Kansantaruja Laatokan luoteis-rannikolta: kesällä 1879

Schvindt, Theodor, 1851-1917Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.6

Word count: 38K words
Chapters: 4

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Kansantaruja Laatokan luoteis-rannikolta: kesällä 1879 by Theodor SchvindtAuthor: Schvindt, Theodor, 1851-1917,Language: Finnish, Class: DL: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Release Date: Mar 6, 2015

Editor's review

This is a collection of folk tales gathered by the Finnish folklorist Teodor Schwindt in the summer of 1879 on the northwest shore of Lake Ladoga. An early field record, it preserves the original tone and local color of oral narrative from the Karelian region. For those studying Finnish folklore, Karelian folk literature, and the history of nineteenth-century collecting, its value lies not in literary polish but in the rawness of the material: tale types, telling situations, and dialect features are kept as far as possible. It should be read as a field text rather than light reading; with a map and some background in folklore studies, the collector's choices and recording decisions become more apparent. Suited to patient readers interested in Nordic folk literature and minority oral traditions.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Students of folklore specializing in Finnish or Karelian folk literature
Readers interested in the history of nineteenth-century Nordic ethnographic collecting
Scholars who need primary folk-tale texts for comparative research
Readers with basic Finnish reading ability who want to encounter the dialect originals

Not a good fit for

General readers looking for an entertaining story collection
Readers with no folklore background who are unwilling to consult contextual materials
Readers expecting modern retellings or children's versions of folk tales

Reading tips

Begin with the introduction or collecting notes to understand the 1879 collecting context on the northwest shore of Lake Ladoga before moving on to the texts.
Read by tale-type groupings, noting motifs and informant details as you go for ease of comparison.
Use a map to check place names and grasp the geographic range and dialect areas in which the tales circulated.
Readers unfamiliar with Finnish can consult translations or scholarly literature, grasping the plot first and then returning to the original wording.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book written in Finnish? Can I read it without knowing Finnish?

The main text is in Finnish and consists of original collected texts. Readers without Finnish can learn the content through translations or folklore scholarship, but reading the original directly requires some language foundation, especially for the dialect passages.

Are these stories suitable for telling to children?

This is a raw record of nineteenth-century field collecting, containing the oral expressions and local beliefs of the time; it was not adapted for children. If you wish to tell them to children, it is advisable to select and adapt them first.

How does it differ from ordinary folk-tale collections?

It is closer to a collecting record, preserving telling tone, dialect, and local information. Its scholarly value outweighs its entertainment value; it is suited to research rather than leisure reading.

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About the author

Schvindt, Theodor, 1851-1917 Author · Finnish · 1851–1917

Theodor Schvindt (1851–1917) was a Finnish archaeologist and museum worker who dealt mainly with prehistoric artifacts and local museum affairs. One work by him is held in the collection: Kansantaruja Laatokan luoteis-rannikolta: kesällä 1879, whose title refers to folk tales collected in the summer of 1879 from the northwestern shore of Lake Ladoga. The work belongs to the recording of Finnish folk literature and local tradition, showing the character of nineteenth-century ethnographic fieldwork: plain language, attention to the storyteller's voice, and a focus on local color. Because public information is limited, details of his life, education, and specific posts cannot be confirmed; nonetheless, the surviving work suggests an approach in which archaeology and folklore recording went hand in hand, offering primary material for the study of local legends and folk narrative in the northwestern Ladoga region and reflecting the contemporary Finnish scholarly interest in rural tradition.