Few people alive who can recite the Kalevala

[Astronuc]

I watched a program several years ago about one of the few people alive who can recite the Kalevala. It is truly an epic work.

The Kalevala is an epic poem which Elias Lönnrot in the 19th century said that he had compiled from Finnish folk sources. It is commonly called the Finnish national epic and is one of the most significant works of Finnish-language literature. The Kalevala is credited with inspiring the nationalism that ultimately led to Finnish independence from Russia in 1917. The name means "land of Kaleva". The text of the Kalevala consists of 22,795 verses, divided into 50 poems or chapters (finnish runot, singular runo, from Germanic rune).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevala

http://runeberg.org/kalevala/ - in Finnish

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/ - in English

 

[PerennialII]

...high school nightmares of reading the thing resurrected . Who says past "sins" don't come back to haunt you ... anyways, the story is certainly epic in nature, and in a land where national spirit was lacking at the time (before independence always being tossed around by someone) was likely one of the defining elements in bringing the people under one 'banner', to demonstrate there is a separate 'people' here after all after being a more or less autonomous part of Russia for a long time. Could argue it being 'the appropriate' way of building a 'national' identity.