Poetry
Whitsongs
Helkavirsiä
Eino Leino · 1916
Opening lines
Tuo oli tytti Päivölässä
Ihalempi, maammon impi,
mansikka hyvien maiden,
Herran lehtojen hedelmä;
meni karjahan kesällä,
ei tullut takaisin tytti.
There was a girl in Päivölä,
Ihalempi, her mother's maiden,
strawberry of the good lands,
fruit of the Lord's groves;
she went with the herd in summer,
the girl did not come back.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
Ballads in the metre and spirit of the old folk songs, each carried by a figure drawn from legends or invented in their manner: Ylermi, Räikkö; Kouta, the Lapp sorcerer escorted by vipers, bats, wolverines and ravens; Tumma, the dark one, whom the words of his lineage follow to the kingdom of the dead. The myths of the Kalevala and of old Finland receive here the emotions and doubts of modern man.
Context
The first series appeared with Otava in 1903, under a cover designed by Pekka Halonen; the second in 1916. The first was written during the summer of 1903 at Kangasniemi, in the country house of the poet Otto Manninen. The title refers to the songs of the Pentecost festival, which the English Whitsongs and the Italian Canti di pentecoste convey. The book achieves a new synthesis between traditional Finnish poetry and the European literature of its time. Keith Bosley translated it into English in 1978; there are also Estonian, Polish and Italian versions.
Who it is for
Two series of ballads, in Finnish, in an old and strict metre. The stories are dark; the book can be read in English in Keith Bosley's translation.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as his masterwork, which made him the first craftsman of Finnish neo-romanticism, and as a founding text of modern Finnish poetry.