“The words are late mediaeval, and were among those incorporated into the Kanteletar, the body of folk lyrics and poetry collated by Elias Lönnrot in parallel with his work compiling Finnish folkore into the epic Kalevala. The oldest known printed version was that noted down by the musician and ethnographer Giuseppe Acerbi on a trip to Lapland in 1799. In the mid-1800s, a Stockholm civil servant, Carl Gustav Zetterqvist, was so taken with the poem that he wrote around internationally and solicited 467 translations (they weren’t published, but reside in the Elias Lönrot Collection, Finnish Literature Society, Helsinki). As with any orally transmitted text, there are variants such as these two, Finnish and Karelian, of a shorter version, the one Goethe translated in 1810 as Finnisches Lied.”

http://segalbooks.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html

Finnish lyrics I’m using here goes like this:

“Jos mun tuttuni tulisi
Ennen nähtyni näkyisi
Tuntisin tutun tulosta
Arvajaisin astunnasta

Vielä kaulahan kapuisin
Vaikk’ ois kalma kaulan päällä
Vielä vierehen menisin
Vaikk’ ois vierus verta täynnä

My recording is very rough made with Olympus voice recorder, since I couldnt break inspiration by setting up computers, programs and such.

English counterpart for lyrics:

Should my treasure come
my darling step by
I’d know him by his coming
recognize him by his step
though he were still a mile off
or two miles away.

And yet my treasure has not
his mouth bloody from a wolf
his hands greasy from a snake
nor his neck in death’s clutches:
his mouth is of melted fat
his lips are as of honey
his hands golden, fair
his neck like a heather stalk.

Since there are many different versions and wordings for this common melody, its easy to find other performances. Here is one lovely version for your pleasure:

The name can be interpreted as the “lands of Kaleva” (by the Finnish suffix -la/lä for place). The epic consists of 22,795 verses, divided into fifty cantos, rhymes or “chapters” (Finnish: runo). Below is one excerption of the songs with attached image taken early misty autumn morning, in the middle of Finland, 3.10.2009.

Vainamoinen and bear

“O my Otso, O my darling,
Fair one with the paws of honey,
Do thou rest in hilly country,
And among the rocks so lovely,
Where the pines above are waving,
And the firs below are rustling.
Turn thyself around, O Otso,
Turn thee round, O honey-pawed one,
As upon her nest the woodgrouse,
Or as turns the goose when brooding.”

Then the aged Vainamoinen
Heard his dog was barking loudly,
And the dog was fiercely baying
Just beside the Small-eye’s dwelling,
In the pathway of the Broad-nose ;
And he spoke the words which follow :
” First I thought it was a cuckoo,
Thought I heard a love-bird singing,
But no cuckoo there is calling,
And no love-bird there is singing, 90

But it is my dog that’s baying,
Here my faithful hound awaits me,
At the door of Otso’s dwelling,
At the handsome hero’s homestead.”

Then the aged Vainamoinen
Struck the bear where he was lying,
Overturned his bed of satin,
Overthrew his lair so golden,
And he spoke the words which follow,
And in words like these expressed him : too

” Praise, O Jumala, unto thee,
Praise to thee alone, Creator,
Unto me the bear who gavest,
And the forest gold hast granted.”

Gazed he on the golden booty,
And he spoke the words which follow :
” O my Otso, O my darling,
Fair one with the paws of honey,

Be not filled with causeless anger,
I myself have not o’erthrown thee, no
Thou thyself hast left the forest,
Wandered from thy pine-tree covert,
Thou hast torn away thy clothing,
Ripped thy grey cloak in the thicket.

Slippery is this autumn weather,
Cloudy are the days and misty.

1. Jos mun tuttuni tulisi (Missing Him) from Kanteletar