thumb|Kullervo's Curse by the Finnish painter [[Akseli Gallen-Kallela from 1899. It depicts a scene from the Kalevala in which Kullervo curses beasts from the woods to attack his tormenter, the Maiden of the North.]]

Kullervo () is a hero in Finnish and Estonian mythology. He is often called a son of Kaleva. He also appears as an ill-fated character in the epic Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot.

In runic songs

Runic songs of Kullervo mention him as a son of Kaleva. Sometimes, his father is called Kalervo, but this is a later variation which morphed from Kaleva. Ingrian and Karelian runic songs further tell of the fight between two families, the other being the family of Kaleva or Kalevainen, who ruin each others fields and possibilities to survive. Kalevainen and his family were exterminated but an unborn child survives and continues the family feud, bakes a stone inside the bread of a mean mistress of a house, and ends up committing incest. In a different runic song from Ilomantsi, after killing Kaleva, the enemies try to kill his son by throwing him into a large bonfire. However, he had the ability to control fire. To avenge his family, he asks Ilmarinen to forge him a sword and goes to war. Other songs tell he was later defeated on the battlefield.

In runic songs from Estonia, Kuller Kalevi poega ("Kuller, son of Kalev") creates himself an artificial wife from gold or wood. However, the golden maiden is cold to the touch. Kullervo is not always the protagonist of this story, as it might also be Lemminkäinen, an unnamed smith or Kalev himself. In runic songs from Finland, the smith is usually Ilmarinen or Väinämöinen. The songs ends with the commandment that one must not make himself a wife out of gold and silver.

In a runic song from Kainuu, a cowshed snake is born out of Kullervo's war spear snapping into two. In this context, his name appears as Istervo in North Karelia, Istervö in North Karelia, Ladoga Karelia and North Savo, Istori in South Savo, Lispervo in Ladoga Karelia, Lisperi in North Karelia, and Histervo in North Karelia and in a runic song from an unknown location.

In a runic song from South Savo, Kullervo asks, as he is going to war, if his father and mother would cry after hearing he has died. His father says no, as he would simply make another, better son. However, his mother says she'd cry so much it would melt all snow and turn earth green. When he gets the message that his mother has died, he doesn't care, thinking he could make a better mother for himself from seeds, twigs and leaves. In a runic song from Central Finland, when he gets the message he similarly doesn't care, being too busy fighting in the war.

In some runic songs, an unnamed "beautiful son of Kaleva" is sold as a slave to a smith in Karelia. When he is asked to look after a child, he kills the child with a disease. When he is asked to build a fence, he ties full grown spruces together with snakes and lizards. When he is asked to herd cattle, his mistress bakes a stone into his bread. This angers him, and he summons bears and wolves to kill the mistress. In many regions, the protagonist in question is identified as Kullervo, but in Ostrobothnia and Kainuu, the protagonist is Soini.

In the Kalevala

Growing up in the aftermath of the massacre of his entire tribe, he comes to realise that the same people who had brought him up, the tribe of Untamo, were also the ones who had slain his family. As a child, he is sold into slavery and mocked and tormented further. When he finally runs away from his masters, he discovers surviving members of his family, only to lose them again. He seduces a girl who turns out to be his own sister, having thought his sister dead. When she finds out it was her own brother who seduced her, she commits suicide. Kullervo becomes mad with rage, returns to Untamo and his tribe, destroys them using his magical powers, and commits suicide.

At the end of the poem the old sage Väinämöinen warns all parents against treating their children too harshly.

The story of Kullervo is laid out in runes (chapters) 31 through 36 of the Kalevala.

Rune 31 – Untamo and Kullervo

thumb|150px|Kullervo Tearing His [[Swaddling Clothes, Carl Eneas Sjöstrand, 1858]]

Untamo is jealous of his brother Kalervo, and the strife between the brothers is fed by numerous petty disputes. Eventually Untamo's resentment turns into open warfare, and he kills all of Kalervo's tribe save for one pregnant girl called Untamala, whom Untamo enslaves as his maid. Shortly afterwards, Untamala gives birth to a baby boy she names Kullervo.

When Kullervo is three months old, he can be heard vowing revenge and destruction upon Untamo's tribe. Untamo attempts to kill Kullervo three times (by drowning, fire, and hanging). Each time, the infant Kullervo is saved by his latent magical powers.

Untamo allows the child to grow up, then tries three times to find employment for him as a servant in his household, but all three attempts fail as Kullervo's wanton and wild nature makes him unfit for any domestic task. In the end, Untamo decides to rid himself of the problem by selling Kullervo to Ilmarinen as a slave.

Rune 32 – Kullervo and the wife of Ilmarinen

thumb|Episode from Kalevala (Kullervo carves his name into an oak), , 1897

The boy is raised in isolation because of his status as a slave, his fierce temper, and because people fear his growing magical skills. The only memento that the boy retains from his previous life in a loving family is an old knife that had been passed along to him as an infant.

Pohjan Neito/Tytär (Maiden/Daughter of the North), wife of Ilmarinen, enjoys tormenting the slave boy, now a youth, and sends Kullervo out to herd her cows with a loaf of bread with stones baked into it. This chapter includes a lengthy magical poem invoking various deities to grant their protection over the herd and to keep the owners prosperous.

Evaluation

Kullervo is fairly ordinary in Finnish mythology, in being a naturally talented magician; however, he is the only irredeemably tragic example. He showed great potential, but being raised badly, he became an ignorant, implacable, immoral and vengeful man.

The death poem of Kullervo in which he, like Macbeth, interrogates his blade, is famous. Unlike the dagger in Macbeth, Kullervo's sword replies, bursting into song: it affirms that if it gladly participated in his other foul deeds, it would gladly drink of his blood also. This interrogation has been duplicated in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Children of Húrin with Túrin Turambar talking to his black sword, Gurthang, before committing suicide. (Túrin also, like Kullervo, unwittingly fell in love with his own sister and was devastated when he learned the truth, his sister also killing herself). Canto 36 ends with Väinämöinen stating that an abused child will never attain a healthy state of mind even as an adult, but will instead grow up to be a very disturbed person.

<blockquote>

:Silloin vanha Väinämöinen,

:kunpa kuuli kuolleheksi,

:Kullervon kaonneheksi,

:sanan virkkoi, noin nimesi:

:"Elkötte, etinen kansa,

:lasta kaltoin kasvatelko

:luona tuhman tuuittajan,

:vierahan väsyttelijän!

:Lapsi kaltoin kasvattama,

:poika tuhmin tuuittama

:ei tule älyämähän,

:miehen mieltä ottamahan,

:vaikka vanhaksi eläisi,

:varreltansa vahvistuisi.".

</blockquote>

In drama, music, poetry and games

Kullervo is an eponymous 1860 play by Aleksis Kivi.

Kullervo is the subject of a 1988 opera by Aulis Sallinen.

The Hilliard Ensemble commissioned an English language setting of Kullervo's story, Kullervo's Message, from Veljo Tormis.

In June 2023, the video game Warframe released a new playable character named for and inspired by Kullervo.

The 1938 play Suomi by Elizabeth Goudge (1900-1984), in her Three Plays: Suomi; The Brontës of Haworth; Fanny Burney (Gerald Duckworth, 1939), includes a Kullervo-like character in her modern story of Finland's struggle for independence from Tsarist Russia. The mother in the story is called "Suomi", a nickname based on the Finnish word for "Finland". Her two sons are Olof and Kryosti. Olof (a Lemminkäinen-figure) is killed by Russians. Kryosti (as a Kullervo-figure) is exiled to Siberia. When he returns, eighteen years later, during the Russian Revolution, he kills Olof's son, Sigurd, and then, in a fit of remorse, Kryosti commits suicide. Following the incest-motif of the story of Kullervo, Sigurd and Anna are the twin children of Olof. Ignorant of the fact that they are brother and sister, they marry. But Anna dies in childbirth, and Sigurd is murdered by Kryosti, because of his insane jealousy of his own brother, Olof.

In August 2024, it was announced that Antti Jokinen has been attached to direct the upcoming film Kalevala: The Story of Kullervo, and has been cast as the title character in the film.

Influence on J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien wrote an interpretation of the Kullervo cycle in 1914; the piece was finally published in its unfinished form as The Story of Kullervo in Tolkien Studies in 2010, as edited by Verlyn Flieger. It was re-published in book form in 2015 by HarperCollins. It was his first attempt at writing an epic narrative but was never completed.

References

  • William Forsell Kirby's English translation of the Kalevala (1907).
  • Tolkien's first fantasy novel