orget for a
moment, all that we in our youth learned to call beautiful, not less
beautiful. A Finn is not a Greek, and Wainamoinen was not a Homer
[Achilles?]; but if the poet may take his colors from that nature by
which he is surrounded, if he may depict the men with whom he lives,
the Kalevala possesses merits not dissimilar from those of the Illiad,
and will claim its place as the fifth national epic of the world, side
by side with the Ionian Songs, with the Mahabharata, the Shalinameth,
and the Nibelunge."

Steinthal recognizes but four great national epics, viz., the Iliad,
Kalevala, Nibelunge and the Roland Songs.

The Kalevala describes Finnish nature very minutely and very
beautifully. Grimm says that no poem is to be compared with it in this
respect, unless it be some of the epics of India. It has been
translated into several European languages; into Swedish by Alex.
Castren, in 1844; into French prose by L. LeDuc, in 1845; into German
by Anton Schiefuer, in 1852; into Hungarian by Ferdinand Barna, in
1871; and a very small portion of it--the legend of Aino--into English,
in 1868, by the late Prof. John A. Porter, of Yale College. It must
remain a matter of universal regret to the English-speaking people that
Prof. Porter's life could not have been spared to finish the great work
he had so beautifully begun.

Some of the most convincing evidences of the genuineness and great age
of the Kalevala have been supplied by the Hungarian translator. The
Hungarians, as is well known, are closely related to the Finns, and
their language, the Magyar dialect, has the same characteristic
features as the Finnish tongue. Barna's translation, accordingly, is
the best rendering of the original. In order to show the genuineness
and antiquity of the Kalevala, Barna adduces a Hungarian book written
by a certain Peter Bornemissza, in 1578, entitled ordogi Kisertetekrol
(on Satanic Specters), the unique copy of which he found in the library
of the University of Budapest. In this book Bornemissza collected all
the incantations (raolvasasok) in use among Hungarian country-people of
his day for the expulsion of diseases and misfortunes. These
incantations, forming the common stock of all Ugrian peoples, of which
the Finns and Hungarians are branches, display a most satisfactory
sameness with the numerous incantations of the Kalevala used for the
same purpose. Barna published an elaborate treatise on this subject;
it ap