The Story of Kullervo

This is Tolkien's first short story. It is an adaptation of a story from the Finnish "Kalevala", a collection of early Finnish epic stories. It is also an inspiration for his character Turin Turambar from The Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin. This book contains the short story, two similar essays by Tolkien on the Kalevala, and commentary and a paper by Professor Verlyn Flieger from U of Maryland. The short story itself is a rather tough read. Being his first story, probably from around 1912, he uses archaic words and sentence form. Fortunately, Professor Flieger's paper, which compares the Kullervo with Turin, recounts the story and helps make sense of it.

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