“Väinämöinen: Eternal Sage”

Martti Haavio’s study on old Finnish-Karelian epic poems in the Kalevala metre reveals the many faces and roles of their central personage, Väinämöinen, the eternal sage. On the basis of extensive comparative material he shows that there are at least two basic roles for Väinämöinen in the poems, the shaman and the cultural her, whose characters display and combine motifs from archaic belief systems and international myths and legends. No historical core, such as the shaman-seer of centuries past, is to be found any longer in the poems, though the influence of one or more historical sage figures on the composition of the poems about Väinämöinen is not entirely impossible. In their present form, however, the poems contain a stratified mythical worldview that preserves remnants of different cultural eras and tradition contexts.

FF Communications 144