Release date is 2025-07-11

Kuolevan laulun mailta: Tuonen lintu. Kaksi itkua. Onnea pakoon. Ilta muuannossa. Pesshi. Vanha laulaja. Ukko uupui... -- Pohjolan saloilta: Kyytipoika. Kuun kääntäjä. Perintöpiippu. Jouluaattona pohjolan salolla.

Juhani Kärkkäinen and Tapio Riikonen

"Kuolevan laulun mailta : ynnä Pohjan saloilta" by Lauri Hannikainen is a collection of travel sketches and folkloric vignettes written in the early 20th century. It evokes the landscapes, rituals, and voices of Viena Karelia and the Far North, blending lyrical observation with brief narrative scenes. A Finnish youth immerses himself in a Karelian village, meeting hunters, healers, and famed runo singers, while the book reflects on the beauty and fragility of traditions facing modern change. The opening of the work moves from an enchanted arrival in Viena’s backwoods to a haunting night on the ice when a swan—felt as a Tuonela omen—passes untouched. Wedding laments and a maiden’s final sauna ritual speak in heightened verse, while the narrator, revealed as educated, addresses the village about homeland and God before a fervent dance and bittersweet farewell. Brief portraits dwell on kantele music at dusk, a wary sage-singer who opens up to recite epics and spells, and a visit to the renowned Pedri Shemeikka: his kantele gone to collectors, a new one carved, but he can no longer tune it—soon followed by his elegiac funeral. The tone is elegy and love letter at once, as customs and song seem to fade. The scene then shifts north: a taciturn Lapland boy reveals, in one tender line, the loss of his mother, and a gently comic camp tale shows a guileless logger taking seriously a prank about “turning the moon,” slipping away to set things right. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Helsinki: Otava, 1917