ABSTRACT
“The creation of the Sampo and its elevation to the status of a possession of the Finnish nation,” Julius Krohn has stated, “has, without Lonnrot consciously intending or noticing it, risen to become the central theme of the Kalevala”. The cornerstone of Lonnrot’s epic consists of a Sampo song of 366 verses sung for him by Ontrei Malin, or Malinen, at Vuonninen in the parish of Vuokkiniemi in 1833 and published in his shorter epic Vainamoinen, In 1834 he made a new excursion into the province of Viena and recorded a further Sampo poem of 407 stanzas as recited by Arhippa Perttunen at the village of Latvajärvi, also in Vuokkiniemi. Folkloristic studies of the Sampo songs have tended to concentrate on the question of the geographical location of Pohjola. Certainly Pohjola is mostly referred to as a “village”, or even “the eternal village”, but in many cases, it is felt sufficient to say only “the man-eating place”.
