…so the story goes…

Next week I will be in HELSINKI!

I am very very excited. I will not be there long, but I want to breathe the air and look at the streets.

I have been reading, and have almost completed, the finnish national legend:
KALEVALA

This story rocks my world. I love these kind of stories, where magic things happen and heros run around doing things.

I am sad to discover how wretchedly the women are treated in this story. But so much of it is so overwhelmingly stupendous that I forgive them.

The story was told. It was told for hundreds of years. Someone finally wrote it down in the middle 1800s. This guy went around finland trying to capture all the pieces of the story, and finally found the last piece in the mouth of a very old storyteller. The old man was really old (did I already say that..?) and the story gatherer was very relieved to get all the last pieces.

Once the guy published the Kalevala, Finland exploded with happiness. They are STILL not over it…In fact, the country started it’s own independence because of this awesome book.

It is a deep and wide thing, this story. And I will have the story in my head as I walk the streets of Helsinki. I think the streets might very well be named after the heros in the book.