Norwegian Woods (OT)

Larin Paraske (1833-1904) was a central figure in Finnish folk poetry. The immense number of verses she could recite (over 32,000) made her one of the irreplaceable sources of Karelian culture. In fact, she is the single most important source of folk poetry in Finland. Paraske's poems include proverbs, lamentations and riddles. Her Finnish contemporaries (scientists and artists) drew enormous inspiration from her.

As an illiterate member of an oral culture ("doesn't know a single letter", Neovius wrote), Larin Paraske did not know anything by heart. In her own words, she sang from her "head memory", "by ear". In Finnish this means sudden remembering and improvisation. Thus, with the help of traditional images and a total mastery of the language of Kalevala metre, Paraske repeatedly constructed poems that were at once of great antiquity and on each occasion slightly new. Like all good traditional singers, she also inserted hints of her own private life into the poems. Such allusions can be discerned, for example, in the exceptionally expressive widow's songs, which Paraske presented in a number of variations; in one of them she longs for her "lovely one", her "black-browed one", using images drawn from the world of men's work: "there is no sound of my darling, no sound of him coming home; he does not chop firewood by the pile, he does not clatter under the shed roof."


Larin Paraske's claim to greatness is justified by her phenomenal memory ("The Finnish Mnemosyne") and its proof, a huge collection of poems. The dramatic contrast between the richness of her inner life and the poverty of her external existence has touched the hearts of subsequent generations. Guilt feelings have been aroused by the fact that the Finnish cultural élite, at whose disposal she placed herself and her poetry, did not take the trouble to offer her 200 marks in her hour of need. The pension granted by the Finnish Literature Society in 1901 came too late and was too small.

Today Paraske is the subject of a search for ever new dimensions. One such dimension is her status and experience as a conscious artist. Another is the distinctive quality of the oral, communal form of remembering and creating that she represents. The copiousness of her poetry provides rare opportunities for research on this topic. Paraske's role in our national culture in the 1890s - and later as well - is also an interesting phenomenon. It illustrates a process typical in the history of the Finnish identity: the encounter of official and unofficial, literary and non-literary, Eastern and Western culture, and the influences that they exert on one another.

The world is changed.

I feel it in the water.
I feel it in the earth.
I smell it in the air.

Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.

The hardest and most dangerous rescue missions in Norwegian mountains are solved by unpaid mountain climbers in alpine rescue groups. "I do not know how long it will be like this, but I think this is a virtue worth taking care of," says Ture Bjørgen.

Bjørgen’s book contains detailed descriptions and pictures from rescue operations where unfortunate rock climbers, base jumpers and people during other tragedies have been rescued from the most inaccessible and dangerous mountain walls in Norway, often under dramatic circumstances. Most of the operations covered in the book received huge media attention. But how was it really? What happened on the wall during the rescue operations? And what happens to the "heroes" who time after time meet the death of others?