The Kalevala is a 19th-century compilation of epic poetry, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling an epic story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and retaliatory voyages between the peoples of the land of Kalevala called Väinölä and the land of Pohjola and their various protagonists and antagonists, as well as the construction and robbery of the epic mythical wealth-making machine Sampo.
Kalevala. The Finnish national epic by Elias Lönnrot. First edition, 1835.
Elias Lönnrot
The statue of Väinämöinen by (1888) decorates the Old Student House in Helsinki
A caricature of Elias Lönnrot by A. W. Linsen: "Unus homo nobis currendo restituit rem" – "One man saved everything for us by running".
An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
A tablet containing a fragment of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The first edition (1835) of the Finnish national epic poem Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot