The Lemminkäinen Suite, or more correctly Four Legends from the Kalevala, Op. 22, is a sequence of four tone poems for orchestra completed in 1896 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The work was conceived as Veneen luominen (The Building of the Boat), an opera with a mythological setting, before taking its form as a suite. There is a narrative thread: the exploits are followed of the heroic character Lemminkäinen from the Kalevala, which is a collection of folkloric, mythic, epic poetry. The second tone poem, The Swan of Tuonela, is popular as a standalone orchestral work.
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In this Dossier
- 👉 Lemminkäinen in the context of Lemminkäinen Suite
- Lemminkäinen in the context of Ahti
- Lemminkäinen in the context of Finnish mythology
Lemminkäinen in the context of Ahti
Ahti is a water god in Finnish mythology.
In the Kalevala, he is referred to with the name Ahto in order to not confuse him with the separate character Ahti Saarelainen.
View the full Wikipedia page for AhtiLemminkäinen in the context of Finnish mythology
Finnish mythology commonly refers to the folklore of Finnish paganism, of which a modern revival is practiced by a small percentage of the Finnish people. It has many shared features with Estonian and other Finnic mythologies, but also with neighbouring Baltic, Slavic and, to a lesser extent, Norse mythologies.
Finnish mythology survived within an oral tradition of mythical poem-singing and folklore well into the 19th century.
View the full Wikipedia page for Finnish mythology