The Finnish lays are interesting to us because they are the popular songs of a people handed down with few changes from one generation to another; because they would have formed the material for a national epic if a great poet had arisen; because of their pictures of ancient customs, and particularly the description of the condition of women, and because of their frequently beautiful descriptions of nature. But because they are simply runes "loosely stitched together" we can regard them only with interest and curiosity, not with admiration.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE KALEVALA.
Andrew Lang's Homer and the Epic, pp. 412-419;
Andrew Lang's Kalevala, or the Finnish National Epic (in his Custom and Myth), 1885, pp. 156-179;
C. J. Billson's Folk-songs, comprised in the Finnish Kalevala, Folk-Lore, 1895, vi. pp. 317-352;
F. C. Cook's Kalevala, Contemporary, 1885, xlvii., pp. 683-702;
Preface of J. M. Crawford's Translation of the Kalevala, 1891.