Suomen kansan vanhat runot
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Suomen kansan vanhat runot (The Ancient Songs of the Finnish People), or SKVR, is a 34-part work containing around 100,000 different songs, and including the majority of the songs that were the sources of the Kalevala and related poetry. The collection is available, free, online.
Contents[]
The original 33 volumes were published by the Finnish Literature Society from 1908 to 1948. A supplement, containing, among other things, some of the field notes of Cristfried Ganander and Elias Lönnrot, was added in 1997. The supplement also contains poems on highly sexual subjects, such as spells to obtain a sexual partner or to improve sexual performance, which had previously been considered unsuitable for publication.[1] Most of the songs in the collection come from the archives of the Finnish Literature Society, but many come from elsewhere, including archives in other countries.
SKVR does not include all recorded Finnish oral folklore, nor is it exclusively a collection of songs. It is also rich in prose stories and poetic forms other than those in the Kalevala meter.
The songs in SKVR are catalogued by regions, and within each region they are divided into four main categories:
- lyric songs
- epic or narrative songs
- songs in other genres such as wedding songs or lullabies
- spells.
Each of these sections is further divided into several subgroups.
English Translation[]
A selection of poems is presented in normalised Finnish and in English translation in Finnish Folk Poetry: Epic. An Anthology in Finnish and English, edited and translated by Matti Kuusi, Keith Bosley and Michael Branch (Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran toimituksia, 329, Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 1977).
References[]
External links[]
- Scandinavian folklore
- Kalevala
- Finnish mythology