The Kalevala

1) Olipa impi, ilman tyttö  

There was a lass, an air-girl  

a nice nature-daughter: she  

long remained holy  

for ever girlish  

in the air’s long yards  

on its level grounds.  

Her times grew weary  

and her life felt strange  

from being always alone   

living as a lass  

in the air’s long yards  

in the empty wastes.  

(She steps down to the waves, and the waves carry her around the sea. The wind blows her womb full, and she rolls as a water-mother. A bird flies over the sea looking for a place to build its nest. It doesn’t find any, but then the air-lass, water-mother, raises her knee out of the sea. The bird lands on the kneecap and builds the nest there, lays its eggs: six eggs of gold, an iron egg the seventh)  

2) Päähän polven laskeutuvi  

It began to hatch the eggs  

To warm the kneecap  

It hatched one day, it hatched two  

Soon it hatched a third as well.  

(The water-mother/air-lass feels that she is catching fire, shakes

her knee, and the eggs fall into the sea. But the pieces changed into

good things: the earth, the sun, the moon, stars and clouds.)  

3) Siihen saaret siivoeli  

(Ages go on, the water-mother swims in the sea,

then she raises up and starts to shape the world)  

Where she turned her hand around   

there she arranged the headlands;  

where her foot touched the bottom  

there she dug out the fish troughs.  

(Ages go on, then “Steady old Väinämöinen, the bold bard” is born from the water-mother / air-daughter. He lolled in the sea and finally comes on a headland. There he rose up, on a mainland with no trees)  

4) Sampsa maita kylvämähän  

Pellervoinen, the field’s son  

Sampsa, tiny boy –  

he is to sow lands  

and make crops fruitful!  

He got down to sowing lands  

he sowed lands, sowed swamps  

he sowed sandy glades   

he has boulders set.  

(The trees start to grow. Väinämöinen goes to look where Sampsa had seeded. He sees that everything else had grown, but not the oak)  

5) Niin näkevi neljä neittä  

So, he sees four maids  

yes, five brides of the water:  

they were mowing turf  

cutting down dew-straw  

on the misty island’s tip  

at the foggy island’s end  

what they mowed they raked   

dragged it all into a stack.  

(Then, from the sea rises the Beast, and puts a fire to the hay. To the ashes lands a leaf and an acorn, from which grows a big oak. So big is it, that it blocks the sun shining and the moon gleaming. Väinämöinen ponders: might there be an oak-breaker?)  

6) Nousipa merestä miesi  

Out of the sea a man rose  

a fellow came up from the billow:  

he was not big as big goes  

nor all that small as small goes  

(Väinämöinen questions the man’s ability to break the oak as he is quite small)  

7) Näki miehen muuttunehen  

He just managed to say that;  

he glances once more:  

he saw the man changed  

the fellow renewed!  

(The Oak-cutter goes and strikes 3 times, and the big oak falls and lets the sun shine again. Now the nature starts to flourish, grasses, trees and flowers grow. Only the barley doesn’t grow. Väinämöinen finds some seeds from the seashore, takes them with him and goes to sow them in earth. A tomtit chirps from a tree: The barley doesn’t grow unless the earth is pressed down, unless a clearing is felled and is burned with fire. Väinämöinen has a sharp axe made, and cuts down all the fine trees, except one birch for the birds’ resting place. An eagle flows over the sky and asks about the tree left standing. Väinämöinen answers that the birch is for the eagle to sit on. The eagle likes this and strikes a fire. North wind burns all the trees to ash.)  

8) Poltti kaikki puut poroksi  

The north wind burnt the clearing  

the north-east quite consumed it:  

it burned all trees to ash  

reduced them to dust.  

(Now Väinämöinen takes the seeds and goes to sow them in earth. After some time he comes to look his sowings and sees the barley grow. A cuckoo comes and asks about the one unfelled birch tree.)  

9) Niin tuli kevätkäkönen  

The old Väinämöinen said:  

‘This is why it has been left  

the birch tree growing –  

for you, for a calling-tree.  

There call now, cuckoo  

and carol, fine-breast  

warble, silver-breast  

tin-breast, tinkle forth!  

Call evenings and call mornings  

once at midday too  

that my weather may be fair  

my forests pleasant  

my shores prosperous  

my sides full of corn!’