Starfriend
New Member
I think that the lament of the stones in Eregion must be the most Kalevala thing in the Lord of the Rings. It's a sort of mirrored image of the lament of a birch tree in the poem 44 of Kalevala. In the poem the Väinämöinen searches the first kantele made of a jawbone of a giant pike which fell into the sea. He doesn't find it and returns home.
While walking in the forest he hears crying of a birch and asks why the tree cries. The tree gives him a long answer by listing the many uses of birch trees that would have been familiar to the audience of the poem, and continues to the hardships that winter brings to deciduous trees. Väinämöinen replies to the birch by promising that in the future the tree will weep of joy and proceeds to build a new kantele out of birchwood, bringing music and joy back to the land.
It's important to note that music of Väinämöinen is kind of stronger version of elvish music in Tolkien, to the point of enchanting every being from the people to the animals and trees and even including the Sun and the Moon. Therefore it is very easy to imagine a poem in which old Kantele crying in an abandoned house, and its lament would probably be very much like stones in Eregion.
While walking in the forest he hears crying of a birch and asks why the tree cries. The tree gives him a long answer by listing the many uses of birch trees that would have been familiar to the audience of the poem, and continues to the hardships that winter brings to deciduous trees. Väinämöinen replies to the birch by promising that in the future the tree will weep of joy and proceeds to build a new kantele out of birchwood, bringing music and joy back to the land.
It's important to note that music of Väinämöinen is kind of stronger version of elvish music in Tolkien, to the point of enchanting every being from the people to the animals and trees and even including the Sun and the Moon. Therefore it is very easy to imagine a poem in which old Kantele crying in an abandoned house, and its lament would probably be very much like stones in Eregion.
