SOURCE: "Lönnrot and His Singers," translated by Satu Salo and Keith Bosley, in Books from Finland, Vol. XIX, No. 1, 1985, pp. 24-29.

In the following excerpt, Timonen examines the contributions made to Lönnrot' s conception of the Kalevala by some of the principal singers of Finnish folk poems from whom he collected his material.

In the winter of 1834, when the Kalevala was taking shape, on Elias Lönnrot' s desk there were 27,900 lines of folk poetry, as yet unpublished, each of which had been taken down from private citizens. Most of these singers and wise men (tietäjät, literally 'knowers', possessors of magical powers) were still alive and breathing the frosty air of the same winter in their villages far away across the eastern border of the Grand Duchy of Finland. Lönnrot was drawn to these singers, not only because they were his contemporaries, but...