Tolkien and the Kalevala: A Northern Light in Middle-earth
A Spark from Finland: Tolkien Discovers the Kalevala
In the early 20th century, a young Oxford student named J.R.R. Tolkien stumbled upon a literary treasure from the far north. The treasure was not gold or jewels, but a book – the Finnish epic Kalevala. This 19th-century compilation of ancient Karelian and Finnish poems by Elias Lönnrot utterly captivated Tolkien. Its pages sang of sorrow and magic in a voice unlike any mythology he knew. Tolkien was so enthralled that he taught himself Finnish just to drink directly from the source. As one account notes, “The stories inspired the young Tolkien to learn Finnish so he could read the text in its native language”. At a time when he “should have been studying for his exams,” the 21-year-old scholar instead spent his hours poring over Finnish grammar books and Kalevala verses.
Tolkien later described this linguistic awakening in famous words: “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.” The Finnish language – with its rolling rhythms and otherworldly sounds – was his newfound wine. He confessed that his assault on learning Finnish was “repulsed… with heavy losses” (he never became truly fluent). Yet he absorbed enough to “plod through a bit of the original [text]”, and the experience left an indelible mark. The Kalevala’s unique atmosphere – what he called an “indefinable sense of newness and strangeness” – transported him beyond the familiar world of European myths into “a realm of those who cling in queer corners to the forgotten tongues and memories of an elder day.” It was a journey both linguistic and imaginative, and it would change the course of his creative life.
Linguistic Inspiration: Quenya and the Finnish Tongue
Tolkien’s first love as a creator was language itself. The sounds and structures of Finnish went straight into the brewing pot of his own invented tongues. He had already been inventing languages for his Elves, but after discovering Finnish, he abandoned an earlier plan of a “mythic” Germanic language and instead “Finnicized” his Elvish. In a letter to W.H. Auden, Tolkien explained how, after finding that Finnish grammar book in Exeter College Library, “my ‘own language’… became heavily Finnicized in phonetic pattern and structure.” His High-elven language Quenya took on many Finnish-like traits by design.
What does this mean? For one, Quenya flows with the same kind of melodic, vowel-rich sound as Finnish. Tolkien emulated Finnish phonology – for example, Quenya words rarely begin with consonant clusters (just as Finnish words do not), and certain hard consonant sounds like b, d, g are almost entirely absent from Quenya, giving it a soft, lyrical quality. He even borrowed grammatical quirks: both Finnish and Quenya rely on case endings (suffixes added to nouns) to indicate things like location or possession, rather than using many separate prepositions. For instance, in Finnish one can say talo-ssa (“in a house”) or talo-sta (“from a house”), and Quenya mirrors this with forms like coassa (“in a house”) or coa-llo (“from a house”). Quenya adjectives also agree with nouns in number and case – a feature lifted straight from Finnish grammar.
All these linguistic choices were deliberate, part of Tolkien’s effort to capture what he called the “flavour” of Finnish without simply copying it. He loved the music of Finnish, the way it felt on the tongue, and he wanted his Elvish to evoke that same enchantment. The result was a language both alien and familiar – Quenya sounds vaguely “Finnish” to an informed ear, yet it remains its own creation. As one scholar noted, Tolkien rarely borrowed Finnish words; rather, he absorbed its patterns to give Quenya “an atmosphere of both uniqueness and depth”. Little wonder that years later, Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings would remark that the Elven tongue somehow felt as if he were “hearing a music, or a forgotten memory” – the echo of Finland’s linguistic music runs through those fair vowels and gentle consonants.
A Tragic Hero Reborn: Kullervo and Túrin Turambar
Amid the Kalevala’s many tales, one in particular seized hold of Tolkien’s imagination: the story of Kullervo, the ill-fated son of Kalervo. In that Finnish saga, Kullervo is a hapless orphan driven by rage and sorrow, cursed from birth and leaving ruin in his wake. Reading this tale was a revelatory moment for Tolkien. He later said that Kullervo’s tragedy was “the germ of [his] attempt to write legends” – the seed from which his own mythology sprouted. Indeed, in 1914, while still an undergraduate, Tolkien set out to retell Kullervo’s story in his own voice. He wrote an unfinished piece called “The Story of Kullervo,” making it one of the very first original prose works he ever tried. In a letter, he described how “the beginning of the legendarium… was in an attempt to reorganize some of the Kalevala, especially the tale of Kullervo the hapless, into a form of my own.” Middle-earth, you might say, began in Finland.
Tolkien never published his Kullervo tale in his lifetime, but its DNA lives on in the First Age of Middle-earth. The tragic saga of Túrin Turambar, as told in The Silmarillion and The Children of Húrin, is a deliberate echo of Kullervo. The parallels are striking and haunting. Like Kullervo, Túrin is a hero under a dark doom – proud, skilled, but wracked by grief and cursed by fate. Both men, unknowingly, commit the unforgivable: each accidentally falls in love with his own sister, not realizing their kinship until it’s too late. In both stories the revelation is devastating. Kullervo’s sister (whom he had abducted) drowns herself when she learns the truth, and Túrin’s beloved sister Níniel likewise throws herself into the river when her memory returns and she discovers she is Túrin’s sibling. Overwhelmed by horror and guilt, each hero then seeks death. Kullervo, finding nothing left to live for, addresses his sword and asks if it will take his life – the sword, stained with the blood of his family’s enemies, coldly consents, and Kullervo falls upon it. In a grimly similar scene, Túrin addresses his black sword Gurthang: “Wilt thou slay me swiftly?” he asks. The blade answers that it will drink his blood gladly, ending his pain, and Túrin casts himself upon the point. Two swords, two suicides – one source. Tolkien did not disguise the inspiration; he consciously based Túrin’s tale on Kullervo’s to the point where scholar Verlyn Flieger calls Túrin “a reincarnation of Kullervo” in Middle-earth.
Beyond these plot details, the mood of Túrin’s story – “the strain of deep tragedy” and doom – owes much to the Kalevala’s influence. Tolkien’s legendarium is often high and hopeful, but in Túrin we taste the same bitter cup as in Kullervo: a sense that sometimes fate cannot be changed, and even the valor of a hero may end in sorrow. It is a surprisingly Finnish note in the grand chorus of Middle-earth. As one reviewer aptly put it, “Those expecting a typical Tolkien story will be unsettled by Kullervo… it is undeniably his darkest work.” But without that darkness, we might never have gotten the full light of Middle-earth – for it was Kullervo’s shadow that drove Tolkien to start crafting his own myths in the first place.
Mythic Echoes in Middle-earth: Magic, Music, and Mythology
Tolkien’s debt to the Kalevala goes far beyond one character. Throughout his legendarium, there are thematic and mythological parallels that show how deeply the Finnish epic seeped into his creative soil. He was not simply borrowing names or plots – he was responding to the feel of those old Finnish stories, transmuting them into a new mythology. Like a bard picking up an old tune and weaving new variations, Tolkien let the echoes of Kalevala ring in his tales of Middle-earth.
One striking parallel lies in the fate of magical artifacts. The Kalevala revolves in part around the quest for the Sampo, a mysterious object forged by the smith-god Ilmarinen. The Sampo is a source of prosperity and luck – its exact nature is purposely vague, described variously as a mill, a treasure, or even a pillar holding up the sky. What’s clear is that the Sampo brings power, and everyone covets it. In the epic’s climax, the heroes led by Väinämöinen steal the Sampo from the witch-queen Louhi, sparking a fierce battle; in the struggle, the Sampo is ultimately smashed and lost to the sea, its bounty lost with it. Tolkien mirrors this narrative arc with his own legendary jewels and rings. His Silmarils – radiant gems crafted by Fëanor containing the light of the Two Trees – and the One Ring of Sauron are like splinters of the Sampo’s myth. Critics have noted that “like the Lord of the Rings, the Kalevala centres around a magical item of great power” that stirs up conflict. Just as the Sampo’s theft leads to war and its loss is both tragic and necessary, the Silmarils provoke epic wars in Middle-earth and are eventually lost or taken from the world; just as the Sampo must be broken to keep its power from the wrong hands, the One Ring must be destroyed to save the world. In both mythologies, a potent object drives the story’s grand conflict between good and evil, and in both the object’s destruction or removal marks the story’s resolution. Tolkien even split the roles of the Sampo among multiple artifacts: one scholar suggests the pillar aspect of the Sampo became Tolkien’s Two Trees of Valinor (great light-giving pillars of the world), while its treasure aspect lives on in the Silmarils that held the Light of those Trees. The One Ring, like the Sampo, has a will of its own and brings ruin on those who cling to it. These correspondences are not coincidence; they are Tolkien’s homage to a mythic pattern he admired.
Another echo of Finnish lore in Tolkien’s work is the magical power of song. The Kalevala is an epic sung into being – literally, its verses were chanted by folk singers (runoias) in trochaic meter. In the Kalevala’s stories, knowledge of songs equals power: wizards and heroes engage in singing contests where verses are weapons. The wise old Väinämöinen defeats the youthful Joukahainen by singing him into a bog, for example, wielding song as sorcery. Tolkien clearly loved this idea. Middle-earth is suffused with music and spell-song used in similarly potent ways. We see a direct parallel in The Silmarillion, when the Elven king Finrod Felagund duels with the dark lord Sauron through songs of power – a battle of enchantments fought in verse. Verse by verse, Finrod and Sauron sing of shifting shapes and mastery, striving to overpower one another, just as in Finnish myth two sorcerers might sing charms to outdo their rival. Middle-earth’s very creation story is a song: the Ainulindalë tells how the world was made through the Music of the Ainur, a divine symphony conducted by Ilúvatar. This concept of a sung world feels right at home with the Kalevala, where ancient songs literally keep the world in balance and bestow order and wisdom. Throughout the Third Age as well, characters break into song to achieve magical ends – think of Lúthien singing Morgoth to sleep in his fortress, or the elves of Rivendell singing healing hymns. Tolkien took the Kalevala’s lesson to heart: in a mythic world, music is power. It’s an old truth from Finland’s fireside tales that he wove seamlessly into the fabric of Middle-earth.
There are yet more subtle connections. Consider the figure of Väinämöinen, the central hero of the Kalevala. He is depicted as a wise, ancient bard – a gray-bearded wanderer with a staff, who has mastery of songs and magic, and who guides his people with sagacity. Sound familiar? Tolkien’s Gandalf carries a staff, wears a beard, and wanders wisdom throughout Middle-earth. Both figures even share a kind of immortal quality: Väinämöinen is a demigod who lives for untold ages, and Gandalf, though appearing old, is actually one of the immortal Maiar spirits. At the end of the Kalevala, Väinämöinen departs the world in a canoe, sailing away after he has established a new order – he leaves behind his kantele (harp) and promises that he will perhaps return if he is ever needed. At the end of The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf too sails away on a ship (with the elves) into the West, leaving the age of magic behind as the age of Men begins. Both epics conclude with the departure of a wise old guardian over the sea, marking the end of an era. Tolkien surely recognized in Väinämöinen a kindred spirit to his own Gandalf (and perhaps even a touch of Tom Bombadil’s ancient, merry wisdom). It is as if the Finnish “old sage” archetype stepped into Middle-earth wearing a pointed hat.
Even in smaller motifs, the correspondence sings. We find a Maiden of the North in Kalevala whose suitors (Väinämöinen, then Ilmarinen, then Lemminkäinen) must undertake impossible tasks to win her hand; we find an Elf-maiden Lúthien in The Silmarillion whose father sets her mortal beloved Beren an impossible task (to retrieve a Silmaril from the Iron Crown) as the bride-price. In both cases, the maiden ends up aiding her lover in his quest – the Maiden of Pohjola secretly helps Ilmarinen with some tasks, just as Lúthien doesn’t sit idle but goes forth to help Beren accomplish the retrieval. These are fairy-tale patterns shared across cultures, but Tolkien’s specific use of them owes a nod to the Kalevala version he so adored.
Lastly, there is a meta-mythological parallel: Tolkien’s entire approach to building a legendarium was influenced by the existence of the Kalevala as a national epic. The Kalevala was not a single ancient text but a patchwork woven by Lönnrot from many oral poems, creating a unifying mythology for Finland. Tolkien, an Englishman, lamented that his own country had no truly comparable national myth – the old Celtic stories and Arthurian legends had been largely lost or muddled by time and foreign conquest. He once rued how England’s ancient myths were “wiped out” by the Norman invasion of 1066, leaving a gap in the cultural soul. In response, Tolkien set out to create a mythology for his people, “something I could dedicate to England,” as he put it. He consciously emulated Lönnrot’s role by presenting his Middle-earth stories as if they were collected and translated from ancient sources. The Silmarillion, for example, was written in a high, mythic register and framed as the “Elder Days” lore preserved by elves and transmitted through Bilbo’s translations from Elvish. In The Lord of the Rings, the Red Book of Westmarch device makes it appear as if Tolkien is merely publishing a historical manuscript. All this was Tolkien’s way of giving his modern audience the feeling that these tales truly are the ancient, “forgotten” epics of their own world – just as the Kalevala was the ancient epic of Finland rediscovered. One scholar has noted that Tolkien and his son Christopher in editing and compiling the legendarium could together be seen as “England’s Lönnrot,” collecting and redacting a mythology for their land. Indeed, Tolkien’s myth-making was an act of restoration in spirit: Kalevala showed him how fragmented folklore might be forged into a national treasure, and he set out to do the same in fantasy for his beloved England.
A Song of Ice and Fire from the North
Tolkien’s journey with the Kalevala is a beautiful example of literary alchemy. He took the raw elements of Finnish myth – its language, its tragedy, its magic and music – and transmuted them into something at once new and familiar. The influence is not always obvious at first glance; Tolkien’s world is not a carbon copy of Kalevala’s Finland. Rather, it’s in the undertones and resonances. It’s in the lament of Túrin Turambar, standing atop Haudh-en-Elleth in despair, which carries an echo of Kullervo’s final cry. It’s in the joyful singing of Tom Bombadil and the eerie chants of the Elves, carrying forward the power of ancient runo songs. It’s in the way Middle-earth’s history feels deep and layered, as if drawn from real folklore – because, in part, it was inspired by the real folklore of the Finns.
As readers, we experience Tolkien’s work as something mythic, something that feels like it has truth buried in its roots. One reason is that Tolkien learned from the best: the Kalevala gave him a template for how a genuine mythic cycle can feel. He once wrote of the Kalevala’s enchantment, “I was immensely attracted by something in the air of the Kalevala, even in [its] poor translation.” That “air” – that atmosphere of a world where heroes sing spells and fate cannot be escaped – drifted into the air of Middle-earth. In a way, Tolkien repaid the debt by introducing millions of new readers to a mythic mode of storytelling akin to the Kalevala’s. Many who love Gandalf, Galadriel, or Frodo have later found their way to Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, and Kullervo, recognizing them as ancient cousins of Tolkien’s creations.
J.R.R. Tolkien once said his work was “fundamentally linguistic in inspiration,” and indeed it was – but it was also fundamentally mythological in aspiration. The Finnish Kalevala kindled both halves of that equation for him. It showed him a language that was like magic, and a mythology that felt like home albeit in a distant land. With that inspiration, he set about crafting his own legendarium not in imitation, but in conversation with the Kalevala. The result was a new myth – a sprawling canvas of Middle-earth – painted in part with Finnish brushes and sung in an Elven tongue that carries echoes of the runes of Kaleva. In Tolkien’s hands, the old wine of Kalevala found a new bottle, and it continues to intoxicate us with its “mythic beauty”, even if we don’t immediately realize that a distant Finnish bard helped pour the first drops.
In the end, the relationship between Tolkien and the Kalevala feels like a great, secret duet: two storytellers from different eras singing in harmony. One’s voice is the deep chant of the far North, the other’s is the familiar refrain of the West, and together they create something richer – a layered song that we, the fortunate listeners, can hear and marvel at for ages to come.
Sources:
Tolkien, J.R.R. Letters, ed. Humphrey Carpenter, 1981 (esp. Letter to W.H. Auden, 1955).
Finnish Influences on Tolkien – Wikipedia.
Influences on Tolkien – Wikipedia.
Liberman, Mark. “J.R.R. Tolkien and the Kalevala.” Stony Brook Univ. Libraries Blog, 2019.
Graham, Elizabeth. “Frodo, Bilbo, Kullervo: Tolkien’s Finnish Adventure.” NPR, April 10, 2016.
“Tolkien and The Kalevala.” Clarendon House Publications.
Representation of Turin Turambar, character of the Silmarillion, painted by Ana Guimarães
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