Canine Kalevala

Mauri Kunnas 1992

Finland celebrates Kalevala  day on February 28th. Many versions have been made of Kalevala, but my favourite is the Canine Kalevala. The pictures are funny and the story is not so dead serious as the original. Some of the images are versions of the national treasures made by Akseli Gallen-Kallela.

In short, Kalevala is an adventure epic of Väinämöinen. He has a little bit of woman trouble and he bumps heads with many younger men.


This book has also been published in English.

Väinämöinen meets Antero Vipunen, a giant

More pictures of the book.  The book's background by Finnish Literature Society. There is also a synopsis of the story.

 If you are in real rush, watch this video made by Scott Sandwich about the Kalevala, sounds a little like the Game of Thrones.

Pictures from Finnish Children's lives

Rudlof Waldemar Åkerblom 1983: Kuvia suomen lasten elämästä
first edition printed in 1882
rhymes Juhani H. (=P.J. Hannikainen)



Ten drawings about the children's lives in Finland in 19th century. This book was the first picture book written in Finnish and printed in four colors. P.J Hannikainen (1854-1924) was a famous finnish music educator and composer. At the same time this book was published in Swedish by the name Finsk bilderbook.


 

The pictures are delicate and it amazes me that even today the children ride their hobby horses and sled during the winter. The equipment for playing have changed. In the book is also a drawing of a child in Lappland. He takes care of the reindeer. In another picture the children are fishing with a trident in a near by river. You can see the white water. To me it looked scary.

Finnish picturebook

Venny SoldanBrofeldt and Juhani Aho 1983,
first edition 1894

Artist couple writer Juhani Aho and his painter wife Venny Soldan-Brofeldt made this book over hundred years ago. The drawings portray the lives of ordinary people. Every drawing has a kalevala type of rhyme.

This book was an accomplishment in time when picture books were not yet set as a type of literature.

This book was printed again in 2009 to celebrate WSOY's 125 anniversery.

The images are very delicate. Needless to say that my boys  were not interested in this book at all. The title says this was meant for children and youths. I cannot imagine any teenager reading this book today, exept for studying the drawing style or rhymes. Did they read it in the late 1890s? What did they get out of it?

Onneli and Anneli

Marjatta Kurenniemi 1966

Marjatta Kurenniemi wrote four books about Onneli and Anneli. The first book was published in 1966. In 2003 a book that had all four stories was published.

The first book, the House of Onneli and Anneli (Onnelin ja Annelin talo), tells a story of two girls, best friends tha find a sum of money and buy a house. Anneli lives part time with her mother, part time with her dad. Onneli is the middle child of nine children. No one notices that they are not there anymore.

The house that they buy is made for little girls. Mrs. Ruusupuu (Rosetree), who sells the house, cannot live there herself. The neighbours are two ladies Tingelstiina and Tangelstiina, who have chickens that lay easter eggs and have balloons growing in their garden. The other neighbour is a widow, who has a cupboard full of piggy banks and is a bit grumpy. (Luckily Onneli and Anneli fix that).

Onneli and Anneli find a house

Second book tells about the first winter the girls stay in their house "Winter with Onneli and Anneli" (Onnelin ja Annelin talvi). They receive guest, the tiny family of Vaaksanheimo (Vaaksa is the distance between the thumb and the middle finger, heimo means tribe or family). The family moves into Onneli's and Anneli's doll house. All kinds of adventure awaits.

The third book, Onneli, Anneli and the orphans (Onneli, Anneli ja orpolapset) start with an orphanage moving across the street from Onneli and Anneli. The director of the orphanage is an old acquaintance of the girls. Happy ending, the girls and the adults in the street fix the orphanage to be a happy place.

The fourth book about Onneli and Anneli (Onneli, Anneli ja nukutuskello) tells about Tingelstiina's and Tangelstiina's brother. He is an inventor and invented a sleeping clock. It is like an alarmclock but reverse: everyone falls a sleep when the clock rings. A factory owner wants to make a high way near Onneli's and Anneli's house. He also wants the clock. Needless to say there is a happy ending.

Family Vaaksanheimo moves in.

The drawings in the book are made by Maija Karma (She also illustrated Adalmina's pearl.)The drawings fit the book very well.

In January 2014 was made a movie of the first book. Even a house was built according to the story.

The stories are very optimistic with some sad nuances: the fact that no one misses the girls, the sad orphanage, homeless tiny people and gready business man. Despite all of these the tone is very optimistic and every story has a happy ending. Real good mood books.

Mimmit

Three books from Mimmit:
Pakkasherra ja Kylmänhuokuja 2012,
Mimmit ja ketunpoikanen 2013 and
Mimmit ja luolan salaisuus 2013

All written by Pauliina Lerche and illustratred by Meri Mort.

Mimmit is an animation that is part of Mimmikoto children’s program. In the show, Mimmit creat all kinds of crafts, cook and play traditional games. In every episode there is an animated short story. Actually they could be seen as music videos. The stories in the animations are based on Finnish mythology. The music is influenced by the Karelian traditional folksongs. What I like about them is that the animation is so clear. The colors used are bright, the music resembles old folk songs.

Mimmit and Ketunpoikanen

The first book published was Pakkaherra and Kylmänhuokuja. Mimmit (the girls in Finnish) are waiting for winter, but it is not coming. Mimmit travel way up north and meet all kinds of creatures. Finally the find Pakkasherra (Mr. Frost) fighting with Kylmänhuokuja (Coldbreath,). In mythology Pakkasherra froze the land and brought snow and Kylmänhuokuja chilled the air and froze the lakes. Mimmit get the two to reconcile and finally there is snow.

Mimmit fly to find out, what happend to winter in Pakkasherra 

...

Second book, Mimmit ja ketunpoikanen, is a story about a fox cub, which hurts his leg in glass. It is spring and underneath the snow, all kinds of trash show up. Mimmit take care of the fox and the old tree in the yard rewards them and turns them into foxes. The girls run in the forest with the fox and they meet all kinds of creatures.

The third book, Mimmit ja luolansalaisuus, takes place in the fall. Mimmit are harvesting the crop and then they hear a strange sound from the forest. It comes out of a cave. What is in the cave? The book is filled with mythological creatures like maahinen (=gnome, but the Finnish gnomes aren't cute garden gnomes). In all the books the colors are bright and clear cut.

Adalmina's pearl

Illustration by Lena Frölander-Ulf 2012

Adalminas pärla, Finnish: Adalmiinan helmi 1853
Another fairytale from Topelius. Written in 1878-1896

When Princess Adalmina is born, two fairy godmothers give her gifts. The first gift is a pearl that makes Adalmina wise, rich and beautiful. The other godmother gives her a humble heart if the Princess ever loses the pearl. The King makes a diadem for the pearl and Adalmina wears it all the time. Adalmina grows up, but instead of her beauty and wisdom, she is very arrogant. She is forbidden to leave the palace garden and she is furious.

Adalmina loses the diadem

She leaves the castle and walks to the nearby forest. There she sees a pond and she stops to admire herself. The diadem and the pearl with it falls into the pond. All at once Adalmina forgets who she is. She is poor, dumb and ugly. She wonders around the forest and finds a small cottage, where an old woman lives. She is happy there.

Meanwhile the king and queen are devastated: they look for Adalmina all over. They even promise to give her hand in marriage if someone finds her. One day a prince rides in the forest. First he finds the diadem at the pond and then the cottage and meets Adalmina. He wonders why the girl is so endearing and moves his heart even though she is ugly. He asks if the ladies have seen Adalmina. They say no.

The prince takes the diadem to the King. The diadem fits only Adalmina and the King as he still remembers the second fairy godmother’s gift, orders all the girls of 18 to come and try the diadem on. At the end of the day they look at the road if there still were someone coming.

Finally Adalmina comes and tries on the diadem. It fits and then she remembers everything. She also remembers how arrogant and gruel she was before. But now she also remembers what it was like living in the cottage. She has learned a lesson and now she can live happily ever after with her prince.

Adalmina's pearl by Albert Edelfelt, 1903 Cover of Läsning för barn -illustrerad ac finska och svenska konstnär. (Lukemisia lapsille,  translated in Finnish  1906-1907)

Illustration by Alf Danning

Rudolf Koivu's Adalmina's pearl

Adalmina by Maija Karma

Illustration by Maija Karma

Illustration by Maija Karma

Kiekumarallaa - Folksongs for children

Folksongs for children
editor Leena Järvenpää 2007

This book comes with cd, which is nice, if you are not familiar with the songs before.  The songs are performed by Freija.

Oldfashioned songs that atleast baby's love to listen.  My favourite is "Ololonkos", in which the words are twisted so that the letter l is repeated with the first vowel in the word.  onkos=ololonkos, teillä=teleleillä, kissan=kilililissan.
It is amazing that even small Finnish speaking children (big enough to speak and understand speach) understand the words. How long would you have to study a language, before you can do that ?



Here is the list of songs in the book and cd:

Alotan minä laulamaan
Kiekkumaralla 
Ololonkos
Kukkuu kukkuu
Kettu ja korppi
Mitkä nuo merelllä uivat?
Oli ennen onnimanni
Huis sika metsään
 Kippurahäntä
 Miu mau Martin kello
 Älä itkelele
 Ison härän polska
 Pyykit nyyttiin
 Sano sano 
Ukolla, akalla
Tiu vou vou
Elli keitti vellii
Rup rup rullaa
Jos voisin laulaa
Souva sorsa, lieku lintu

The stolen princess: a fairy tale from Persia

Zacharias Topelius 1848
told in Finnish Irja Lappalainen and Antonia Ringbom 1986
Illustrations Antonia Ringblom

The old Persian king has only one daughter. The daughter is very blond (hence the name Kultakutri = Goldilocks in Finnish), which is rare in Persia. Her mother was stolen from North and sold to the King. One day there is a animal festival where a tiger is killed. The curious princess goes closer to see. But the tiger is a witch from Lapland, whose mission is to rob the princess. The mission was given by Bom-Bali, the old King’s enemy. Bom-Bali is so low that the King doesn’t even want to cut his beard not to mention his throat.

Instead of taking the princess to Bom-Bali, the witch takes Kultakutri to his home and wants her to marry his son. The Princess refuses and the witch tries to break her by closing her into a cave. He gives her only 30 cloud berries to eat and 30 drops of morning dew to drink. He diminishes the portion every day. He also gives her company: mosquitos. The witch’s wife and son give the Princess some reindeer meet to eat. The witch is furious and fnally he turns the Princess into heather. Soon there will be frost and the princess will die.

Alas there is a prince who has been looking for the Princess. From a bird he hears that the Princess is in Lapland. Prince finds the witch, who dies. The witch’s wife and son tell the prince that the Princess is heather and tell him how to reverse the spell. The Princess is rescued. The Princess and the Prince promise the two a palace in Persia, but they refuse. What would they do in Persia? Lapland is the best place on earth.

Illustration by Alf Danning

 The story was written in Swedish, the original name is Prinsessa Lindagull, in Finish the name is Prinsessa Kultakutri (note that princess is the same in Swedish and Finnish). Kultakutri is also the translation for Goldilocks (and the three bears) so it is a bit confusing. It shouldn’t be: there are lots of Johns out there, but in fairy tales it is disturbing.

 The other names in the Finnish version of the fairy tale are odd: the witch is Hirmu, his wife’s name is Pimpendora and his son’s name is Pompenpaturi. But then again it adds a little more mystique to the fairytale than if the names were Jane and Jim.

Metsänväen suojatti

Virkkunen, Elsa 1977
Illustrator Martta Wendelin

Little Sami is spending summer at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house in the country. With them lives also Granpa’s dad. Grandma is baking bread indoors and tells Sami not to go anywhere from the front yard. Sami forgets this soon and walks into the forest.  Grandma notices this and panics. She looks for Sami in the well, the lake shore and then continues the search in the forest. 

 

She meets all forest animals and they help her, because she has always taken care of the injured animals. She also meets the daughters of Ahti, the god of water. She meets Tapio, the god of forest. Finally Tapio’s son shows her were Sami is. He is well, but he is sorry that he caused so much worries to his Grandma. All is well.

At first I thought the protégé is the boy, but maybe it is the grandma. She’s been so kind to the forest animals that the forest king wants to be kind to her by protecting her grandson. The illustrations are made by Martta Wendelin, who is one of the most respected illustrator of the 20^th century.  

Seven dogbrothers

being a doggerel version of The seven brothers, Aleksis Kivi's classic novel from 1870
Mauri Kunnas 2002, English translation 2003

I admit, I am a bad Finn: I have not read Aleksis Kivi’s Seven brothers.

Here is my explanation why:  I lived in Nurmijärvi (Aleksis Kivi’s home community) all through comprehensive school and high school. Every year in October ( The national Aleksis Kivi day is October 10^th) we read extracts from Seven Brothers –book. Every single year. The same extracts. So I have never read the entire book, only these extracts. So I know how the brothers went to school, escaped the bulls to a giant rock, were picked on the other village boys and so on.  To my defense I must say that I have seen Aleksis Kivi’s play Nummisuutarit at least twice in Taborinvuori, I remember poems written by Aleksis Kivi (Some of them is part of Seven Brothers). 

This image could be exhibited in a museum.

Back to the book, Aleksis Kivi’s Seven Brothers was written in 1873 and  is one of  the first novels written in Finnish. Runeberg and the others wrote in Swedish. So the book is notable. 

Mauri Kunnas has told the story again and illustrated it very nicely. The book is about seven boys who for one thing do not wish to learn to read. Since we do not have cliff notes in Finland, but this children’s version is a lighter version of the book. 




This is written at the back of the book: 
"Learning simply will not penetrate the thick skulls of the canine Jukola brothers. Should the young dogs live free in the wilds or in the community, adhering to the civilised ways of men? This is the constant wrestling match that occupies the minds of Juhani, Tuomas, Aapo, Simeon, Timo, Lauri, and little Eero. The original novel of The Seven Brothers is the masterpiece by Finlands national writer Aleksis Kivi, a work still entirely topical some 130 years after its first appearance. Mauri Kunnass canine version of this much-loved Finnish classic will delight both children and older readers."