num_pages: 224
description: This is the first appearance in English of The Kanteletar (1840-1), the companion volume to the Finnish national epic poem The Kalevala.Based on Finnish oral tradition, The Kanteletar (roughly "zither-daughter", a kind of muse) is a selection from a treasury of nearly seven hundred lyrics and ballads that celebrate the everyday life of a rural society at work and play. The ballads range from a beautiful sequence of legends about the Virgin Mary, through the grim tales of Elina, to a hilarious account of a dragon that refuses to devour its victims.
language: English
title: The Kanteletar
titlecomplete: The Kanteletar
genres: Classics, Mythology, Folklore, Poetry, Finnish Literature
ratings_count: 71
publisher: Oxford University Press