The Finnish born Canadian author and translator Kaarina Brooks has translated the forewords in the Old and the New Kalevala (1835 and 1849) from Finnish to English in 2020 and 2021. The translations have been done by applying the Kalevala meter to the English language. Brooks’ goal was to present the readers with a translation that is based on language that follows the language based on the sung Kalevala meter and, consequently, to open up the poetic world of the Kalevala.

The first English translation of a selection of the poems in the Old Kalevala was published in 1846 by Charles-Frèdèric Henningsen. The latest English translation of the Kalevala is from 1989. This translation by Keith Bosley is a complete translation of the 1849 Kalevala and it is done by using the Celtic meter system.

To date, Bosley and Brooks are the only translators who have aimed at producing a complete metric translation, although William Forsell Kirby did apply the Kalevala meter in his translation of the Kalevala already in 1907. However, this translation is not a complete translation of all the verses in the Kalevala.

Kaarina Brooks was awarded with a prize for her translations by the Kalevala Society in 2023. The importance of her translations is emphasised by the fact that she has translated both versions of Lönnrot’s Kalevala and also Lönnrot’s prefaces. There is a translation of the Old Kalevala in prose form by Francis Peabody Magoun (1969), but this version from 1835 has not been translated previously into poetic form.

The translations of the Kalevala by Kaarina Brooks can be ordered directly from the publisher (Wisteria Publications).