hiawatha
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Posts: 2391
Joined: Mar. 2004 |
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Posted: May 22 2006, 16:44 |
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| Quote (Markus K. @ May 22 2006, 16:29) | | Some time ago I discovered that the Longfellows poem uses a rhytm from the *Kalevala poems. (They have a certain structure just like Japanese Haikus for example.) However I'm not going to sing Kalevala texts with Incantations melody. No reason to worry. |
..and the Kalavala was one of the inspirations for JRR Tolkien's "Silmarillion":
http://faculty.jbu.edu/jhimes/Silmarillion-Kalevala.html
I've seen some of Tolkien's own work in verse, but I do not know if it is the same rhythm as the Kalevala or not. I can't locate any of it now ("The Lays of Beleriand?"), but in the mean time there is this to go by, which brings it full circle:
"By the shore of the Great River
Near the shining Fields of Gladden,
At the doorway of his mud-hole,
In the pleasant Summer morning,
Smeagol stood and waited.
All the air was full of freshness,
All the earth was bright and joyous,
And before him, through the sunshine,
Eastward toward the Greenwood forest
Passed in golden light the Galadhrim,
Passed the elves, the Three Rings' makers,
Dancing, singing In the sunshine..."
and we move much much later in the saga to the gates of Moria:
"Can it be the moon descending
O'er the dismal pond of water?
Or the Watcher, tentacles flying,
Wounded by Legolas' arrow,
Staining all the waves with ichor,
With the ichor of its life-blood,
Filling all the air with terror...."
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"In the land of the Dacotahs,
Where the Falls of Minnehaha
Flash and gleam among the oak-trees,
Laugh and leap into the valley."
- Song of Hiawatha
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