kantele

The kantele is a plucked string instrument, the oldest and most revered in Finland. In its traditional form it has five strings; modern concert versions have up to 38. But the mythological version, described in the Kalevala, was fashioned by the hero Väinämöinen from the jawbone of a great pike, using hairs pulled from the tail of a wild horse. When he played it, every creature in the forest wept and the sea itself grew still.

The name kantele is thought to derive from the same Proto-Finnic root as kansa, meaning 'people' — the instrument of the people, the voice of the nation. Some scholars connect it to Indo-European roots related to song and sound. Whatever its etymology, the kantele's resonance predates written Finnish history, appearing in runic songs passed down through oral tradition for millennia.

The Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, compiled by Elias Lönnrot in 1835 from regional oral poetry, placed the kantele at the center of Finnish identity. Lönnrot's publication of that epic transformed Finland's sense of itself. The kantele became a symbol of cultural survival for a people who had long lived under Swedish and then Russian rule. An instrument of 5 strings carried the weight of a nation's sovereignty.

Today the kantele is taught in Finnish music schools, used by contemporary composers, and appears on the Finnish coat of arms. Master kantele builders craft instruments by hand from alder, spruce, or walnut. The five-string version — closest to the mythological original — is still played in folk circles. The sound is gentle, resonant, otherworldly: like water moving through reeds, or the voice of something not quite human.