Proem, or Prelude, to the Kalevala

Kalevala, the Finnish national epic

The first edition of the Kalevala appeared in 1835, compiled and edited by Elias Lönnrot on the basis of the epic folk poems he had collected in Finland and Karelia.

This poetic song tradition, sung in an unusual, archaic trochaic tetrametre, had been part of the oral tradition among speakers of Balto-Finnic languages for two thousand years.

                                          from the Finnish Literature Society website