and thus the coincidence of the Magyar Ukkon and the Finnish Ukko was
placed beyond doubt.

The Kalevala (the Land of Heroes) relates the ever-varying contests
between the Finns and the "darksome Laplanders", just as the Iliad
relates the contests between the Greeks and the Trojans. Castren is of
the opinion that the enmity between the Finns and the Lapps was sung
long before the Finns had left their Asiatic birth-place.

A deeper and more esoteric meaning of the Kalevala, however, points to
a contest between Light and Darkness, Good and Evil; the Finns
representing the Light and the Good, and the Lapps, the Darkness and
the Evil. Like the Niebelungs, the heroes of the Finns woo for brides
the beauteous maidens of the North; and the similarity is rendered
still more striking by their frequent inroads into the country of the
Lapps, in order to possess themselves of the envied treasure of
Lapland, the mysterious Sampo, evidently the Golden Fleece of the
Argonautic expedition. Curiously enough public opinion is often
expressed in the runes, in the words of an infant; often too the
unexpected is introduced after the manner of the Greek dramas, by a
young child, or an old man.

The whole poem is replete with the most fascinating folk-lore about the
mysteries of nature, the origin of things, the enigmas of human tears,
and, true to the character of a national epic, it represents not only
the poetry, but the entire wisdom and accumulated experience of a
nation. Among others, there is a profoundly philosophical trait in the
poem, indicative of a deep insight into the workings of the human mind,
and into the forces of nature. Whenever one of the heroes of the
Kalevala wishes to overcome the aggressive power of an evil force, as a