Kalevala Day!
So I just learned (or re-learned) that today, February 28th, is Kalevala Day in Finland, the day when they celebrate the Finnish national "epic" collected by Elias Lönnrot in the 19th century. Tolkien, of course, had an early fascination with this poem, which he first saw in W.F. Kirby's translation as a teenager. By pure coincidence, though, I was reading The Collected Poems of C. S. Lewis just last night, and saw that CSL also read and admired Kirby's text. Here's a part of it: After Kirby's K alevala Sound of weeping in slender grasses Rose, a mourning in the pretty woodland. Round him mourning were the tender grasses, Flowers of leaved glade were grieving, Fading for the maiden's marring; Woodland weeping for a mother's daughter. In one place no grass was growing, Flower-forsaken, earth was naked, Where he had done the unholy thing, Where maid had fallen and man stolen Maidenhead of his mother's daughter. Lewis, as you can see, keeps the trocha