The Heroic Process : Form, Function and Fantasy in Folk Epic

Text in English. 650 pp. Bookplate on the front paste-down. Former owners name on the front free endpaper. Dust jacket shows moderate rubbing and wear on the edges. The Sesquicentenary of the publication of Kalevala, the national epic of Finland, was celebrated in 1985. This event was commemorated in a variety of ways in many diflerent countries. It was Ireland's privilege to mark this occasion by staging the International Folk Epic Conference, organized by the Department of Irish Folklore at University College Dublin. This Conference also commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment in 1935 of the former Irish Folklore Commission whose work is carried on by the Department of Irish Folklore. In the first week of September 1985, a gathering of scholars from all over the world assembled to discuss, under the headings Form, Function and Fantasy, the folk epic traditions of many lands and peoples. The papers they delivered - 28 in all- had, therefore, a wide geographic spread with experts on the African, Arabic, Faroese, Icelandic, Indian, Irish, Slavic, Turkish and Welsh traditions to the fore. Special attention was paid to the Kalevala itself, of course, and one day of the Conference was set aside for a discussion of the Fiannaiocht tradition common to Ireland and Scotland. The Heroic Process casts new light on many aspects of the subject of folk epic, bringing together under one cover outstanding contributions by leading experts in this field.…