The Story of Kullervo

Introduction to the Essays

Unlike the story, Tolkien’s essay on the Kalevala exists in two states, one a rough draft manuscript with paragraphs numbered for reorganization, and the other a fair copy typescript. They are catalogued together as Bodleian Library MS Tolkien B 61, folios 126–60. The manuscript, in ink over pencil and heavily emended, consists of twenty-four not always consecutive pages plus an additional, smaller folio (not included here) containing fragmentary jotted notes on both sides. The typescript, which has only occasional emendations in ink, is on lined paper with ruled margins. The text comprises nineteen single-spaced pages, and breaks off in mid-sentence at the very bottom of page 19.

The hand-written title page to the manuscript (Plate 6) reads ‘On “The Kalevala” or Land of Heroes’, and also bears the notations ‘(C.C. Coll. [Corpus Christi College] Oxford ‘Sundial’ Nov. 1914)’ and ‘Exeter Coll. Essay Club. Feb. 1915’, the two dates on which Tolkien is known to have delivered the talk. The November 1914 presentation, given a bare month after his October letter to Edith, and the February one given a scant three months later, clearly belong to the same period as the story.

No firm date can be assigned for the somewhat revised typescript draft, which has no separate title page, but only the heading ‘The Kalevala’. A reference in the text to the ‘late war’ would place it after the World War I Armistice of 11 November 1918, and an allusion to the ‘League’ (presumably the League of Nations formed in 1919–20) would suggest 1919 as a terminus a quo. On the basis of comparison with material in Tolkien’s early poetry manuscripts and typescripts Douglas A. Anderson suggests 1919–21 (personal communication), while Christina Scull and Wayne Hammond propose a somewhat later, admittedly conjectural dating of ‘?1921–?1924’ (Chronology, p. 115). Anderson’s date would place the revision at a time when Tolkien was still living in Oxford (he was on the staff of the New English Dictionary from November 1918 to the spring of 1920), while the Scull-Hammond three-year time frame would push it to the period when Tolkien was Reader in English Language at Leeds University. In either case, there is no available evidence that this revised version of the talk was ever given.

As with The Story of Kullervo, I have edited both essays’ transcriptions for smooth reading. Square brackets enclose words or parts of words missing from the text but supplied where necessary for clarity. False starts, cancelled words and lines have been omitted. Also as with the story, I have chosen not to interrupt the texts (and distract the reader) with note numbers, but a Notes and Commentary section follows each essay proper, explaining terms and usages, and citing references.