Release date is 2026-01-17

Tapio Riikonen

Korpinäkyjä 2 by Larin-Kyösti is a collection of lyric poems written in the early 20th century. It gathers visions of the Finnish forest and countryside, blending folklore and myth with scenes of agrarian life, seasonal rites, and intimate meditations on love, loss, and fate.

The poems move through vivid episodes and folk-figures: a wandering maker crafts a shining instrument from spruce and alder; a once-majestic blind elk staggers through memory toward release; sprites and water-spirits revel on midsummer nights while a solitary rower confronts an “underworld” stillness on a forest pond. Harvest heat, autumn hunts, and an abandoned croft reveal the dignity and desolation of rural toil; an old hermit calmly carves his own coffin; an outlaw named Hirvi-Humu spreads fear; a pact with the dairy demon Para brings wealth and doom; a student tempted by graveyard magic is jolted back to grace by Easter bells; a haunted courthouse re-tries old injustices; and a kindly house-elf keeps a farm in quiet order. Water-beings—Tursas and a beguiling water-nymph—draw mortals into perilous rapture; Sleep herself is invoked as a balm; and in a final mythic contest, Frost challenges the returning Sun, only to yield to spring’s bright victory. The collection binds these scenes into a continuous atmosphere where nature, spirit, and human yearning are inseparable. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Porvoo: WSOY, 1917