"All with incredible stupendous force,
None daring to appear antagonist." (Milton.)
[65.] As Kalervo appears to have been a chief in his own right, it not very clear why, or to whom, he had to pay taxes.
[107, 108.] The lake of course was frozen.
[153.] As in several other instances in the Kalevala, this does not appear to be abduction in the modern sense, but merely marriage by capture.
[214.] There is another celebrated poem written by a Finn, but in Swedish, Runeberg's Kong (King) Fjalar, in which a similar chance meeting between a brother and sister forms the principal subject.
[343.] Sea-beasts are very rarely mentioned in the Kalevala, for nearly all aquatic animals referred to are lake- or river-fish. Here the allusion is probably to the story of Jonah.
RUNO XXXVI
[80.] Literally "the rest of his flesh." Having regard to the supposed powers of Finnish magicians, this passage is not to be taken merely as an impudent rejoinder, but as asserting powers which Kullervo actually claimed to be able to exert.
[307.] In an old English romance we read concerning the suicide of a sorcerer, "The ground whereon he died was ever afterwards unfortunate, and to this present time it is called in that country, 'a vale of walking spirits.'" (Seven Champions of Christendom, Part I., chap. xix.)