I have been fortunate to have a great many interesting authors on my blogs, writing fiction and non-fiction, memoirs, and various types of literature.Today it is my pleasure to introduce to you K.A. Laity. Kate is a multitalented author and teaches medieval literature, film, New Media and popular culture, on a college level. She has also written a fascinating collection of Finnish short stories based on medieval myths and folklore. This folklore is unique in many ways as these myths were a type of poetry with music. There are many cultures that have used songs to recount and remember their oral histories.
Please welcome Kate and feel free to ask questions. Be sure to watch the video of Kate playing the Kantele. The link is at the end of the article.
Many thanks to Sia for hosting me today!
When I try to tell people about my new short story collection, Unikrja, the first thing I have to do is explain how to say it and then what it means. "Oo-knee-kir-ya" is how you say it and it means "Dreambook." In what language, you ask? Finnish.
Yep, as in from Finland.
Yep, as in from Finland.
I try to imagine what's going through people's heads then: Scandinavia, right? Nokia? Lordi? President Halonen looking like Conan O'Brien? (My pal Ulla Suokko was in one of his fake ads!)
It's an uphill battle, so it only gets more difficult when I try to explain the mythology that inspired the stories and the play. They come from The Kalevala and The Kanteletar, the twin tomes of Finnish myth and folklore. The stories and songs that make up these collections are very old, but were gathered together in the nineteenth century as a surging sense of national pride grew. The tiny nation straddles the dividing line between the Baltic and Scandinavia, and had been dominated alternately by its two larger neighbours, Sweden and Russia.
It's an uphill battle, so it only gets more difficult when I try to explain the mythology that inspired the stories and the play. They come from The Kalevala and The Kanteletar, the twin tomes of Finnish myth and folklore. The stories and songs that make up these collections are very old, but were gathered together in the nineteenth century as a surging sense of national pride grew. The tiny nation straddles the dividing line between the Baltic and Scandinavia, and had been dominated alternately by its two larger neighbours, Sweden and Russia.
A doctor with a fascination for folklore, Elias Lönnrot set out to collect examples of the old tunes and stories that people told to try to capture what he saw as a vanishing way of life. In The Kalevala, he arranged these stories in runos to link together story arcs. You can read an English version online, but let me acquaint you with some of the recurring characters who show up in my stories.
Väinämöinen is the eternal sage. After Ilmatar the goddess gives birth to the world, he is the first human born. He knows all manner of magic. I've always found it fascinating that much of Finnish magic comes from know the true names of things and being able to sing them. At one point, Väinämöinen faces a young challenger who thinks he can take on the old man, but he gets sung right into a swamp. The panicky Joukahainen offers his sister's hand in marriage, which starts another theme for the old magician: he never gets the girl.
Aino is the sister offered to Väinämöinen. Her parents think it's an advantageous marriage, but the beautiful young maiden finds little appeal in being joined to the ancient sage and finally drowns herself to escape. She comes back, however, as a salmon to taunt Väinämöinen, so she lives again. Väinämöinen's mother suggests he should go north to find a bride instead.
Louhi is the witch of the northern lands. There's a great split in the Kalevala between the people of the south in Kaleva and those in the north, so they're always portrayed as adversaries. Louhi, while seemingly as powerful as Väinämöinen, inevitably the stories depict her as "evil" which just sat wrong with me. As you might guess from our name, Louhi's Daughters, my friends Minna and Kasha shared the opinion that we were getting a rather one-sided view of Louhi and in our performances we tried to give a more balanced picture of this amazing woman. Our very first performance together was a retelling of the Aino story, which also proved a resonant touchstone for Unikirja.
While The Kalevala has a series of narrative threads, The Kanteletar is a looser collection of songs grouped by who sings them, i.e. men, women or children. There are also a number of ballads that would be sung by everyone. Not surprisingly, one of the songs is all about the kantele, the national musical instrument of Finland. The name of the collection is kantele plus the feminine ending, so you might think of "Kanteletar" meaning the spirit of the kantele, the source of all the songs.
What's a kantele? Here's a video of me playing my five-string kantele, Little My.
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K. A. Laity (http://www.kalaity.com/) is the author of Unikirja (Aino Press 2009), a collection of short stories based on the Kalevala, Kanteletar, and other Finnish myths and legends, for which she won the 2005 Eureka Short Story Fellowship and a 2006 Finlandia Foundation grant.She also wrote Pelzmantel: A Medieval Tale (Spileld Candy 2003) as well as other stories, plays and essays. She teaches medieval literature, film, New Media and popular culture at the College of Saint Rose. Her news blog title comes from her first student film, Un Amor Peligroso or the Wombat's World; it was also the title of a zine she used to publish.
