卡莱瓦拉(The Kalevala)简介：
The Kalevala is the great Finnish epic, which like the Iliad and the Odyssey, grew out of a rich oral tradition with prehistoric roots. During the first millennium of our era, speakers of Uralic languages (those outside the Indo-European group) who had settled in the Baltic region of Karelia, that straddles the border of eastern Finland and north-west Russia, developed an oral poetry that was to last into the nineteenth century. This poetry provided the basis of the Kalevala. It was assembled in the 1840s by the Finnish scholar Elias Lönnrot, who took `dictation' from the performance of a folk singer, in much the same way as our great collections from the past, from Homeric poems to medieval songs and epics, have probably been set down. Published in 1849, it played a central role in the march towards Finnish independence and inspired some of Sibelius's greatest works. This new and exciting translation by poet Keith Bosley, prize-winning translator of the anthology Finnish Folk Poetry: Epic, is the first truly to combine liveliness with accuracy in a way which reflects the richness of the original.

民族史诗《卡来瓦拉》渊源于芬兰古代民间诗歌，只不过在古代民间诗歌中，《卡莱瓦拉》中的几个男主角如万奈摩宁，伊尔玛利宁和勒明盖宁均被赋予迥然不同的特征，他们的英雄业绩在芬兰东部地区的卡累利亚和西部地区的民歌中往往被张冠李戴，相互混淆。万奈摩宁时而以天上的造物主的面目出现，时而以巫师的姿态表演。他是功绩卓着、战无不胜的豪杰，但他不是情场失意、垂头丧气，就是老态龙钟，成为某个水精和少女揶揄的对象。