Biblical and Theological Commentary on The Story of Kullervo
(avg. read time: 6–12 mins.)
With this entry, we attend to some of Tolkien’s remarkably early work. How early? Early enough that he could mention it was in progress in Letter #1 to his fiancée Edith in October 1914. Roughly contemporaneously with his first poem on Eärendil (Éalá Éaraendel Engla Beorhtast) and before his first prose narrative in his grand mythos that would become The Silmarillion, Tolkien composed a prose narrative version of a story (including pieces of poetry) from the Finnish Kalevala. Specifically, he did this for the story of the hapless and tragic Kullervo:
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Story of Kullervo, ed. Verlyn Flieger (Boston: Morrow, 2015).
Like many of his works, it was never finished, though Tolkien had an outline for how he wanted to finish it.
This story is foundational to Tolkien’s mythos. Most significantly, it was the primary source of inspiration for Tolkien’s story of Túrin Turambar and the larger Children of Húrin. Tolkien himself says as much in Letters #131 (1951), #163 (1955), and #257 (1964). Furthermore, there is considerable linguistic evidence for links between this story, in which Tolkien practiced his characteristic linguistic inventiveness, and early versions of Tolkien’s language, particularly as contained in the “Qenya Lexicon.” In the introduction of this volume, Verlyn Flieger notes some examples that are particularly noteworthy for our purposes:
It has been pointed out to me by Carl Hostetter that some of the invented names in The Story of Kullervo echo or prefigure Tolkien’s earliest known efforts at his proto-invent language, Qenya. Qenya-like names in the story include the god-names Ilu, ilukko and Ilwinti, all strongly reminiscent of Ilúvatar, the godhead figure of the ‘Silmarillion’…. Manalome, Manatomi, Manoini, words for ‘sky, heaven’, recall Qenya Mana/Manwë, chief of the Valar, the demi-gods of the ‘Silmarillion’. (xxii–xxiii)
[One correction to make to this statement is that, according to Tolkien’s “Qenya Lexicon,” Ilúvatar is not the equivalent to every person of the Godhead altogether. Eru (or Enu at this earlier point) is the name with this reference, while Ilúvatar most directly applies to the First Person of the Trinity.]
More generally, I find Flieger’s closing paragraph of her included essay, and of the volume as a whole, to be an apt summary of this story’s significance to Tolkien’s mythos:
The Story of Kullervo was Tolkien’s earliest attempt at retelling – and in the process ‘reorganizing’ – an already-existing tale. As such, it occupies an important place in his canon. Furthermore, it is a significant step on the winding road from imitation to invention, a trial piece by the orphan boy, university undergraduate, returning soldier who loved Kalevala, resonated with Kullervo, and felt the lack of ‘something of the same sort that belonged to the English’. (162–63)
For the purposes of this series, there are only scattered elements of the story itself that are of interest, though Tolkien’s reflections on the story are even more noteworthy. As such, our comments here will draw from his own notes included in this volume from his presentations in November 1914 and February 1915 (when Tolkien was an undergraduate student), as well as from his revised manuscript written between five to ten years later.
The story is not remarkably Christianized so as to be made more compatible with what became the predominant faith of Finland. After Sweden conquered Finland in the twelfth century, Christianity was slowly introduced to the Finns. The old myths of the Finnish people were not written down at that point, but they continued to be passed down for centuries before the Kalevala was composed. As Tolkien observes, “The Ka[levala] today is pract[ically] untouched: and except at the end and in a few references to Ukko God of Heaven even hints at the existence of Christianity are almost entirely absent. These largely account for its interest and ‘undergrowth’ character, though also for its minor emot[ional] key: its narrow and parochial view (things in themselves not without delight)” (74–75). His revision similarly says, “Except in the story or the virgin Marjatta at the end, in a few references to Jumala or Ukko god of the Heavens, and so forth, even hints at the existence of Christianity are almost entirely absent; of its spirit there is nothing, as any one can see who compares the crude story of Marjatta with Christian faith” (110–11).
The opening of the poem, though struck out, sets the story of Kullervo “In the days {of magic long ago} {when magic was yet new}” (5). Magic plays a prominent role in Kullervo’s story and the particular forms it takes connect this story with ancient shamanic practices (49–50, 54). When Tolkien writes of the “religion” of the Kalevala, though he later questions if this is an appropriate term (119, 124), he describes it as “a luxuriant animism – it can hardly be separated from the purely mythological: this means that in the Kalevala every stock and stone, every tree, the birds, waves, hills, air, the tables, swords and the beer even have well defined personalities which it is one of the quaint merits of the poems to bring out with singular skill and aptness in numerous ‘speeches in part’” (80).
Of course, there are a number of higher gods involved and invoked in the Kalevala, including in this story of Kullervo, as well. One of the most remarkable passages is a long prayer (22–27) spoken by a woman to whom Kullervo is in bondage. She prays “to Ilu the God of Heaven who is good and dwells in Manatomi” (22). She offers it on behalf of her cattle to protect and prosper them, including by the help of various spirits. This will in turn lead to her prosperity. As the comment following the lengthy prayer tells us, “Now Āsemo’s wife was a great chanter of prayers – and also a most grasping woman and over heedful of her goods: and that is to be understood [by] the length of her prayer to Ilukko and his maidens for her kine which were very fair and sleek” (27).
Late in the story, Kullervo (going by another of his many names [on which, see 53]) reflects on his plight in Jobian fashion:
Wherefore have I been created?
Who has made me and has doomed me
Thus ‘neath sun and moon to wander
‘Neath the open sky forever?
…
Never Jumala most holy
In these ages of the ages
Form a child thus crooked fate
With a friendless doom forever
To go fatherless ‘neath heaven
And uncared by any mother
As thou, Jumala, hast made me
Like a wailing wandering seagull,
Like a seamew in the weather
Haunting misty rocks and shoreland
While the sun shines on the swallow
And the sparrow has its brightness
And the birds of air are joyous
But that is never never happy.
I Sāri am not happy.
O Ilu, life is joyless. (33–34)
The reference to “Ilu” is Tolkien’s own rendition of the story, but Jumala was another more conventional name for the god of heaven, as was Ukko, a name that Tolkien says in his notes “was often confused” with Ilu/Iluko (41). There is also one Malōlo who is identified as the god of the earth and the maker (42). Jumala at least was eventually assimilated to Christianity, as his name was used for God in the Bible, but in these poems he is simply the god of the sky, air, clouds, and weather, particularly related to thunder (123).
The first time in the story we see an explicit action of Ilu related to Kullervo, we are told, “Then into his heart Ilu sent a thought: and he lifted his head and said ‘I will slay Ūlto’” (34). This is Kullervo’s ultimate goal: to slay his uncle Untamō in vengeance for him slaying his father and enthralling his family. This naturally fits the pagan setting, but one should also compare various phrases in the Bible referring to God putting something in a person’s heart (Exod 35:34; 1 Kgs 10:24 // 2 Chron 9:23; Neh 7:5; Ps 4:7; Eccl 3:11; Jer 31:33; 32:40; 2 Cor 8:16; Gal 4:6; Rev 17:17). Most of these cases are not particularly similar to this, except for Rev 17:17 where God puts it into the hearts of his enemies to turn against each other to their destruction. This is comparable to what we have observed elsewhere about the internal operations of Providence in Tolkien’s work, but one should not press the point here too far, as Tolkien is not trying to press the theological analogy.
After all, this is still a pagan presentation. And it is precisely its pagan character that makes it interesting to Tolkien and others. On the one hand, it is an exemplar of an ancient kind of story that is not concerned even with the plausibility of a fairy story, being taken up more with a simple delight: “Its delight depends on the dawning perception of the limits of the human fancy and imagination. Latent in it no doubt is the heroism of the human battles with overmastering fate, and courage undaunted by unconquerable odds – but you do not listen to it on that account, you either like it or despise it as an effort of fresh unsophisticated fancy” (107). This latter element is akin to that northern spirit of courage that captured Tolkien’s imagination, particularly from Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon, as we have observed elsewhere (see here, here, and here). There is something of a common grace in this sense of transcendence and the courage linked with it here.
On the other hand, Tolkien suggests that it is precisely from within a Christian framework that these untouched pagan tales are seen in their best light (cf. 76). He claims it is parallel to the interests of Icelandic bishops in the Norse myths, such as we noted elsewhere. Tolkien here argues against a common sentiment:
As a matter of fact one does sometimes hear the Kalevala, and things like it, cited as evidence of the enduring paganism of Europe that (we are told) is still fighting a gallant and holy battle against the oppression of Christianity, and of Hebraic Biblicality. To argue about this would really be to stray far from my present point and purpose; but the temptation to say something about our attitude towards the ancient gods is too strong. Without disputing about the attitude of the Finnish people up to, say, about a century ago when these things were taken down (for I do not know enough about them), I am still quite ready to admit that without something approaching to an objective belief in the old gods we definitely lose something of the magic of all old tales, something in them is ‘all beyond our comprehension’; it is no good saying that the sea is still poetically boundless, for to the very people who can appreciate the poetry of the sea the roundness of the earth and the unfortunate existence of America on the other side of a strictly limited Atlantic ocean is most constantly and vividly present in the imagination; the heavenly bodies are by them above all most clearly realized not to be heavenly beings. (113–14)
We are no longer in a position where the poetry instills both the deep aesthetic impact of poetry and the inculcation or affirmation of belief. Tolkien suggests that the effect we have of visiting these old poems is more like a holiday (or vacation), rather than a long-term movement back before the developments that moved people like the Finns beyond their pagan past. Again, in parallel with the Icelandic bishops who gave us what we know of Norse mythology, “if while on this holiday we half hear the voice of Ahti in the noises of the sea, half shudder at the thought of Pohja, gloomy land of witchcraft, or Tuonela yet darker region of the dead, it is nonetheless with quite another part of our minds that we do this than that which we reserve for our real beliefs and for our religion, just as it undoubtedly was for the Icelandic ecclesiastics of old” (114). While these stories do not instill old beliefs in us like they might have before, nor should they, Tolkien says that they may still bring forth something new:
Yet there may be some whom these old songs will stir to new poetry, just as the old songs of other pagan days have stirred other Christians; for it is true that only the Christians have made Aphrodite utterly beautiful, a wonder for the soul; the Christian poets or those who while renouncing their Christianity owe to it all their feeling and their art have fashioned nymphs and dryads of which not even Greek ever dreamt; the real glory of Latmos was made by Keats.
[The following sentence is handwritten in ink.] As the world grows older there is loss and gain – let us not with modern insolence and blindness imagine it all gain (lest this happen such songs as the ‘Land of Heroes’ are left for our disillusionment); but neither must we with neo-pagan obscurity of thought imagine it all loss. (114–15)
These things Tolkien wrote in his late 20s or early 30s are reminiscent of what he would say of his theology of sub-creation in later works (see here, here, and here, as well as my forthcoming book). Even if these stories were originally written about other gods, spirits, heroes, and so on, they still point, in however fragmentary and refracted a fashion, to something transcendent by the Creator who gave us our sub-creative faculties. It is this Creator who has not left himself without a witness, even among nations who would not know him by name (so to speak) for long thereafter (Acts 14:15–17; 17:22–29; Rom 1:18–20; cf. also Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. 20–23; 44; 46; 59–60; 2 Apol. 8; 10; 13; Tatian, Or. Graec. 21; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1.4–5, 13, 19–20; Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparatio evangelica/Preparation for the Gospel; Basil the Great, Address to Young Men; Augustine of Hippo, Civ. 8.1; Doctr. chr. 2.25). And it is by a Christian framework that we can best understand their significance, their beauty, and their contributions.
And so it was for Tolkien the Christian. For him, the story of Kullervo was not only something that resonated with him personally as one who lost his father when he was small and his mother when he was young (34). It and the larger Kalevala meant something more. These stories stirred him to new poetry, new stories, a new mythos written by a Christian whose art was formed by his Christianity to regard his pagan forebears in a certain Christian way. As a gifted Christian author with such sensibilities, he was able to write with a sense of both loss and gain regarding this pre-Christian past.