~The Dragon Flies' Lair IV~

November 7, 2003 | bentfeather

[Conspiracy Guy]

It's on our car tags now. "Heart of Dixie" used to be there and it is a tiny little heart now that the PC cops will slowly shrink away.

[Soaring Feather]

The Kalevala and other influences on Tolkien are the subject of a one-hour documentary National Geographic Beyond the Movie: The Lord of the Rings, which is available on DVD and VHS





Anthropologist and ethnobotanist Wade Davis recently traveled to a remote corner of Finland to uncover influences on Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

In the early 19th century, a dialect of Finnish existed in an isolated region of Finland as it always had—in oral form, passed down through the ages from one generation to the next in songs and verses, or "runes." A collection of these runes is known in Finland as the Kalevala, and those who sing its lyrical verses from memory are known as "rune-singers." These elders long carried in their minds the entire record of the Finnish language.

"In an oral tradition, the total richness of the language is no more than the vocabulary of the best storyteller," Davis explains. "In other words, at any one point in time the boundaries of the language are being stretched according to the memory of the best storyteller."

In the Viena Karelia region, the oral tradition of the Finnish language is still alive, but now contained in the memory of just a single storyteller. His name is Jussi Houvinen, and he is Finland's last great rune-singer. This elderly man is a living link to myths and languages that have passed mouth-to-ear over the ages in an unbroken chain.

"It's an amazing thing to be in the presence of a man singing even a snippet of the poem," says Davis of his meeting with Jussi, "because it's so powerful that even if you don't speak Finnish it's profoundly moving just to listen to it, just the cadence of the sounds.

"Being in his presence, and knowing how few people can today recite the poem, you felt you were in the presence of history that was about to be snuffed out." When Jussi dies the ancient succession of rune-singers will end. No one from a younger generation has been able to learn the vast breadth of the saga.

However, the Kalevala itself will not die with Jussi, due to the efforts of a country doctor named Elias Lönnrot. In the early 19th century, Lönnrot became enamored of the Finnish songs and runes he found in Viena Karelia. He devoted himself to traveling the district, listening to the rune-singers and committing the oral poetry to the written word. This was the genesis not only of the modern Finnish language, but of the Finnish nation as an entity, creating what Davis calls "this wonderful idea of a…bardic poem inspiring a modern nation."

The Kalevala inspired not only Finnish nationalism, but also a young English scholar and writer named J.R.R. Tolkien, in whose mind was already taking shape a magical universe which was about to be transformed by Finnish language and legend.

In a letter to W.H. Auden, on June 7, 1955, he remembered his excitement upon discovering a Finnish Grammar in Exeter College Library. "It was like discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me; and I gave up the attempt to invent an 'unrecorded' Germanic language, and my 'own language'—or series of invented languages—became heavily Finnicized [sic] in phonetic pattern and structure."

The Finnish language that so delighted the young student became the inspiration for the lyrical tongue of Middle-earth's elves. Tolkien taught himself the ancient and newly codified Finnish to develop his elfin language, and so that he could read the Kalevala in its original Finnish. This extraordinary achievement opened the door to many further influences from Finnish mythology. Parallels abound between the Kalevala and Tolkien's own saga, in terms of both the characters themselves and the idea of the hero's journey.

The Kalevala features "all the themes of pre-Christian traditions, shape-shifting, mythical demons, magical plants, animals becoming human beings," says Davis, while the story itself "is fundamentally a story of a sacred object which has power, and the pursuit of the mythic heroes who seek that power, to seek a way of understanding what that power means." Davis describes the Kalevala as "a journey of the soul and a journey of the spirit—and that's obviously what drew Tolkien to it."

Tolkien readers have long seen Tolkien's bucolic vision of rural England represented in Middle-earth's The Shire, and recognized English farmers in characters such as the hobbit Sam. But those who explore the Kalevala may discover much of the land of the elves, and their language, in the vast snowy spruce forests of Finnish legend.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I start so many things that it really makes me happy when I Finnish one.

[Soaring Feather]

Flurry, is that a pun??? hmmmmmmmmmm
LOL

[Conspiracy Guy]

"You got Finns to the left Finns to the right and you're the only bait in town". Jimmy Buffet.

I always Finnish what I start. OF COURSE IT'S A PUN!!!

[Soaring Feather]

Okay I can take it!!

OBTW did you know that stuff in the article??

[Conspiracy Guy]

I had read or seen on TV some of it before. I read the Hobbit and the Triology in the late 60's and again in the ealry 70's. I think JRR smoked a little pot when he was writing them

[Soaring Feather]

Probably did. LOL

[Conspiracy Guy]

That's why I read it twice. The first time I was too stoned to make sense of it.

[Soaring Feather]

Oh boy oh boy!!

Shooting Stars!!!



Leonid meteors return for dazzling display

Observers of the night skies, take delight: Arriving fresh
on the heels of last Saturday's total lunar eclipse is the
annual Leonid meteor shower. Avid skywatchers are making plans to catch the show next Tuesday night, Nov. 18.

The meteorites should appear every two or three minutes, and astronomers say interested viewers should seek out clear dark skies away from any interfering city lights. No special equipment is required. The Leonid meteor shower gets its name because the meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Leo, the lion. Leo will rise in the east around 1:00 a.m. EST and this year the predicted maximum number of meteorites is expected to occur at 2:28 a.m. For observers on the West Coast, Leo will be below the horizon, but the shower will be
visible in the east.

The Leonids are produced by the dust of a passing comet known as Tempel-Tuttle, which flies by the sun every 33 years. Solar heat and radiation cause tiny pieces to erode off the comet. Each fragment hits Earth's atmosphere traveling at up to 160,000 mph, carrying enough energy to cause the familiar bright streak many people call a "shooting" or "falling" star.

[Soaring Feather]

LOL!

I never smoked the stuff!! Nuts anyway! LOL

[Conspiracy Guy]

That's why I stopped. It kind of made me normal and I prefer my natural weird state. Plus the USAF took a dim view of people in sensitive assignments smoking pot. I stopped in 71 and joined USAF in 72. Never started back after serving. I do like my beer and occasionally some rot gut whiskey.

[Soaring Feather]

Quiz Answer


In 1799, the first North American meteor shower on record took place. Early American astronomer Andrew Ellicott Douglass said, "The whole heaven appeared as if illum-inated with sky rockets."

[Soaring Feather]

>Plus the USAF took a dim view of people in sensitive assignments smoking pot. <

Let's hope so!! LOL

[Conspiracy Guy]

"Sky rockets in flight, afternoon delight." Starlite Vocal Band? I think.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Flunking the golden flow was not a good thing. I took no chances.

[Soaring Feather]

>"Sky rockets in flight, afternoon delight." Starlite Vocal Band? I think. <

The only tune they recorded. Big hit too.

[Soaring Feather]

Understood!!

[My back yard]

I always make a big plan for watching the Leonids. They are a delightful evening....usually cool enough to enjoy the night.

[Conspiracy Guy]

One hit wonder.