works on Finnish mythology are among the references used in preparing
this preface. These indefatigable scholars were joined by Reinhold
Becker and others, who were industriously searching for more and more
fragments of what evidently was a great epic of the Finns. For
certainly neither of the scholars just mentioned, nor earlier
investigators, could fail to see that the runes they collected,
gathered round two or three chief heroes, but more especially around
the central figure of Wainamoinen, the hero of the following epic.

The Kalevala proper was collected by two great Finnish scholars,
Zacharias Topelius and Elias Lonnrot. Both were practicing physicians,
and in this capacity came into frequent contact with the people of
Finland. Topelius, who collected eighty epical fragments of the
Kalevala, spent the last eleven years of his life in bed, afflicted
with a fatal disease. But this sad and trying circumstance did not
dampen his enthusiasm. His manner of collecting these songs was as
follows: Knowing that the Finns of Russia preserved most of the
national poetry, and that they came annually to Finland proper, which
at that time did not belong to Russia, he invited these itinerant
Finnish merchants to his bedside, and induced them to sing their heroic
poems, which he copied as they were uttered. And, when he heard of a
renowned Finnish singer, or minstrel, he did all in his power to bring
the song-man to his house, in order that he might gather new fragments
of the national epic. Thus the first glory of collecting the fragments
of the Kalevala and of rescuing it from literary oblivion, belongs to
Topelius. In 1822 he published his first collections, and in 18317 his
last.

Elias Lonnrot, who brought the whole work to a glorious completion, was
born April 9, 1802. He entered the University of Abo in 1822, and in