Finnish Tradition (Kalevala)Realm
Kalevala (Väinölä)
The heroes' homeland in the Kalevala, the land of Kaleva's descendants where Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, and Lemminkäinen live, and which Lönnrot's title names; a mythic counterpart to the dark North of Pohjola.
About Kalevala (Väinölä)
The land of Kaleva
Kalevala means 'the land (or dwelling) of Kaleva', a legendary ancestor figure only faintly attested in folk poetry, whose descendants (the 'sons of Kaleva') are giants or heroes in Finnish and Estonian tradition. Lönnrot used the name for the heroes' homeland and for his epic; the songs also call it Väinölä, 'Väinämöinen's home'.
In the epic
Kalevala is where Väinämöinen sows the first trees and grain, where Ilmarinen has his forge, and where the heroes return from their journeys to Pohjola. When the Sampo shatters, its fragments drift ashore there, bringing prosperity; Louhi's revenge brings plague and a bear against it, and she steals its sun and moon.
Not a place on the map
The land of Kalevala is not a real region. The Russian Karelian village of Uhtua was renamed Kalevala in 1963 in honor of the epic, and this site lists that town separately; the epic homeland itself is mythic.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Kalevala, Rune 43 (paraphrase)
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.