characters and incidents being more or less distinctly borrowed from
those in the Kalevala. The incidents, however, are generally
considerably altered, and not always for the better.

It will be seen that Lonnrot edited the _Kalevala_ from old ballads,
much as the poems of Homer, or at least the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, are
said to have been put together by order of Pisistratus.

In the preparation of my own translation, the flexibility of the metre
has permitted me to attempt an almost literal rendering; without, I
hope, sacrificing elegance. The simplicity of the Finnish language and
metre would, in my opinion, render a prose version bald and
unsatisfactory. My chief difficulty has been to fit the Finnish names
into even a simple English metre, so as to retain the correct
pronunciation, and I fear I have not always succeeded in overcoming it
satisfactorily. I am greatly indebted to Prof. Kaarle Krohn and Madame
Aino Malmberg of Helsingfors, for their kindness in looking over the
whole of my typewritten translation, and for numerous suggestions and
comments. Of course I am solely responsible for any errors and
shortcomings which may be detected in my work.

I have added short notes at the end of each volume, and a glossary of
proper names at the end of the book, but a detailed commentary would be
out of place in a popular edition. The Arguments to each Runo are
translated, slightly modified, from those in the original.

The religion of the poem is peculiar; it is a Shamanistic animism,
overlaid with Christianity.

The _Kalevala_ relates the history of four principal heroes:
Vainamoinen, the Son of the Wind, and of the Virgin of the Air; a great
culture-hero, patriarch, and minstrel, always described as a vigorous
old man. The Esthonians call him Vanemuine, and make him the God of
Music.

His "brother" Ilmarinen appears to be the son of a human mother, though
he is also said to have been "born upon a hill of charcoal." He is a
great smith and craftsman, and is described as a handsome young man.

The third hero, Lemminkainen, is a jovial, reckless personage, always
getting into serious scrapes, from which he escapes either by his own
skill in magic, or by his mother's. His love for his mother is the
redeeming feature in his character. One of his names is Kaukomieli, and
he is, in part, the original of Longfellow's "Pau-Puk-Keewis."

The fourth hero is Kullervo, a morose and wicked slave of gigantic
strength, whi