lets us infer that she baked it in, it doesn't show us outright. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 28 Apr 13 - 12:29 AM *Ignore the "but that". |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 27 Apr 13 - 07:59 PM I think that that goes back to the vulnerability of the orphan who doesn't have family ties and needs to work for their keep. Interestingly, in that folk version, the curse isn't that the evil wife will die, it's that for the year, but that the firewood won't ever catch light because of the constant rain :) |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 27 Apr 13 - 05:13 PM Yes, it does. The orphan and the step-child are often mistreated in folklore. Hansel and Gretel and Snow-white come to mind. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 26 Apr 13 - 05:57 PM And of course there's all of the expressions dealing with orphans... the Guerze, an ethnic group in Guinea, refer to durable shoes as "orphan's shoes." The idea of the cruelly treated orphan seems to be very common. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 25 Apr 13 - 06:43 PM Ignore the line at the top of the post *folklore* |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 25 Apr 13 - 06:29 PM @leeneia: The line between "ordinary human" and "supernatural figure" isn't always clear, though. Orphans with incredible supernatural @leeneia: The line isn't always clear, though. Humans with incredible powers are common in fol0klore or mythology, and often they are orphans or outcasts of some kind. Incidentally, am I the only one who noticed the parallels with Cinderella in the Kalevala version? Hero/heroine is mistreated by their evil foster family/stepfamily and is turned into a slave when they had previously been of high rank? (Cinderella, of course, fits that description but Kalevala Kullervo doesn't really.) |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 25 Apr 13 - 12:42 PM Kullervo is clearly a supernatural figure, not an ordinary orphan. How else could a boy have the strengh to beat a net back to tow (linen fibers) and all the fish in the water into jelly? Perhaps in the Kalevala, as in Shakespeare's Tempest, the magical beings are bereft of human emotions such as compassion, love, and guilt. That may be why he revenges the stone in the bread so savagely. Attn pedents: maybe 'revenge' has never been a transitive verb before. It is now. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 25 Apr 13 - 09:20 AM Another note: This folk version's different from the Kalevala version in that in the folk version, Kullervo ruins all the tasks (caring for a baby, threshing grain, cutting trees, fishing with a seiner) at Ilmarinen's house, not at his uncle Untamo's house. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 25 Apr 13 - 05:04 AM *their* |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 25 Apr 13 - 04:47 AM @AKS: Look at this The story above is the Alaskan/Canadian equivalent of Kullervo. In fact, one version I found here begins: "A boy and his sister during a seal hunt on the sea ice were cut off from people. No-one could help them as their ice pan drifted away. Their parents and older brother gave them up for dead. But this was not so- after many days the wind blew the ice pan near the shore of a strange land where people lived. Each was adopted by a different family and this is how they came to live among strangers." In fact, after Kaujjarjuk got his supernatural strength and killed the people who abused him, I thought his sister lived in a separate village or something and he was going to wander across the tundra, meet a girl on the way to finding his sister, marry her and then find out she was his sister and then they'd both commit suicide. That idea is horrifying. All the more because some people probably still do it today. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: AKS Date: 25 Apr 13 - 03:49 AM Be my guest, L. And yes, Kullervo really is the sad figure of Finnish epic. On the other hand, some of his actions – esp. here – remind me of Tuhma-Jussi* 'stupid John'; both are told to do this or that, without first showing/teaching them how to!** The difference being that Jussi in the end turns out to be the successful one, whereas Kullervo is not. I think Kullervo quietly accepts his share until the point when he finds the stone in his bread: "Perkele, I may be a slave and a fool, ok, but this goes too far now" and the hell is loose! * a comic character in fairy tales, youngest of three brothers, his deeds always are topsy-turvy ** a method still in use when I was a child :( AKS |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 24 Apr 13 - 07:10 PM @leeneia: I never thought of it that way. (don't know if AKS does) AFAIK, that was the result of his magical abilities. And IMO this tale is the saddest one about orphans ever- the low status of the orphan in many traditional societies meant that they were vulnerable to bad treatment. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 24 Apr 13 - 12:51 PM AKS, thank you very much for the translation. That must have been a lot of work! I enjoyed the earthy humor of him wrecking everything by working as hard as he could. There's a lesson for us all there. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 24 Apr 13 - 07:37 AM @AKS: Incidentally, what made you think the singer had probably read the printed version in the Kalevala as well? BTW, IMO the story is one of the saddest folktales dealing with orphanhood- folk stories about abused orphans are quite common, but this one is especially heartwrenching. Even Kaujjarjuk (Alaskan/Canadian/Greenlandic Kullervo equivalent) and Cinderella received a bit of kindness. Then again, I think this is a folktale on "how to treat orphans." |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: AKS Date: 24 Apr 13 - 06:34 AM Art welcome, ME. You may use it in any other way except: if it is "put to music and/or performed as is", you need a permission from Teosto (Finnish Composers' Copyright Society, www.teosto.fi). AKS |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 24 Apr 13 - 04:07 AM Thanks, btw. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 24 Apr 13 - 04:06 AM @AKS: That's pretty good for a draft! :) If that's a draft, I wanna see the final version! Do you mind if I use that translation in the story I mentioned? |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: AKS Date: 24 Apr 13 - 02:54 AM OK, here's the draft, I have kept the Finnish word order (mostly) – so you get some idea of what word means what. from Suomen kansan vanhat runot, I/2/945: (Old Runes of the Finnish Folk) in Uhtua (now Kalevala), 6th of July 1872 on "Kalevan pojan kosto" 'Kaleva's son's revenge', as "sung" by Arhippa Hilipänpoika Ohvokainen (c. 1820–1890) collected by A. Berner Tuo kaunis Kalervon poika / that beautiful Kalervo's son Kaupattih on Karjalaha / was traded (as) is into Karelia Vienahan Venäjän moalla / into Viena* on Russian soil Kahtee kattilah ranihe / for two worn out kettles Viiteh viikate kuluhe / for five dull scythes Kuutee kuokan ruopivohe / for six well used grubs Tuo kaunis Kalervon poika / that beautiful Kalervo's son Jopa noin sanoiksi virkki / right thus into words spoke out "Kulla työllä uusi orja / to what labour the new slave (shall be set) Roavolla rahan alaini?" / to toil the one worth money Pantih lapsen katsojiksi / (he) was set to care the cild "Syötä lasta, syö itseki / feed the child, eat yourself Katso lasta, kaiva silmä" / watch the child, dig an eye (=be careful) Syötti lasta, söi itseki / fed the child, ate himself Katso lasta, kaivo silmän / watched the child, dug an eye Jopa noin sanoiksi virkki / right thus into words spoke out "Kull' on työllä uusi orja / to what labour the new slave Roavolla rahan alaini?" / to toil the one worth money Pantih nuotan soutajiksi / (he) was set the seine to row Hänpä näin sanoiksi virkki / he this into words spoke out "Soutanenko väen takoa / shall I row with all/full strength Vain souan asun mukaha" / or shall I row as needed (lit. 'according to form') Vetäjä on Venarin poika / hauler is Venari's son Perimies Pelasen poika / steersman Pelanen's son Hänpä noin sanoiksi virkki / he thus into words spoke out "Mikä siitä soutajasta / what is that rower Kuin ei soua väen takoa / who does not row with all strength Kuin soutaa asun mukahe" / but rows as needed Souti hankat hajalla / (he) rowed the oarlocks asunder Levitti lesen venehen / widened the (whole) boat Katajaiset koaret katko / junipery ribs (he) did snap off Itse noin sanoiksi virkki / himself so into words spoke out "Kull' on työllä uusi orja / to what labour the new slave Roavolla rahan alaini?" / to toil the one worth money Pantih häntä tarpojiksi / (he) was set to drive the fish (into sein by beating water with a pole) Hänpä noin sanoiksi virkki / he so into words spoke out "Tarponenko väen takoa / shall I beat with all strength Vain tarvon asun mukahan?" / or shall I beat as needed Vetäjä on Venarin poika / hauler is Venari's son Perimies Pelasen poika / steersman Pelanen's son Jop' on sanoiksi virkki / right thus into words spoke out "Mikä siit' on tarpojasta / what is that beater Kun ei tarvo väen takoa / who does not beat with all strength Kuin tarpou asun mukaha" / but beats as needed Honkan varreksi hotasi / a pine for helve (he) grabbed Pani poajen tarpomeksi / put a flag (of stone) (at the end, to finish a tool called tarvoin) Tarpo nuotan tappurahe / beat the seine into (a bundle of) tow Vejen velliksi sevotti / water into pap stirred Kalat liivakse litsotti / fishes into jelly pounded Kalojah hän käsin kantoi / fishes he by hand carried Itse noin sanoikse virkki / himself so into words spoke out "Kull' on työllä uusi orja / to what labour the new slave Roavolla rahan alaini?" / to toil the one worth money Pantih hänt' kasen ajoho / (he) was set to cut a kaski** Leikkai puuta kaksi, kolme / cutted down trees two three Itse nousi kannon peähä / himself rose on (the head of) a stump "Kuni huuto kuulunohe / as far away as (my) cry is heard Sini kaski koatukohe / thither shall kaski be cut down Älkä vesa venykkä / shall no sprig stretch itself Älkä kanto kasvakka / shall no stump grow (new sprigs) Olen hyvän ottakka / may it take (=grow) good straw Vain älkä terää tekkä / (but may it) only no head make Kasessa Kalervon poijan / in kaski of Kalervo's son Itse noin sanoiksi virkki / himself that into words spoke out "Kulla työllä uusi orja / to what labour the new slave Roavolla rahan alaini?" / to toil the one worth money Pantih häntä paimeneksi / (he) was set to be herdsman Viijen vitan vartihaksi / five twigs to guard Puun kaheksan katsojaksi / trees eight to watch over Mäni päivä männiköllä / went by a day on pine barren Kului päivä kuusikolla / passed a day in spruce forest Vieri vehnä koivikolla / strolled rascal in birch wood Karkasi katajikolla / escaped on junipery (meadow) Jo emäntä koista huusi / (already) mistress from home cried "Aik' on syyvä uuven orjan / time (it) is to eat for the new slave Ravita rahan alaisen" / to foster (himself) the one worth money Veti veitsehe kivehe / drove his knife into stone Karahutti kallivoho / struck onto rock "Syöjätär paha emäntä / ogress evil lady (of the house) Kiven leipo leipähäni / a stone baked into my bread Vehnän peälitse veteli / wheat over it spread Vejin veitseni kivehe / I drove my knife into stone Karahutin kallivoho" / struck onto rock Itse noin sanoiksi virkki / himself so into words spoke out "Millä maksan naisen naurun / with what shall I pay back woman's laughter Naisen naurun, piian pilkan / woman's laughter, maiden's mockery Emännän pahan piännän / mistress's bad treatment Millä jaksan, sillä maksan" / with what I am clever at, with that shall I pay Jo emäntä koista huuti / (already) mistress from home cried "Mist' on paimen pillin soanut / whence has the herdsman a whistle gotten Rautivo rahasen torven?" / the smith a high-priced horn Jätti lehmäset leholla / (he) left the cows on the grove Maion antajat aholla / milk-givers on the clearing Hatasarvet hoavikolla / small-horned ones on aspen grove Kultasarvet kuusikolla / gold-horned in spruce forest Ajoi köllit kotihe / drove the bruins*** home Karhut kirjokartanohe / bears to ornamented mansion "Oi sie entini emäntä / oh thou old (pre-existent) mistress Tule lehmies lypsämähe / come milk your cows Roavahis roavittamahe / your neats to stroke Vaikeitas valuttamahe!" / your difficult ones to (make milk) flow Mäni lehmies lypsämähe / (she) went her cows to milk Roavahia rovittamahe / neats to stroke Vaikeita valuttamahe / difficult ones to flow Susi peällä suimastihe / a wolf onto her jumped Karhu peällä koamistihe / a bear on top rushed Jalan reijestä revitti / leg from the thigh on slashed Käen katkoi kalovehesta / arm broke upto armpit Kiskoi karvat kinttuloista / teared hair off the shanks Hän noin sanoiksi virkki / she thus into words spoke out "Oi Ukko ylijumala / oh Ukko supreme god Eli toatto taivahini / or old man heavenly Nossa pilvi luotehesta / raise a cloud from the north-west Toini kohta koilisesta / another soon from the north-east Tapa sie Kalervon poika / kill thou Kalervo's son Rakehilla rautasilla / with hails of iron Niekloilla teräsnenillä!" / with nails steel-nosed Hänpä joutu kuulomassa / he happened to overhear Itse noin sanoiksi virkki / himself thus into words spoke out "Oi Ukko ylijumala / oh Ukko supreme god Toatto taivon valtivoija / old man heaven's ruler Nossa pilvi luotehesta / raise a cloud from the north-west Toini lännestä lähetä / another from west send Vihmu vettä taivosesta / drizzle water from heaven Mettä pilvistä pirota / juice (lit. honey) from clouds sprinkle Jott' ei tukki tulta ottais / that log would not take fire Vänttä veäntäisi savuo / crooked (firewood) would (not) turn into smoke Suurena sotakesänä / in great war summer Vainovuonna vaikiena." / in the year of persecution hard (the rest of the verses in the "fragment" belong rather to "Ison härän runo" 'Big Bull's Rune') * Viena = Finnish name for the area where northern dialect of Karelian is (was?) spoken, in English White (Sea) Karelia, I think ** kaski = patch of woodland cleared for cultivation by cutting the trees and burning the brush piles *** bear, (ursus arctos) has numerous euphemisms in Finnish; even "official" karhu /rough, hairy/ is one have fun AKS |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 24 Apr 13 - 12:22 AM @leeneia: Yeah. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 23 Apr 13 - 09:50 PM 'Tis the Mudcat Cafe, realm of sophisticates. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 23 Apr 13 - 07:22 PM @AKS: You explained the other stuff much better than I could! And, like leeneia, I didn't know that! :) |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 23 Apr 13 - 09:57 AM Thanks, AKS. I'm interested in languages, and Finnish is so different from English. It's intriguing. Morwen, I'm not a drinker, and to me all booze tastes rather bad, some worse than others. I think vodka smells rather like paint stripper. There are people who imagine that other people won't realize they have been drinking if they stick to vodka. While it's true vodka doesn't have the strong 'dark' flavors of whiskey, I know someone's been drinking it because their breath smells, as I say, like paint stripper. Some distiller used to advertise their vodka with "It leaves you breathless." Ha! ====== The possibility that the name 'Kullervo' is linked to gold might be a good one to exploit in your retelling. Perhaps he will be denied the chance to become a blacksmith and will become a magical goldsmith instead. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: AKS Date: 23 Apr 13 - 09:08 AM Now please, be patient, folks! Translating – even briefly – is not just putting words after one another, I am working on it! ;-) naulemmisii (now, let me see): Karelia / Karjala, explained Kaleva, could refer to person, but mostly used as a place name, meaning the same as Kalevala, where the ending -la makes it mean place, bigger or smaller, like Karja-la. Kalova, no such thing! One has to be careful with Finnish vowels, even the unstressed ones are 'fully voiced' and carry meaning (unlike the English ones that only are to fill the space between consonants :-) Kullervo, a male first name, still in use, might have something in common with kulta 'gold'. AKS |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 22 Apr 13 - 08:02 PM And re: the confusion. AFAIK, Karjala is the Finnish/Karelian word for Karelia, a border region between Finland and Russia. Kalevala is the collection of folk tales that contains the story of Kullervo. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 22 Apr 13 - 07:37 PM @Leeneia: Someone told me that vodka tastes horrible. Actually, the story's fantasy/cyberpunk, but your idea's still a good one. Thanks! There's actually a similarity between this tale and older variants of Cinderella. Both Kullervo and Cinderella are of noble or prominent birth and forced to work as servants for surrogate families. Their surrogate mothers ill-treat them, and are killed as punishment. La Gatta Cenerentola (The Cat Cinderella) has the heroine have two stepmothers. The second one starts out kind but turns out to be much crueller than the first. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: GUEST,leeneia Date: 22 Apr 13 - 10:10 AM Hello, Morwen. The Mudcat is often quite sluggish on weekends. Now that it's Monday morning, at least in some parts of the world, perhaps AKS will get back to you. As for me, I am now thoroughly confused by Karelia, Kalova, Karjala, Kullervo and Kalevala. However, one thing seems clear to me. If you wish to make a modern tale from the story of the adopted and unwanted boy, you have to re-write the savage ending. In a modern tale, the evil mother would have put the stone in the bread while under the influence of alcohol. You would write in some drinking buddies who cackle with evil glee and encourage her in doing that stupid stunt. Here's some info on beer in Finland: "Finland has a long history of beer dating back to the Middle Ages..."Suomalaisen oluen päivä", or the Finnish Beer Day is celebrated on the 13th of October to commemorate the founding of Oy Sinebrychoff Ab (a brewery) and the birth of Finnish beer...Most of the beers brewed in Finland are pale lagers. Finland's standing is 9th in per capita consumption of beer. Finnish people consume a total of 440 ML of beer annually and the trend is increasing by 11.7 633 mL bottles year-on-year per capita." And that doesn't even begin to touch the evil spells and cruel deeds that would result once people got into vodka! In modern times the boy wouldn't murder the woman, he would get his 'revenge' by being better than she is. There are many ways he could do that, and that's the beauty of the creative process. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 21 Apr 13 - 07:34 PM Refresh. Hope that AKS gets back to this thread with his translation. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 21 Apr 13 - 07:37 AM On the Lönnrot poems about Kullervo: I've read they were based on three or four separate elements that were combined into one; a poem about the Son of Kaleva/Kalervo, a slave who works as a shepherd and takes his revenge on his mistress after his knife is broken, a poem about Turikkainen or Tuiretuinen or Turo, who seduces his sister and unknowingly causes her death; and a poem about a man who goes off to war and asks his family if they'll cry for him if he dies in action- and only one says yes. Then while he's setting off, he hears of the deaths of all his family, but is only moved at the death of one. Comparetti (book I quoted in a previous post) mentions four poems. Other sources mention three, which makes me wonder if those stanzas were sung as part of the same rune. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 20 Apr 13 - 06:52 PM Refresh |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 20 Apr 13 - 07:39 AM Refresh. I wonder why AKS thinks "the person who has "given" it, must have read Kalevala as well." |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 19 Apr 13 - 11:17 PM Here's what I found from The Traditional poetry of the Finns by Comparetti. p 145 The fundamental rune is the Son of Kaleva's' (or of |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 19 Apr 13 - 09:00 AM @AKS: Thanks for the explanation! Please do that-- I'd really appreciate it. Also, ahead of time, can I have your permission to quote your translation in my novel? |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: AKS Date: 19 Apr 13 - 08:30 AM Well, the language in "Tuo kaunis Kalervon poika..." (that beautiful Kalervo's son) is not that old at all, I'd say. To a (modern) Finn it sounds archaic because it is rather a mixture of Karelian and Finnish – I'd place it somewhere between Vuokkiniemi & Suomussalmi – and besides, I am pretty sure that the person who has "given" it, must have read Kalevala as well. I'll try to spare some time to give a translation of that "fragment" of Kullervo's tale (even though his name is not once mentioned in it!) AKS |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Karelian folk song: orphan boy's revenge From: MorwenEdhelwen1 Date: 19 Apr 13 - 06:55 AM *(whose name is similar to one of the names of the incestuous brother in some of the Ingrian songs)* A note on that Tolkien version. From a Tolkienite's standpoint, this unfinished story is fascinating. The invented names are very similar to his later Quenya names and words and you can kind of see the roots of what eventually became the Narn. Also, this story is small-scale, only involving two clans feuding over resources, a contrast to the Narn, which is an epic involving all of the Free Peoples of Arda and the Dark Lord, fighting over control of the realms of Middle-earth. So, Tolkien basically took this story about a family feud and turned it into an epic. The Narn is one of my favourite Tolkien books, btw. |
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