started reading the Kalevala (in English translation), which has been kindly lent to me by
cyniborg. this is the Finnish "national epic", which when read in 1911/1912 by a kid called Ronald from the fringes of Birmingham, caused him to say "we've got to get ourselves one of these" and then a few years later to write one, in some cases just lifting things wholesale (compare Túrin with Kullervo.) i started to write a filk about Túrin once, which is not quite of the same level of inspiration, but hey.
