The Story of Kullervo

[Mithalwen]

I would have to do a bit of digging to answer exactly since it is on my broken kindle, but it wasn't an academic or literary translation but IIRC a Victorian collection of prose "Stories from the Kalevala" for children, which I downloaded in the first excitement of being able to access free books. I doubt it was comprehensive and I think that the incest was probably omitted. I will have a look at the links you suggest and try to get beyond the trochees.

[Mithalwen]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-34063157

This article may be of interest.

[jallanite]

I note that Verlyn Flieger is quoted as follows:

"Kullervo is the origin story for Shakespeare's Hamlet - a young man whose uncle kills his father and on whom he wreaks a terrible vengeance," says Verlyn Flieger. "It is likely that Tolkien knew that Shakespeare had used this tale."

Quite wrong, I think. The story of Hamlet has been traced to the end of Book III of Saxo Grammaticus’ Gesta Danorum (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_D...story/Book_III). Saxo lived about 1150 to 1220. The hero is mentioned under the name Amlóðí by the Icelandic author Snorri Sturluson in his Prose Edda around 1220, in his Skáldskaparmal, chapter XXV (http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/pre/pre05.htm). Shakespeare may have known the story through the popular retelling by François de Belleforest in his Histoires Tragiques in 1576, which retelling may have at least inspired one earlier Elizabethan play before Shakespeare’s.

The story of Kullervo was part of the Kalevala, first compiled and published by Elias Lönnrot in Finnish in 1835—36 as the Old Kalevala and published in its standard version in Finnish in 1849. I don’t think it at all “likely that Tolkien knew that Shakespeare had used this tale” not even written in Shakespeare’s day, because I don’t believe that Tolkien had any such belief or that Tolkien would have been right if he held it. Rulers who were slain by their nephews are reasonably common in stories and even real history. One ought to be able to support a belief with something more than, “It is likely,” especially when it isn’t.

[Kuruharan]

I saw this in the store this weekend when I was shopping for a present for somebody and thought, "Oh what the hey."

I have finished the existing story and see the aspects of Turin in the character re. the incest resulting from a curse and ultimate suicide of the characters in the same manner.

I found it noteworthy that the idea of the talking sword, which seems so incongruous with the rest of Tolkien's Middle-earth, was present from the very beginnings of the story.

A lasting holdover from the original Kalevala?

The real reason why I had to come post before finishing the book is that on page 42 (hmmmm) I discovered that the short version of my name is in some way associated with death.

EDIT: Now that I have finished reading, I feel more justified in adding a few more thoughts. I don't know that I exactly regret buying this, but it was certainly overpriced for not much content, and rather repetitive content at that. I also don't think that Dr. Flieger had much to add in the way of substantive commentary. I very much have the opinion that this book was published mostly in the hope of making a buck.

I also wonder if Tolkien himself would like having all of his early attempts at writing published for all the world to see. I'm not sure I would want that.