The Story of Kullervo by J. R. R. Tolkien (review)

In the years around 1830, a Finnish doctor and folklorist named Elias Lönnrot made a series of journeys in the Karelia region of southeastern Finland, collecting oral poetry. As he pursued his mission, he realized that many of the stories overlapped and that it should be possible to edit them into a continuous narrative. Lönnrot was not the first to attempt doing so, but he was the first to combine it with systematic fieldwork. The results of his efforts were published under the title Kalevala (from a legendary place name) in 1835–36 and then, in a greatly expanded version, in 1849. The Kalevala was widely embraced as Finland's own epic and set a standard for the creative and respectful use of folk material.

The same work, in English translation, made a deep impression on the young J. R. R. Tolkien, who praised it as the "realm of those who cling in queer corners to the forgotten tongues and memories of an elder day." Although the narrative focuses on three main characters—Väinämöinen the singer, Ilmarinen the craftsman, and Lemminkainen the womanizing adventurer—Tolkien seems to have been preoccupied by a subsidiary character, Kullervo son of Kalervo. Kullervo is the person for whom literally everything goes wrong. The story begins with a feud between Kalervo and his brother Untamo. Untamo and his men attack Kalervo's farm, killing him and his entire family. Only a pregnant housemaid survives; she is carried off to captivity, where she gives birth to Kullervo. (We must assume that she was pregnant by Kalervo and that his paternity is acknowledged even by his enemy; otherwise Kullervo's patronymic would be meaningless.) Raised as a slave, Kullervo displays extraordinary precocity and strength—and a genius for bad outcomes, through a combination of carelessness, vindictiveness, and what looks like a love of destruction for its own sake.

After a series of grotesque misadventures, Kullervo discovers that his lost relations are not dead at all. Only his sister (whom, of course, he has never known) has mysteriously vanished. Once united with his family, Kullervo meets an unknown woman in the forest. They have intercourse—more a rape than a seduction—but it soon transpires that she is his long-lost sister. She throws herself into a river and drowns. Kullervo resolves to kill Untamo, and does so—he goes "rejoicing to the battle," perhaps the only time he is shown happy!—then dies by his own sword. From a narrative point of view, having Kullervo discover his family safe and sound is a serious misjudgment. Whether the fault lies with one of the original singers, or with Lönnrot in his attempt to stitch the songs together, it turns the tragic loneliness of Kullervo's childhood into an ugly little irony and gives him far less to avenge on Untamo.

When Tolkien set out, sometime between 1912 and 1916, to retell the story in his own words, it may have been with the goal of fixing flaws like that one. In his version, Kalervo is definitely killed by Untamo's raiding party. His pregnant wife is carried off and gives birth to twins, the boy Kullervo and the girl Wanona. While still a child, Kullervo is sold and sent away, which explains his failure to recognize Wanona when they meet years later. The rape/seduction takes place as in the Kalevala. Kullervo and Wanona then live happily together until she asks him who he is. It is on learning his identity that she drowns herself. Kullervo has a vision of his mother's ghost, telling him the drowned woman was his sister. He stabs himself and dies. The Story of Kullervo was apparently Tolkien's first legendary tale. His sensitivity to inconsistencies of plot would stand him in good stead, decades later, when planning The Lord of the Rings, with its immense and intricate backstory. In other respects, however, The Story of Kullervo scarcely foreshadows his future achievements...