The Hero of Esthonia | Page 2

pretend to do more than
offer a few specimens culled from some of the most easily accessible
sources. My professional work does not allow me time to attempt more
at present; and it is from the same cause that my work on the Kalevala
has been delayed so long.
In outlying parts of Europe like Finland and Esthonia, which were not
Christianised till long after the southern and western countries,
primitive literature has survived to a much greater extent than
elsewhere; and the publication of the Kalevala and the Kalevipoeg
during the present century furnishes a striking example before our very
eyes of the manner in which the Iliad and the Odyssey grew up among
the Greeks, before these poems were edited in the form in which they
have come down to us, by order of Pisistratus.
The principal books used in the preparation of this work are mentioned
in the short Bibliography. The names of others quoted or referred to
will be found in the Index, which has also been drawn up in such a
manner as to form a general glossary.
W.F. KIRBY.

CHISWICK, September 1894.

INTRODUCTION
ESTHONIA
Esthonia, or Estonia, as some prefer to write it, is the most northerly of
the three so-called German or Baltic provinces of Russia--Esthonia,
Livonia, and Courland. It is bounded on the north by the Gulf of
Finland, which lies between that country and Esthonia; on the east by
the Government of St. Petersburg; on the south by Livonia, and on the
west by the Baltic. Opposite its western coast lie numerous large
islands, the most important of which are Dagö and Oesel; these islands
nearly close the north-west corner of the Gulf of Riga.
The northern part of Livonia (including the island of Oesel, already
mentioned) is partly inhabited by Esthonians, and is dealt with in
popular literature as forming part of the country. The four provinces of
Esthonia proper, which are constantly referred to, are as follows, the
German names being added in brackets. Two western, Arju or Harju
(Harrien) on the north, and Lääne (Wiek) on the south; one central,
Järva (Jerwen), and one eastern, Viru (Wierland). East of Livonia lies
the great Lake Peipse or Peipus, eighty miles long and thirty-two miles
broad at the broadest part, across which the son of Kalev is said to have
waded to fetch timber from Pihgast or Pleskau, which name is used to
include the Russian province of Pskov, bordering the lake on the south
and south-east. At two-thirds of its length the lake is divided nearly in
two, and the southern portion is sometimes called Lake Pskov. It may
have been across the narrow part between the two ends of the lake that
the hero is supposed to have waded, when, even during a great storm,
the water reached only to his girdle.
The coast of Esthonia is rocky, but the interior of the country is very
marshy, though there are no navigable rivers or lakes of much
importance except Lake Peipus, which we have already mentioned.
Small lakes, however, are very numerous, the largest being Lake Virts.

Esthonia was one of the countries conquered during the Middle Ages
by the crusading German Knights of the Sword, and has been described
as a country with a Finnish population and a German aristocracy under
Russian rule. Occasionally we meet with reminiscences of oppression
by the German nobility in the songs and tales; as, for instance, in the
story of the Royal Herd-boy; while everything beautiful or above the
ordinary life of the peasants is characterised as Saxon.
The bulk of the population speak a language very closely allied to
Finnish, and they possess a large store of oral literature, much of which
has been collected, and in part published, during the present century. It
has, however, attracted very little attention out of Esthonia, except in
Finland, and to some extent in Germany, and very few articles on the
subject have appeared in England or France. It is believed that this is
the first work published in England giving any detailed account of the
popular literature of Esthonia, and it does not pretend to be exhaustive,
nor to extend much beyond the publication of Kreutzwald, Neus, and
Jannsen.
The Finnish-Ugrian race, though not Aryan, is widely distributed
throughout Europe and Asiatic Russia, and the principal peoples
belonging to it in the North are the Finns, the Esthonians, and the
Lapps, who speak very similar languages, and whose tales and legends
possess much similarity, while in the south the Magyars are more
distantly related to them. The Lapp hero-tales, however, have more of a
historical basis, while the popular tales are much shorter and less
artistic. It is, however, curious that Swan-maiden stories are peculiarly
common among the Lapps. Several other lesser known