surpassing value and intrinsic beauty.  Jacob Grimm, in a separate treatise, published in his Kleinere Schriften, said that the genuineness and extraordinary value of the Kalevala is easily proved by the fact that from its mythological ideas we can frequently interpret the mythological conceptions of the ancient Germans, whereas the poems of Ossian manifest their modern origin by their inability to clear up questions of old Saxon or German mythology.  Grimm, furthermore, shows that both the Gothic and Icelandic literatures display unmistakable features of Finnish influence.

Max Müller places the Kalevala on a level with the greatest epics of the world.  These are his words: 

“From the mouths of the aged an epic poem has been collected equalling the Iliad in length and completeness; nay, if we can forget for a moment, all that we in our youth learned to call beautiful, not less beautiful.  A Finn is not a Greek, and Wainamoinen was not a Homer [Achilles?]; but if the poet may take his colors from that nature by which he is surrounded, if he may depict the men with whom he lives, the Kalevala possesses merits not dissimilar from those of the Illiad, and will claim its place as the fifth national epic of the world, side by side with the Ionian Songs, with the Mahabharata, the Shalinameth, and the Nibelunge.”

Steinthal recognizes but four great national epics, viz., the Iliad, Kalevala, Nibelunge and the Roland Songs.

The Kalevala describes Finnish nature very minutely and very beautifully.  Grimm says that no poem is to be compared with it in this respect, unless it be some of the epics of India.  It has been translated into several European languages; into Swedish by Alex.  Castren, in 1844; into French prose by L. LeDuc, in 1845; into German by Anton Schiefuer, in 1852; into Hungarian by Ferdinand Barna, in 1871; and a very small portion of it—­the legend of Aino—­into English, in 1868, by the late Prof.  John A. Porter, of Yale College.  It must remain a matter of universal regret to the English-speaking people that Prof.  Porter’s life could not have been spared to finish the great work he had so beautifully begun.

Some of the most convincing evidences of the genuineness and great age of the Kalevala have been supplied by the Hungarian translator.  The Hungarians, as is well known, are closely related to the Finns, and their language, the Magyar dialect, has the same characteristic features as the Finnish tongue.  Barna’s translation, accordingly, is the best rendering of the original.  In order to show the genuineness and antiquity of the Kalevala, Barna adduces a Hungarian book written by a certain Peter Bornemissza, in 1578, entitled ordogi Kisertetekrol (on Satanic Specters), the unique copy of which he found in the library of the University of Budapest.  In this book Bornemissza collected all the incantations (raolvasasok) in use among Hungarian country-people