lament of his faithful consort.

It was only in the nineteenth century, after Zhukovski and Batyushkoff
had translated into Russian some of the world's great masterpieces,
such as Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered and Homer's Odyssey, that Pushkin
wrote (1820) the epic Ruslan and Lyudmila, drawing the materials
therefore from Russian antiquity and from popular legends.

There are in Russia and Siberia any number of epic songs or "bylinas,"
dating from legendary times to the present day, which have recently
been collected by Kireyevski and others, and which already fill some
ten volumes. The heroes of these songs are either personifications of
the forces of nature or favorite historical personages. They form
great cycles, one clustering for instance around Vladimir and the
ancient capital of Russia, Kiev, another around the free city of
Novgorod, and a third belonging to the later Moscow period. The
principal hero of many of the Russian folk tales, and of the epic
songs most frequently sung by wandering bards, is Ilya Muromets, who
nobly protects widows and orphans and often displays his fabulous
strength by reducing mighty oaks to kindling wood with a few blows!

THE KALEVALA, OR THE LAND OF HEROES

The national epic of the Finns was rescued from oblivion by Topelius
and Loennrot, two physicians, who took it down from the mouth of the
people and published it in the first half of the nineteenth century.
It consists in 22,793 lines, divided into fifty runes, and is
considered by a great German authority--Steinthal--as one of the four
great national epics of the world.

Not only does it relate "the ever-varying contests between Finns and
Laplanders," but that between Light and Darkness, Good and Evil, for
in the poem the Finns personify Light and Good, while the Lapps are
emblems of Darkness and Evil. The Sampo, which is mentioned in this
poem, and which seems to have been some sort of a magic grist-mill,
holds the same place in Finn mythology as the Golden Fleece in that of
the Greeks. Many of the poems incorporated in this epic date back some
three thousand years, and the epic itself is composed in alliterative
verse, although it also contains rhythm of line and sound, as the
following introductory lines prove.

Mastered by desire impulsive,
By a mighty inward urging,
I am ready now for singing,
Ready to begin the chanting
Of our nation's ancient folk-song
Handed down from by-gone ages,
In my mo