t his songs and wisdom-sayings,
To the lasting joy of Suomi.

The poem concludes with an epilogue, wherein the bard declares it
contains many of the folk-tales of his native country, and that as far
as rhythm is concerned--

"Nature was my only teacher,
Woods and waters my instructors."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 36: All the quotations in this chapter are from Crawford's
translation of the "Kalevala."]

THE EPICS OF CENTRAL EUROPE AND OF THE BALKAN PENINSULA

German being talked in a large part of Switzerland and of Austria,
these countries claim a great share in the Teutonic epics, many of
whose episodes are located within their borders. Both the Swiss and
the Austrian nations are formed, however, of various peoples, so while
some of the Swiss boast of German blood and traditions, others are
more closely related to the French or to the Italians. To study Swiss
literature one must therefore seek its sources in German, French, and
Italian books. It is, though, considered very remarkable that there
exists no great Swiss epic on the deeds of William Tell, a national
hero whose literary fame rests almost exclusively upon folk-tales and
upon Schiller's great drama.[37]

No political division boasts of a greater mixture of races and
languages than the Austro-Hungarian empire, whose literature is
therefore like a many-faceted jewel. Aside from many Germans, there
are within the borders of the empire large numbers of Czechs or
Bohemians, who in the thirteenth century delighted in translations of
the Alexandreis, of Tristram, and of other epic poems and romances,
and whose first printed volume in 1468 was a reproduction of the
Trojan Cycle.

There are also the Hungarians, whose literary language continued to be
Latin until after the Reformation, and whose earliest epics treat of
such themes as the "Life of St. Catherine of Alexandria." It was,
therefore, only in the seventeenth century that Zrinyi, Gyoengyoesi,
Liszti, and other poets began to compose Magyar epics which roused
their countrymen to rebel against their foes, the Turks. In the
nineteenth century patriotism was further fostered among this people
by the stirring epics of Czuczor, Petoefi (whose masterpiece is Janes
Vilez), and of Voeroesmarty, and then, too, were compiled the first
collections of genuine Hungarian folk-tales. Among these the
adventures of the national Samson (Toldi) have served as basis for
Arany's modern national epic in twelve