Mabinogion II: Branwen and her Brothers

The Myth: Myths of Wales! Knights! Kings! Faeries! Giants! Princesses! Vaguely Arthurian Imagery!
The Book: The Mabinogion
The Author:  Various bards of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
This text: etext of a 1906 translation by Lady Charlotte Guest
Price: $2.48 (Dover Thrift Editions. There's also a free version at Project Gutenberg, but the stories are in a different order.)

The second part of the Mabinogion gets a bit mythic. The Mab as a whole tends toward fairy tale imagery crossed with Arthuriana, but this bit is kinda weird.

Mabinogion II: Branwen, Daughter of Llyr
So Matholwch, King of Ireland, comes to London to make a treaty: he wants to marry Branwen, the sister of Bendigeid Vran, King of the Isle of the Mighty. This meets everyone's approval so they set up tents at Aberffraw.

The tents are because Bendigeid Vran is bloody huge, and he doesn't fit into actual buildings.

In addition to the King, Branwen has a number of other brothers. Included in their number are two half-brothers on her mother's side. Nissyen is the nicest guy in the world; Evnissyen is a real dick.

Evnissyen the Dickish decides, belatedly, that he doesn't actually approve of his sister's marriage, so he disfigures Matholwych's horses by cutting off their noses and lips. Matholwych takes offense at the insult and makes to leave. Bendigeid Vran points out that this was the act of, well, a dick. A blood relation, sure, but still a dick. There is some complicated dishonour negotiation where it is decided that Bedigeid Vran has been the more dishonoured, but Matholwych has nevertheless been insulted and the insult won't go away just like that. Bedigeid Vran sees the point and offers to replace all the horses, along with a staff of silver and a plate of gold and, because this reward was kind of small to his mind, he throws in a magic cauldron that restores the dead to life.

This cauldron had been brought to Britain by a pair of giants, exiled from Ireland for various crimes, including Grand Theft: Magic Cauldron. But they had been reformed and were considered model British citizens as far as Bendigeid Vran was concerned, usefully populating the Island with big, healthy, productive children. Matholwch takes his wife and cauldron and horses and goes home.

Back in Ireland, it turns out that while Matholwch was pretty ok with the whole "mortal insult" thing, especially with his shiny new cauldton, his foster brothers are rather less so. They kick up a fuss and take this out on Branwen, separating her from Matholwch and making her cook dinner every day and authorising the butcher to hit her on the side of the head. Understandably miffed, Branwen trains a starling to fly to Britain and tell her Brother what's going on. Suddenly, there's a forest of masts off the Irish coast.

"So, wife, the shepherds are talking about a forest where there wasn't one before, and a moving mountain. You understand weird shit, what's going on?"
"Oh, that's the British navy come to avenge the wrongs that have been done me. The mountain's my brother, you remember? He's probably pretty pissed off, on account of the wrongs that have been done me."
"I might...surrender and abdicate. A bit."

So there's war, and Matholwych soon discoveres that burning your bridges doesn't actually halt the enemy's advance if he can lie in a river and let his troops cross over his back. Matholwych surrenders, and builds a big pavilion to recieve Bendigeid Vran. But Matholwych has not capitulated as thoroughly as it looks: on every one of the hundred pillars holding up the pavilion has a leather bag, and in each of these bags is an enemy soldier. Evnissyen the Dickish asks what's in the bags and is told that they contain meal. He pokes one and finds that it feels suspiciously like a head, so he squeezes it until it pops. Because it's the kind of methodical psychopath he is, the Dickish One goes round squeezing each bag of meal to death.

Absent the secret army of treacherous treachery, the capitulation ceremony goes on according to its original program, and Matholwych and Branwen's son is named King of Ireland. Evnissyen the Dickish, for reasons of his own, decides to throw the boy into the fire. Branwen leaps onto the fire after him, but is rescued by Bendigeid Vran. The boy is not so lucky. The Irish spontaneously revolt, and the British discover that the callous murder of a hundred soldiers is less of a setback than you'd expect if your enemy has a magic cauldron that can bring back the dead.

The story recounts that Evnissyen has a pang of conscience that he's brought his brother to this terrible strait and sacrifices himself, diving into the boiling cauldron and sundering it from within. But even so, the British do not getting the best of this exchange, especially when Bendigeid Vran is shot in the foot with a poison dart.

"What happened to Evnissyen?"
"He sacrificed himself by throwing himself into the cauldron and destroying it from within."
"That doesn't sound like him."
"Well, he got thrown into the cauldron and it broke. Who's to say what really happened?"

And here it gets weird. Weirder than giant kings being a literal bridge to their people.

Seven of what we shall loosely call our heroes escape, including Pryderi from the previous story. Bendigeid Vran tells them to chop off his head and carry it with them, promising to be as sparkling a companion as he's ever been. He tells them to bury it in London, but there's no hurry, they'll probably spend eighty years or so getting there. Most of this time is spent camped out in Gwales, near a door that doesn't go anywhere.

"Right, so, I want you to go to London, and bury my head so that it faces France."
"Guys, is it weird that the boss's giant decapitated head is still talking to us?"
"But first, you should go to Gwales, where you can stay as long as you want and not get old."
"Guys?"
"Just don't open the magic door that doesn't go anywhere, because then you'll have to leave."
"Guys, the boss's giant decapitated head is giving us creepy mystical instructions. This is weeeeird!"

Branwen dies of grief, feeling responsible for the destruction of two kingdoms, even though it was Evnissyen who was responsible for the destruction of two kingdoms.

Eighty years later, the unaged heroes open the door that doesn't go anywhere and Bendigeid Vran's head is buried in London as instructed, where it protects the Island from invasion until it is disinterred some time in the distant future. Ireland, meanwhile, repopulates itself from the five pregnant women who survived the war by hiding in a cave.

Thus ends this portion of the Mabinogion.

Next: Of mice and Manawyddan.

Mabinogion I: The Mighty Pwyll

The Myth: Myths of Wales! Knights! Kings! Faeries! Princesses! Giants! Vaguely Arthurian Imagery!
The Book: The Mabinogion
The Author:  Various bards of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
This text: etext of a 1906 translation by Lady Charlotte Guest
Price: $2.48 (Dover Thrift Editions, but there's also a free version at Project Gutenberg)

The first story in the Mabinogeon is full of fairy tale imagery and dream logic. Pwyll is a noble Prince of a fine land, just and heroic and just bright enough to get himself in trouble.

Part the First: Pwyll, Chief of Annwvyn
So Prince Pwyll is out hunting, and he comes across a stag that is being attacked by dogs. He kicks them off so he can set his own hounds on it. Turns out that this is a tremendous breach of monarchical hunting etiquette and Arawn, the king who owns the pack, is bloody furious.

This is where Pwyll differs from pretty much every ruler in history or myth: he admits that he's in the wrong and asks if there's any way he can make amends.

Turns out Arawn has exactly the sort of problem that Pwyll can solve: he asks Pwyll to rule his kingdom, Annwvyn, for a year, and at the end of it kill his direst enemy. After being reassured that Arawn will govern Dyved in his stead, Pwyll agrees.

"My wife's pretty hot, by the way. You'll like her."
"...uh. Ok?"

Oh, yeah: Arawn's kingdom is in Hell.

Still, it's a nice enough place, and Pwyll rules it well, happily partaking of hunting, mistrelsy, feasting and diversions. When the year is up, he follows the strange and restrictive ritual to kill Arawn's rival, and heads home.

"Ok, so you've got to hit him really hard, but then when he asks you to kill him you can't, because I did that last time and he came back good as ever, and you have to do it on this exact day, because he'll be expecting it, and then come back and we'll swap back. Got it?"
"Got it."
"Good." 

Arawn, it turns out, has ruled Dyved fairly and justly and perectly disguised as Pwyll, so that nobody knows any different. Except for all the wisdom and justice, which has been pretty remarkable, apparently.

Despite the fact that noone in either kingdom knew that their rulers had switched places, Pwyll is widely lauded for unifying Annwyvn and leading Dyved into prosperity, and is granted the title Chieftain of Annwvyn. This leads to an eternal friendship between the monarchs, even though Arawn got none of the credit. Humans, huh?

Part the Second: Bride of Pwyll
Prince Pwyll is told that if he stands on a particular hill, he won't be able to leave it without either recieving massive injury or seeing a wonder. Prince Pwyll opts to stand on that particular hill. Happily, it turns out to be the wonder: the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, and he spent a year pretending to be a Faerie Queen's husband. He sends a page out to speak to her, but even at his fastest he can't catch up to her mild amble. So the next day they set out again, this time with a faster horse. Once again, the page can't catch up with the lady's gentle pace. On the third day, Pwyll himself rides out, and again can't catch up - until he has the brainwave of asking her to stop.

"Well, why didn't you say so?" she says.

Her name is Rhiannon, and it turns out she'd just been waiting for him to ask, because she's on the run from an arranged marriage and wants no-one but Pwyll. This suits Pwyll down to the ground, so he agrees to her terms: he's to wait a year and then come with a hundred knights to ask for her hand.

At the wedding feast, a churl comes up to Pwyll and asks a boon. Pwyll is feeling generous and also kinda drunk so he generously agrees to provide anything this man might ask.

Which his bride tells him was pretty fucking stupid.

Gwawl, son of Clud, demands his boon: Pwyll's bride for his own, on account of they had an arrangement previously. Rhiannon sighs and says, "Fine, whatever, come back in a year," but she has a plan. At the next wedding feast, Pwyll is to ask for a boon. Rather than simply asking for his bride back - this sort of thing could go on forever - he's to ask Gwawl, son of Clud, to fill a bag that she happens to have on her.

So a year later, at the wedding feast, Pwyll asks his boon: to have his magic bag filled with food and stuff. But the bag isn't easily filled. In fact, Pwyll says, what it really needs is for someone rich and landed to stomp down the food in it. Rolling his eyes, Gwawl, son of Clud agrees to stomp down the food in the bag, and is absolutely astonished when Pwyll pulls it up over his head and ties it off.

The assembled revellers take up the quaint Welsh pasttime known as "badger-in-the-bag", which is played with a bag, some heavy sticks, and a badger. Gwawl, son of Clud, plays the part of the badger, until Rhiannon's dad points out that, actually, killing the groom on his wedding night is somewhat undignified. You know, for a noble. Rhiannon points out Pwyll's superior bargaining position, and recommends that he ask for his bride back, oh, and also that the son of Clud swear off revenge for the entire episode, and that they shouldn't have to wait another year. Gwawl unsurprisingly agrees as long as he no longer has to be the badger, and they all live happily and non-vengefully ever after.

Part the Third: The Return of the Son of the Bride of Pwyll
Pwyll and Rhiannon are happily married, but after a couple of years the court starts to notice a worrying lack of maternal fertility. Give me another year, says Rhiannon, and sure enough a son is born within that very same year.

Except that the baby disappears from the nursery.

The ladies in waiting, not wanting to be blamed for losing the royal offspring, decide that the best thing they can do is kill some puppies and use the blood and bones to frame Rhiannon for killing and eating her baby.

Pwyll, no expert in anatomy, reluctantly sentences his wife to public humilation: she is to wait by the horse block at the outskirts of town every morning and tell passersby her crime, and if they ask she's to piggy-back them to court.

Not many people take her up on this offer.

On the other hand, Pwyll refuses to divorce her: the only grounds that the courtiers maight have are if she doesn't produce a child, and she has. Technically true is the best kind of true.

Meanwhile, though, Teirnyon Twryv Vliant, the best man in the world and a former vassal of Pwyll's, is having horse problems. Specifically, every time his prize mare foals, the offspring is gone by morning. No more, he says, and stakes out the stables. Sure enough, shortly after the foal is born, a giant claw comes through the window. Teirnyon cuts the thing off at the elbow, causing the spirit monster to retreat. Teirnyon follows, yelling at the beastie to stay the heck out of his stables. On the doorstep, he finds that the monster has dropped something: a silk-swaddled baby.

Teirnyon's wife tells everyone that she's been pregnant, and they name the child Gwri Wallt Euryn, apparently because he's blond. He's a strong and seemly kid, but he grows faster than an alien baby in a Star Trek episode, and in a couple of years they have a strapping young man who, they can't help but notice, bears an uncanny resemblance to Teirnyon's former boss.

Making enquiries, Teirnyon discovers the story of Rhiannon's crime and punishment. Teirnyon is no slouch in the adding-two-and-two-together department, and, besides, people are beginning to talk. Teirnyon and his wife make a gift of the horse that was saved on the same day the boy was found, and take him off to Dyved.

At the Dyved horse-block, they meet Rhiannon, who tells them how she killed and ate her suspiciously puppy-shaped offspring, and offers them a lift. They decline, and she accompanies them to the palace to meet Pwyll. At this point, Teirnyon says, "Hey, about that killed-and-eaten thing, funny story..." and introduces the boy. Gwri is renamed Pryderi, "Anxiety", and taken into his family, Teirnyon and his wife are fulsomely rewarded and everyone laughs at the silly little  misunderstanding.

And thus ends this portion of the Mabinogion.

Next: Branwen and her brothers.

Two Monsters and a Dragon: Beowulf

The Myth: Beowulf! A monster and his mum! Treasure! Magic swords! A dragon! Fabulous treasure from a lost race!
The Book: Beowulf
The Author:  Unknown, sometime in the eighth century. Possibly the ninth. No later than the eleventh. (Thanks, Wiki.)
This text: etext of a 1909 translation by F. B. Gummere in "English imitative meter".
Price: Nothin' (Kindle Free Library)


Beowulf kills a monster. Then he kills another monster. Fifty years later, he kills a dragon, and dies. Also, there are digressions into Geatish history and politics.

"So he came in the night?"
"Yeah, he wanted to give us a hand."
"And you...?"
"He found my hospitality disarming."
"By which you mean..."
"This is a fine hall, Hrothgar, I've got to hand it to you."
"Right. I get it."
"I ripped his arm off, is what I'm saying."
"I gathered. From the monster arm you're waving around."
"'cos I'm a champion of unarmed combat."
"Are you finished?"
"Yeah, I'm done."

Ok, yes, there's more to it than that. The poem is pretty awesome, all alliterative and bloody. The setting is detailed, the characterisation solid, the fighting visceral. The digressions are occasionally a bit weird, coming across as a sort of poetic product placement: "Have you considered such other fine poems as 'The Tragic Lay of Heremod' or 'The Epic of Freawuru'?" They may have meant more to an 8th-11th century audience.

But at the base of it, a hero fights monsters and wins. Then dies.
 
This is foundation stuff for the English language and well worth a read. And it's not that long. It took Redcrosse far more verbiage to kill his dragon, for example.

For Queene and Country: The Adventures of the Redcrosse Knight

The Myth: Gloriana, the Faerie Queene! Mythic England! Magic queens! Knights! Ladies! Witches! Sorcerers! Giants! Lions! Dragons! More allegory than you could possibly imagine!
The Book: The Faerie Queene (Book I)
The Author: Edmund Spenser, 1590
This text: etext of a 1903 edition, edited by George Armstrong Wauchope
Price: Nothin' (Kindle Free Library)



In the first book - actually, in the preamble, a letter to Sir Walter Raleigh - a young country boy presents himself at the court of the Faerie Queene herself, Gloriana, saying that he wants to be a knight. At the same time, a young woman, Una, presents herself at the court, asking that the Queene aid her land, which is beset by a dragon. The Queene, in an admirable display of efficiency, knights the boy and sends him off with Una, as per their respective requests.

"Somehow I thought this would be harder. Like, there might be a test or something." "You're still here? Dragons don't slay themselves, kid."

Then the poem actually starts, and the lad is now the Redcrosse Knight, on account of the red cross on his surcoat. He sets out with the lady and her dwarf. It's not an easy trip. The three are constantly tricked, captured, threatened, tilted at and generally harassed. They're hassled by the shifty wizard Archimago, the faithless, seductive witch Duessa, the Saracen brother-knights Sansloy, Sansjoy and Sansfoy, and a full cast of giants and monsters. Luckily, despite having been given the job without even addressing the selection criteria, the boy turns out to be pretty good at knighting and kind of okay at resisting seduction. Una, despite being less martial, has a useful knack for being protected by a lion at key points in the narrative. Also, King Arthur arrives to save the day and banish Duessa to hell.

According to the annotations, this is all highly allegorical and probably terribly witty to the Elizabethan crowd. Redcrosse represents Holiness (and England, and Protestantism), Una represents Truth, the dwarf is Common Sense, the lion is Reason (and the Reformation, and Henry VIII) and they fight against dishonesty, falsehood, treachery, misery, hypocrisy and so on (and also France, the Pope, Catholics, Spain, Jesuits and other nasties). You probably need to be an Elizabethan courtier to get all the references, and if you're an Elizabethan courtier you're probably actually in it.

Anyway, eventually, they make it to Una's home country, which is Eden, and Redcrosse squares off against the dragon (Satan, and also maybe Spain). This is a drag-out, knock-down, three-day battle, where Redcrosse and the dragon each give as good as they get. At the end of the first day, Redcrosse is killed but falls into Eden's life-giving well. At the end of the second, Redcross is burned and poisoned but healed by a balm from the tree of life. Finally, Redcrosse wins. He and Una are betrothed, and everyone lives happily ever after. Except, say, Duessa, or Archimago.

--

The Faerie Queene is supposed to represent some of the most beautiful writing in the English language.

I don't really see it.

Certainly, I'm not transported the way I was with the (English translation of) the Kalevala, or with Beowulf, or even the latter parts of the Mort. Part of this, I suppose, is that the enthusiastic Elizabethan spelling adds a layer of complication, so that to the modern eye (well, mine), the rhymes and rhythms are a bit wonky. And part of it is the allegory, which can be hilariously unsubtle or weirdly oblique. Overall, it becomes a bit of a struggle.

That said, the dragon bit is awesome.

And the baby daughter rather likes it.

Next: The Temperate Knight.

Georgians in Arabia: The Knight in the Panther Skin

The Myth: Georgia's national epic - Adventure! Romance! Wild animals! Love, both thwarted and true! Questionable fashion choices! Manly men doing manly things! More weeping and swooning than you'd think!
The Book: The Man in the Panther's Skin
The Author: Shot'ha Rust'haveli, sometime in the twelfth century
This text: etext of a 1912 translation by Marjory Scott Wardrop
Price: $3.76 (Amazon Digital Services)

So lets talk about the Knight in the Panther's Skin.


Avt'handil
We first meet Avt'handil, who is in love with the King of Arabia, T'hinat'hin, daughter of the Old King Rostevan. (For clarity: T'hinat'in is not a Queen, but a King in her own right, much like King T'hamara of Georgia, Rust'haveli's patron. T'hamara comes in for some fulsome praise in the introductory verses.) Avt'handil is generalissimo of Arabia and does not wear a panther skin. One day while out hunting, Rostevan and Avt'handil come across a knight who does wear a panther skin. This knight murders several of their servants and disappears without talking to anyone. The mystery of this mysterious figure torments the Old King, so the Young King sends Avt'handil on a quest to find out.

Avt'handil quests for three years, and is just about to give up and go home, when he meets three bandits (or, two bandits and a corpse) who have just been beaten up by an uncommunicative man wearing a panther skin.

Tariel
Avt'handil finds the figure in a cave, along with a maidservant. He asks the knight for his story, so that he may return to his King and, desperately, his King. The knight, Tariel, spins his tale of woe: he was the foster son of the King of India and generalissimo, and he fell in love with the King's daughter, Nestan-Daredjan. He fell so much in love with her that he took to his bed, overcome with weeping and swooning, until a message from his bloodthirsty beloved tells him through her maidservant Asmat'h, that he can better prove his love by conquering the neighbouring lands. Which he does.

"Seriously, what's this weeping and swooning shit? Go and kill someone."

Victorious, Tariel returns home, where the King asks his opinion on who should marry his daughter. Since the princess is cloistered with her Aunt until such time as she be married, Tariel is reluctant to admit that he has met her, and instead says, "Uh, I dunno," leading to the King nominating a Persian Prince. This distresses both the Princess and the generalissimo, who conclude that the only reasonable course of action is murder.

"I shall kill him and his entire army!"
"That's excessive. Just kill him."

When asked to explain his murderous rampage, Tariel says, "I just didn't want a foreigner to sit on the throne which is mine by right as your foster son, it has nothing to do with your daughter, haha, how ridiculous, how could I possibly be in love with your daughter?" The King nevertheless intuits that his daughter's chastity had been compromised, and vows to murder both her and his sister. The Aunt, a sorceress, learns of this plot, and kills herself out of spite, sending the princess into sorceress exile.

Tariel wanders the world in the company of Asmat'h, also disgraced, and befriends P'hridon, prince of Mulghazanzar. P'ridon has an inheritance dispute with his cousins, which Tariel resolves through violence. The two knights, with and sans panther skin, swear eternal brotherhood. It transpires that P'hridon has seen Nestan-Daredjan, and in fact fallen in love with her. However, despite this intelligence Tariel loses the trail of his princess. He retires to a cave on the plains with Asmat'h, now his sworn sister, and resolves to go mad. He takes to dressing in a panther skin because panthers are pretty cats that remind him of his beloved.


More Avt'handil
It is in this state that Avt'handil has found him. Avt'handil is overwhelmed with brotherly love - to the point of weeping and swooning - and the two knights swear eternal brotherhood. Avt'handil then returns home to relate the story to the King and the King. However, he is struck with longing of the weeping and swooning kind for his sworn brother, and makes to leave. King T'hinat'hin understands completely, having witnessed a lot of this weeping and swooning on her own behalf, but the King Rostevan is outraged and forbids it. Reasoning that he's no use to his King as a weeping and swooning wreck, Avt'handil sneaks out and heads for the plains.

He arrives to find Tariel half dead, near a panther and a lion, fully dead. Tariel has lost the will to live, but Avt'handil tells him to buck the hell up, he didn't abandon his country and his girlfriend the King to travel half way to Turkey for a brother who'll just die. Especially not when there's a princess to find and, if possible, rescue!

Avt'handil swears to undertake the quest himself, and rides off to pick up the quest.

"I'm off. No sneaky killing yourself while I'm away!"

The first port of call is Mulghazanzar, which might be Turkey. P'hridon is impressed by Avt'handil from the get-go, but is overjoyed to learn of Tariel. The two knights, without panther skins, swear eternal brotherhood, and P'hridon provides some warriors for Avt'handil's quest. Avt'handil continues on, and comes across a band of merchants beset by pirates. Avt'handil solves their problems with violence, and they carry him across the sea and make him their chief.

In the guise of a merchant leader, Avt'handil arrives in the Sea-King's city of Gulansharo, which is possibly Venice. He is invited to meet with the chief merchant of the city, Usen, which he does. Usen's wife, P'hatman, falls for Avt'handil and sets about seducing him. Avt'handil discovers that Nestan-Daredjan has been seen in these parts and in fact this palace, and allows himself to be seduced. P'hatman has a former suitor who needs settling with violence, and once Avt'handil has settled him with violence, he confesses that he is not actually a morally-lax merchant prince but in fact a fine upstanding knight on a heroic rescue mission, and therefore probably shouldn't have been seduced so easily. P'hatman spills the beans.

Yes, she says, Nestan-Daredjan was here. P'hatman and her husband had captured her from the slaves who were carrying her, and took her into their own house where they (a) kept her presence a secret and (b) both fell in love with her. Usen made the mistake of boasting of the captive to the King, but before the King could take her for himself, the princess escaped and was promptly captured by evil sorcerous Kadjis. The evil sorceress-King of the Kadjis seeks to marry her to her son when he comes of age, so while Nestan-Daredjan is imprisoned in an impregnable rock fortress guarded by ten thousand mad warriors and a sorceress-King, there's not a lot of time pressure. Avt'handil goes back to the cave to get Tariel, and they return to P'hridon to come up with a rescue plan.
 
Three brothers, one cat-skin
P'hridon supplies three thousand of his best warriors, and the three  debate the best way to take an impregnable sorcerous fortress.

"Stealth?"
"Not very heroic, is it?"
"Subterfuge?"
"Again..."
"Suicidal frontal attack?"
"Avt'handil won't let me kill myself."
"Something tricky involving tactics?"
"Worth a shot, I guess."

Superior tactics win the day, and the impervious fortress turns out to be pervious after all. Tariel and Nestan-Daredjan are reunited. P'hridon marries them, gallantly accepting that Tariel saw her first. The newlyweds plan to return to India and wrest the throne from Nestan-Daredjan's father, but Tariel refuses until Avt'handil is married to his beloved, the King. Avt'handil takes a surprising amount of persuading, but in the end concedes that Arabia is in fact on the way, so he returns, apologises to the King for leaving him in the lurch, and marries King T'hinat'hin. They live happily ever after.

It doesn't seem to occur to anyone that neither P'hridon nor Ashmat'h get to marry anyone.

--

I enjoyed with this one, but it must be said that the translation is not an elegant one - it's overly literal and occasionally uncertain, without any sort of poetic flow. There are a lot of unfamiliar metaphors: eyelashes of jet, faces of crystal and ruby, teeth of coral, bodies like aloe trees, faces that burn like the sun with beauty. The Georgian-Arabian idea of courtly love is also quite different from what I'm used to, and involves an awful lot of weeping and swooning.

But there's high adventure, military maneuvers, brotherhood, romance, all that stuff. It was fun. 

A Land of Heroes: The Theft of the Sampo

The Myth:  The Mythic History of Finland. Gods! Goddesses! Culture heroes who are not exactly gods but are certainly impressive and sing very well indeed! Magic duels! Magic fish! Magic ... whatever the Sampo is!
The Book: Kalevala, The Land of Heroes (volume 2 of 2)
The Author: Elias Lönnrot (1835)
This text: etext of a 1907 translation by W. F. Kirby.
Price: nothin' (Kindle Free Library)

The back half of the Kalevala takes a turn for the grim, with several new characters. Untamoinen fights his brother Kalervo and in so doing enslaves nephew Kullervo, setting off a chain of events that ends with both homesteads razed and the whole family dead - including the pets. (Untamoinen and Kalervo had another brother, but he went off to Russia to become a merchant and nobody heard from him again.) The Kullervo sequence is darker in tone to the preceding episodes. Kullervo is a malicious and joyless thug without any of Lemmikainen's ebullience and optimism, and I confess I wasn't sorry when he was gone.

But one of Kullervo's murder victims is Ilmarinen's wife, the former Maiden of Pohjola, which segues into the next sequence, which is awesome. Mrs Ilmarinen wasn't actually very nice to Kullervo,but probably didn't deserve to be ripped apart by magic wolves and bears. Understandably, this murder sends Ilmarinen into a funk, during which he builds himself a creepy robot bride out of gold and silver.

"Oh, hey there, Ilmarinen. How're you doing?"
"Hi, Väinämöinen. Not great. Wife got murdered."
"Oh, geeze, man, I'm so sorry."
"Thanks, man."
"So...who's the creepy robot lady?"
"Oh. I made a new bride out of gold and silver. Only, she's cold."
"I...can imagine."

Väinämöinen sends her off to Russia and delivers a stern lecture about how creepy robot brides are wrong, so Ilmarinen goes back to Pohjola to kidnap his late wife's sister. It turns out that she wants none of this marriage-by-abduction caper, so he turns her into a seagull. However, while in Pohjola, Ilmarinen couldn't help but notice how nice the Sampo - sort of a magic mill - has made the country. The Sampo was Ilmarinen's bride price for his first wife, and, feeling ripped off now that he no longer has a wife of any sort, he suggests to Väinämöinen that they steal it. Väinämöinen sings together an old warship and a crew, they pick up Lemminkainen (who doesn't want to miss another war on Pohjola), and set off on a mythic heist.

Väinämöinen sings the House of Pohjola to sleep, and Ilmarinen and Lemminkainen smash through the locks and dig up the Sampo, which has put down roots. They nearly get away, but Lemminkainen starts singing too early, waking the Mistress of Pohjola. She flies out to the boat to magic-duel Väinämöinen for the Sampo, but it breaks and falls into the lake. Väinämöinen smugly points out that the bits have fallen into Kaleva's lakes, not Pohjola's, and it will make them fertile and prosperous.

Mistress Louhi, who at this point in the narrative has lost two daughters, a husband and the source of her country's prosperity to Kaleva's heroes, goes off the evil sorceress deep end. She summons eight plagues and a sorcerer to blight the land of Kaleva. She sends a bear. Then she steals the sun and moon and all of the fire in the land of Kaleva.

"A bear? Is it the Great Bear of the Heavens?"
"No, it's an earth bear."
"But, like a huge bear, big as a mountain?"
"Not a big one, not a small one. A regular bear."
"I...ok. Hey, Ilmarinen, make me a spear."
"A magic one?"
"Apparently not."

At this point, Ukko, god of everything, decides to take a hand, and reforges a new sun. Unfortunately, his clumsy daughter drops it in the sea, and it gets eaten by a fish. Which is eaten by another fish, which is eaten in turn by another fish. Ukko says he's not making another one.

Ilmarinen has already had a go with gold and silver, but Väinämöinen points out that the key things about the sun and moon is that they shine, which Ilmarinen's don't. So Ilmarinen makes a vast  magic net, and the heroes go fishing. They eventually find the sun inside the fish inside the fish inside the other fish, and let it out, restoring fire to the land of Kaleva...

"There it is! In the fish inside the fish inside the other fish! I'll get it!"
"Hey, Ilmarinen, shouldn't you make some iron gloves or stone mittens or something?"
"Nah, I've got - Ow! Owowowowow!"

...by setting it on fire.

Eventually, however, the sun and moon are restored to their rightful place, and everyone lives happily ever after, except Mistress Louhi and Pohjola.

The epic ends with a virgin giving birth in a stable. Väinämöinen thinks that nothing good can come of this, and says so. The miraculous offspring is made King of Carelia, in spite of the big V.'s objections. Väinämöinen sails off in a huff, leaving behind his harp and his songs.

--

I can't express just how much I loved reading the Kalevala. It's got everything: magic, bears, singing, magic beer squirrels, sorcerous duels, magic artifacts, feuds, fish, gods, heists, creepy robot women, the works. The translation was a joy to read - especially out loud - and I can only imagine what it sounds like in its original language. Väinämöinen - crotchetty old bard/wizard that he is - is my new hero.

Would recommend.

A Land of Heroes: There's One in Every Myth Cycle.

The Myth:  The Mythic History of Finland. Gods! Goddesses! Culture heroes who are not exactly gods but are certainly impressive and sing very well indeed! Magic duels! Magic fish! Magic ... whatever the Sampo is!
The Book: Kalevala, The Land of Heroes (technically, volume 1 of 2)
The Author: Elias Lönnrot (1835)
This text: etext of a 1907 translation by W. F. Kirby.
Price: nothin' (Kindle Free Library)

Lemminkainen's main literary role is to demonstrate the importance of listening to your mother.

I mentioned the domestic scale of this epic. Lemminkainen lives with his mum in a homestead in Kaleva, and occasionally goes to war with Pohjola, much against her advice. Pohjola has a single house of note: Mistress Louhi's homestead.  It is full of wizards and bards and sorcerers and musicians and soothsayers, but in Mythic Finland pretty much everyone is some level of wizard or bard or sorcerer or musician or soothsayer, so it's really just a house full of folk.

Lemminkainen's first assault on Pohjola goes well for a while - he drives everyone out of Mistress Louhi's house by singing at them - but just as he's finishing off an impossible quest for the hand of the Maiden of Pohjola, he's ambushed and dismembered. His mother puts him back together with the most mythic of all magics, and tells him there will be no more of this Maiden of Pohjola nonsense.

Said Maiden eventually marries Ilmarinen the smith - who wins at impossible questing because she cheats on his behalf - and everyone in Kaleva and Pohjola is invited to the wedding.

Except Lemminkainen, because Pohjola thinks he's a jerk.

This leads to Lemminkainen's second assault on Pohjola, once again against his mother's advice. He is not so much pissed off at losing the Maiden of Pohjola to Ilmarinen so much as missing a drinking party. The homestead is Not Impressed when he shows up several days after the wedding demanding beer, and the Master of Pohjola challenges him to a duel. Lemminkainen wins by technical decapitation, and Mistress Louhi sings up an army of swordsmen to chase him home.

"Ah, mum, I might need some help."
"Did you do something stupid?"
"I may have accidentally decapitated the Master of Pohjola and started a war."
"Honestly, you're just like your father."

His mum sends him off to an island where his father also used to hide out from stupid wars. Lemminkainen spends three years singing and cavorting with maidens, before heading back home just as he is about to be murdered by angry menfolk.

He returns to Kaleva to find his homestead in ruins, his treasure stolen and his mother in hiding. Once he's reassured that she's ok, he recruits a former fighting buddy Tiera for a third venture into Pohjola.

“Have you literally not learned one damned thing? I should have married for brains instead of looks.”

Halfway across the lake, Mistress Louhi sends the demon Frost against them, who freezes the lake before Lemminkainen insults it into submission. Lemminkainen and Teira make it to shore and wander about aimlessly for a bit before giving up the whole thing as a bad job.

"You know, I really think that went pretty well."
"Shut up, Lemminkainen."

 --

At this point I'm about two thirds through the Kalevala and I'm still loving it. I love the rhythm, the magic, the personal nature of the thing. I love that to brew for an epic wedding, you need the mythic history of beer. I love that a giant begins an epic series of curses with "I'll tell your mother on you!" And I'm even fond of Lemminkainen, vicious little murder-punk that he is.

Next: The theft of the Sampo.