Kullervo
Encyclopedia
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
Kalevala
Kalevala
The Kalevala is a 19th century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Finnish and Karelian oral folklore and mythology.It is regarded as the national epic of Finland and is one of the most significant works of Finnish literature...
, Kullervo was the ill-fated son of Kalervo. He is the only irredeemably tragic character in Finnish mythology
Finnish mythology
Finnish mythology is the mythology that went with Finnish paganism which was practised by the Finnish people prior to Christianisation. It has many features shared with fellow Finnic Estonian mythology and its non-Finnic neighbours, the Balts and the Scandinavians...
.
Rune 31 - Kullervo, son of Evil
Untamo is jealous of his brother Kalervo, and the strife between brothers is fed by numerous petty disputes. Eventually Untamo's resentment boils into open warfare, and he kills all of Kalervo's tribe save for one pregnant woman named Untamala, who submits to Untamo. Shortly afterwards, Untamala gives birth to a baby boy she names Kullervo.When Kullervo is three months old, he is heard uttering vows of revenge and destruction on Untamo's tribe. Untamo tries three times to have Kullervo killed (by drowning, fire and hanging). Each time, the infant Kullervo is saved by his latent magical powers.
Untamo then allows the child to grow up, then tries three times to find employment for him as a servant in his household, but all three attempts fail as Kullervo's wanton and wild nature makes him unfit for any domestic task. In the end, Untamo decides to rid himself of the problem by selling Kullervo into slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
to Ilmarinen
Ilmarinen
Seppo Ilmarinen, the Eternal Hammerer, blacksmith and inventor in the Kalevala, is an archetypal artificer from Finnish mythology. Immortal, he is capable of creating practically anything, but is portrayed as unlucky in love...
.
Rune 32 - Kullervo as a shepherd
The boy is raised in isolation because of his status as a slave, his fierce temper, and frightening signs of early magical talent. The only memento that the boy retains from life in a loving family is an old knife that came along with him as an infant.The wife of Ilmarinen
Ilmarinen
Seppo Ilmarinen, the Eternal Hammerer, blacksmith and inventor in the Kalevala, is an archetypal artificer from Finnish mythology. Immortal, he is capable of creating practically anything, but is portrayed as unlucky in love...
enjoys tormenting the slave boy, now a youth, and sends Kullervo out to tend herd on her livestock with a loaf of bread with stones baked in it, along with a lengthy poem invoking the various deities to grant protection and prosperity to the herd.
Rune 33 - Kullervo and the cheat-cake
Kullervo sits down to eat, but the heirloom knife breaks on one of the stones in the bread. Kullervo is overwhelmed with rage, and, being unusually naturally gifted at magic, casts a curse that makes the cows IlmarinenIlmarinen
Seppo Ilmarinen, the Eternal Hammerer, blacksmith and inventor in the Kalevala, is an archetypal artificer from Finnish mythology. Immortal, he is capable of creating practically anything, but is portrayed as unlucky in love...
's wife is milking turn into bears, who kill her.
Rune 34 - Kullervo finds his tribe-folk
Kullervo then flees from slavery and finds that his family is actually still alive except for his sister, who has disappeared and is feared dead.Rune 35 - Kullervo's evil deeds
Kullervo's father has no more success than Untamo in finding work suited for his son, and thus sends the young man to collect tributes due to the tribe. On the way back he meets a beggar-girl and seduces her without knowing or caring who she is. Afterward he realizes that she is his sister, and out of shame she commits suicide. The distraught Kullervo returns to his family to break the news.Rune 36 - Kullervo's victory and death
Kullervo vows revenge on Untamo. One by one, his own family tries to dissuade him from the fruitless path of evil and revenge, and eventually rejects him, apart from his mother whose maternal love cannot be swayed even when she knows his course of action is wrong. Kullervo hardens his heart and refuses to reconsider, or even to pause to follow funeral rites when he hears his father, brother, sister and mother die in turns.Kullervo goes on and obtains from Ukko
Ukko
In Finnish mythology, Ukko, in Estonian mythology Uku, is a god of sky, weather, crops and other natural things. He is the most significant god in Finnish and Estonian mythologies, and created the goddess Ilmatar, creator of the world. The Finnish word ukkonen, thunderstorm, is derived from his...
his magic broadsword, which he uses to exterminate Untamo and his tribe. When he returns home, he finds the dead bodies of his own family littered about the homestead, untended. His mother's spirit gives him directions to woodland nymphs who can shelter him, but he finds instead the body of his sister, who committed suicide.
Kullervo then asks of Ukko's sword if it will have his life. The sword eagerly accepts, noting that as a weapon it doesn't care who it's used to kill. Kullervo commits suicide by throwing himself on his sword. On hearing the news, Väinämöinen comments that children should never be given away or ill-treated in their upbringing, lest like Kullervo they grow evil and bereft of wisdom or honor.
Evaluation
Kullervo is fairly ordinary in Finnish mythologyFinnish mythology
Finnish mythology is the mythology that went with Finnish paganism which was practised by the Finnish people prior to Christianisation. It has many features shared with fellow Finnic Estonian mythology and its non-Finnic neighbours, the Balts and the Scandinavians...
, in being a naturally talented magician. However, he is the only irredeemably tragic
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
character in Finnish mythology
Finnish mythology
Finnish mythology is the mythology that went with Finnish paganism which was practised by the Finnish people prior to Christianisation. It has many features shared with fellow Finnic Estonian mythology and its non-Finnic neighbours, the Balts and the Scandinavians...
. He showed great potential, but being raised badly, he became an ignorant, implacable, immoral and vengeful man.
The death poem
Death poem
A death poem is a poem written near the time of one's own death. It is a tradition for literate people to write one in a number of different cultures, especially in Joseon Korea and Japan.-History:...
of Kullervo in which he, like Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
, interrogates his blade, is famous. Unlike the dagger
Dagger
A dagger is a fighting knife with a sharp point designed or capable of being used as a thrusting or stabbing weapon. The design dates to human prehistory, and daggers have been used throughout human experience to the modern day in close combat confrontations...
in Macbeth, Kullervo's sword
Sword
A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...
replies, bursting into song: it affirms that if it gladly participated in his other foul deeds, it would gladly drink of his blood also. This interrogation has been duplicated in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Children of Húrin
The Children of Húrin
The Children of Húrin is an epic fantasy novel which forms the completion of a tale by J. R. R. Tolkien. He wrote the original version of the story in the late 1910s, revised it several times later, but did not complete it before his death in 1973...
with Túrin Turambar
Túrin Turambar
Túrin Turambar is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. "Turambar and the Foalókë", begun in 1917, is the first appearance of Túrin in the legendarium. J.R.R...
talking to his black sword, Gurthang, before committing suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
.
Some literary critics have suggested that Kullervo's character is a bitter metaphorical representation of Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
's frequent struggles for independence. This proposal is contested. Certainly Jääkärimarssi (Jäger March), a well-known Finnish military march, contains lines me nousemme kostona Kullervon/soma on sodan kohtalot koittaa (We arise as vengeance of Kullervo/so sweet are the fates of war to undergo).
The story of Kullervo is unique among ancient myths in its realistic depiction of the effects of child abuse http://www.finlit.fi/kalevala/index.php?m=1&s=27&l=1. The canto 36 ends in Väinämöinen
Väinämöinen
Väinämöinen is the central character in the Finnish folklore and the main character in the national epic Kalevala. His name comes from the Finnish word väinämö, meaning minstrel. Originally a Finnish god, he was described as an old and wise man, and he possessed a potent, magical...
stating that an abused child will never attain the healthy state of mind even as adult, but will grow up as a very disturbed person.
Parallels in Popular Culture
The tale of Túrin TurambarTúrin Turambar
Túrin Turambar is a fictional character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. "Turambar and the Foalókë", begun in 1917, is the first appearance of Túrin in the legendarium. J.R.R...
in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion
The Silmarillion
The Silmarillion is a collection of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic works, edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, who later became a noted fantasy writer. The Silmarillion, along with J. R. R...
(expanded in Unfinished Tales
Unfinished Tales
Unfinished Tales is a collection of stories and essays by J. R. R. Tolkien that were never completed during his lifetime, but were edited by his son Christopher Tolkien and published in 1980.Unlike The Silmarillion, for which the narrative fragments were modified to connect into a consistent and...
and finally in The Children of Húrin
The Children of Húrin
The Children of Húrin is an epic fantasy novel which forms the completion of a tale by J. R. R. Tolkien. He wrote the original version of the story in the late 1910s, revised it several times later, but did not complete it before his death in 1973...
) has similarities with this myth, as it has with the stories of Oedipus
Oedipus
Oedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family...
and Sigurd
Sigurd
Sigurd is a legendary hero of Norse mythology, as well as the central character in the Völsunga saga. The earliest extant representations for his legend come in pictorial form from seven runestones in Sweden and most notably the Ramsund carving Sigurd (Old Norse: Sigurðr) is a legendary hero of...
the Völsung. One particular similarity is that Túrin also asks his sword if it will kill him, then impales himself upon it after the sword responds in the affirmative.
Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
's tragic hero
Tragic hero
A tragic hero is the main character in a tragedy. Tragic heroes appear in the dramatic works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Seneca, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Webster, Marston, Corneille, Racine, Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Strindberg, and many other writers.-Aristotle's tragic hero:Aristotle...
Elric of Melniboné
Elric of Melniboné
Elric of Melniboné is a fictional character created by Michael Moorcock, and the antihero of a series of sword and sorcery stories centering in an alternate Earth. The proper name and title of the character is Elric VIII, 428th Emperor of Melniboné...
likewise contains many elements that are inspired by Kullervo; a notable similarity between the two is the near-identical reply of each protagonist's weapon to its master before his suicide.
Another parallel is the tale of Sir Balin
Sir Balin
Sir Balin le Savage , also known as the Knight with the Two Swords, is a character in the Arthurian legend. Merlin told King Arthur he would have been his best and bravest knight. A knight before the Round Table was formed, Sir Balin hails from Northumberland, and is associated with Sir Balan, his...
in the Arthurian Legend. Though he knows he wields an accursed sword, Balin nevertheless continues his quest to regain King Arthur's favour, though he unintentionally causes misery wherever he goes. Fate eventually catches up with him when he unwittingly kills his own brother, who in turn mortally wounds him.
Kullervo is also a major character in Julia Golding's book series, The Companions Quartet, in which he is the antagonistic shape-shifter who is Connie's companion creature.
Kullervo in music and theater
KullervoKullervo
In the Finnish Kalevala, Kullervo was the ill-fated son of Kalervo. He is the only irredeemably tragic character in Finnish mythology.-Rune 31 - Kullervo, son of Evil:...
is an eponymous 1860 play by Aleksis Kivi
Aleksis Kivi
Aleksis Kivi , born Alexis Stenvall, was a Finnish author who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, Seven Brothers...
. An English translation was published in 1993: Aleksis Kivi's Heath Cobblers and Kullervo, translated by Douglas Robinson (North Star Press of St. Cloud).
Kullervo
Kullervo (Sibelius)
Kullervo, Op. 7 is an early symphonic poem for soloists, chorus and orchestra, written by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.The work, based on the character of Kullervo from the epic poem Kalevala, premiered to great critical acclaim on 28 April 1892. The soloists at the premiere were Emmy Achté...
is an eponymous 1892 choral symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
in five movements for full orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
, two vocal soloists, and male choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
by Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
. It was opus 7 for Sibelius and his first successful work.
In the Jaeger March (Jääkärin marssi) by Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
one of the lines goes: Me nousemme kostona Kullervon, in English: We shall rise like Kullervo's revenge.
Kullervo is the subject of a 1988 opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
by Aulis Sallinen
Aulis Sallinen
Aulis Sallinen is a Finnish contemporary classical music composer. He writes in a modern, though tonal and not experimental music style. He studied at the Sibelius Academy, where his teachers included Joonas Kokkonen...
.
Kullervo is also the subject of a brief symphonic poem composed in 1913 by Leevi Madetoja
Leevi Madetoja
Leevi Antti Madetoja was a Finnish composer.-Life and career:Born in Oulu, he was the son of Antti Madetoja and Anna Hyttinen...
.
In 2006 a Finnish metal band Amorphis
Amorphis
Amorphis is a Finnish heavy metal band started by Jan Rechberger, Tomi Koivusaari, and Esa Holopainen in 1990. Initially, the band was a death metal act, but on later albums they evolved into playing other types of genres, which include heavy metal, progressive metal, and folk metal...
released its seventh studio album Eclipse
Eclipse (Amorphis album)
-Credits:* Tomi Joutsen − vocals* Tomi Koivusaari − rhythm guitar* Esa Holopainen − lead guitar* Santeri Kallio − keyboards* Niclas Etelävuori − bass guitar* Jan Rechberger − drums* Marco Hietala − producer, backing vocals* Mikko Karmila - producer...
, which tells the story of Kullervo according to a play by Paavo Haavikko
Paavo Haavikko
Paavo Haavikko was a Finnish poet and playwright, considered one of the country's most outstanding writers...
. The play has been translated into English by Anselm Hollo
Anselm Hollo
Anselm Paul Alexis Hollo is a Finnish poet and translator. He has lived in the United States since 1967.-Life and work:...
.
The Hilliard Ensemble
Hilliard Ensemble
The Hilliard Ensemble is a British male vocal quartet originally devoted to the performance of early music. Founded in 1974, the group is named after the Elizabethan miniaturist painter Nicholas Hilliard....
commissioned an English language setting of Kullervo's story, Kullervo's Message, from Veljo Tormis
Veljo Tormis
Veljo Tormis is an Estonian composer, regarded to be one of the greatest living choral composers and one of the most important composers of the 20th century in Estonia. Internationally, his fame arises chiefly from his extensive body of choral music, which exceeds 500 individual choral songs, most...
.