Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps, Figures and Tables
- Preface
- Introduction: Looking across the Baltic Sea and over Linguistic Fences
- Section 1 Mental Maps
- 1 The Northern Part of the Ocean in the Eyes of Ancient Geographers
- 2 Austmarr on the Mental Map of Medieval Scandinavians
- 3 The Connection Between Geographical Space and Collective Memory in Jómsvíkinga saga
- Section 2 Mobility
- 4 Rune Carvers Traversing Austmarr?
- 5 Polish Noble Families and Noblemen of Scandinavian Origin in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries: The Case of the Awdańcy Family: By Which Route did they come to Poland and why?
- 6 A Medieval Trade in Female Slaves from the North along the Volga
- Section 3 Language
- 7 Ahti on the Nydam Strap-ring: On the Possibility of Finnic Elements in Runic Inscriptions
- 8 Low German and Finnish Revisited
- Section 4 Myth and Religion Formation
- 9 Mythic Logic and Meta-discursive Practices in the Scandinavian and Baltic Regions
- 10 The Artificial Bride on Both Sides of the Gulf of Finland: The Golden Maiden in Finno-Karelian and Estonian Folk Poetry
- 11 Local Sámi Bear Ceremonialism in a Circum-Baltic Perspective
- 12 Mythologies in Transformation: Symbolic Transfer, Hybridisation, and Creolisation in the Circum-Baltic Arena (Illustrated Through the Changing Roles of *Tīwaz, *Ilma, and Óðinn, the Fishing Adventure of the Thunder God, and a Finno-Karelian Creolisation of North Germanic Religion)
- Contributors
- Indices
10 - The Artificial Bride on Both Sides of the Gulf of Finland: The Golden Maiden in Finno-Karelian and Estonian Folk Poetry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps, Figures and Tables
- Preface
- Introduction: Looking across the Baltic Sea and over Linguistic Fences
- Section 1 Mental Maps
- 1 The Northern Part of the Ocean in the Eyes of Ancient Geographers
- 2 Austmarr on the Mental Map of Medieval Scandinavians
- 3 The Connection Between Geographical Space and Collective Memory in Jómsvíkinga saga
- Section 2 Mobility
- 4 Rune Carvers Traversing Austmarr?
- 5 Polish Noble Families and Noblemen of Scandinavian Origin in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries: The Case of the Awdańcy Family: By Which Route did they come to Poland and why?
- 6 A Medieval Trade in Female Slaves from the North along the Volga
- Section 3 Language
- 7 Ahti on the Nydam Strap-ring: On the Possibility of Finnic Elements in Runic Inscriptions
- 8 Low German and Finnish Revisited
- Section 4 Myth and Religion Formation
- 9 Mythic Logic and Meta-discursive Practices in the Scandinavian and Baltic Regions
- 10 The Artificial Bride on Both Sides of the Gulf of Finland: The Golden Maiden in Finno-Karelian and Estonian Folk Poetry
- 11 Local Sámi Bear Ceremonialism in a Circum-Baltic Perspective
- 12 Mythologies in Transformation: Symbolic Transfer, Hybridisation, and Creolisation in the Circum-Baltic Arena (Illustrated Through the Changing Roles of *Tīwaz, *Ilma, and Óðinn, the Fishing Adventure of the Thunder God, and a Finno-Karelian Creolisation of North Germanic Religion)
- Contributors
- Indices
Summary
Abstract
This article examines the theme of forging of a golden maiden in the Estonian, Ingrian and Finno-Karelian epic poems of Kultamorsiamen taonta (Engl. Forging of the Golden Bride) and Kuldnaine (Engl. The Golden Woman). The Parallax Approach used is based on the historical-geographical method. Every period of culture contains ethno-cultural substrates. These substrates are made up of cultural features and materials that were inherited from earlier periods and adapted to newer periods. The Forging of the Golden Bride poem includes several layers that have formed over centuries – if not a millennium. By studying these layers, it is possible to trace the historical continuities and alterations in individual elements in the poem.
Keywords: Kalevalaic poetry, parallax approach, epic poetry, Finno-Karelian tradition
Introduction
This article explores the stratified history of the narrative poem known as The Golden Maiden (Est. Kuldnaine, Fi. Kultaneito) in the Estonian, Ingrian, Karelian, and Savonian-Finnish traditions. During the first half of the twentieth century, variants of this poem were studied with an emphasis on reconstructing its history. Research paradigms in folklore studies then shifted, with the result that the poem's background has not been examined the light of the most recent methods and theories of tradition transmission. Instead of trying to find or reconstruct the most original version, scholarly interest now focuses more on viewing traditions as part of society as well as trying to understand why the poems were important to their performers and audiences and how they have been used. The current paradigm tends to focus narrowly on local communities, as opposed to looking at relationships among all different forms of a tradition. Here, a brief overview of the tradition will be followed by a discussion of comparative methods that have been applied to it and an introduction to the historically oriented comparative method called the Parallax Approach (Frog 2012a) that will be applied here. A series of different features and associations of the tradition will then be reviewed in subsequent sections followed by a general overview assessment as a conclusion.
The Golden Maiden is a narrative constituted of particular motifs that belongs historically to Finnic epic poetry.
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- Information
- Contacts and Networks in the Baltic Sea RegionAustmarr as a Northern Mare Nostrum, ca. 500–1500 AD, pp. 211 - 234Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2019