I must have been mad

I swear to you, sometimes I have no idea who speaks out of my mouth!

I was talking to a couple of Leanne's girlfriends -- they're both Arts students, taking stuff like English and Anthro and History ... Anyway, I don't think this had anything to do with her subjects; this was her own obsession, but one of them was going on (and on) about how bards and "primitive people" used to memorize great long screeds of verse and genealogies and histories and myths and I don't know what else. I think it was the "primitive people" that got me; I've always really hated that label. Like they're inferior, less "evolved" than us because they didn't do things the way we do.

Anyway, somehow, I still don't know how, I ended up betting her I could learn the Kalevala. No, you're not expected to know what it is; I'd never heard of it until she started spouting off about it. Apparently it's the great Finnish national epic. She was going on about Beowulf and Homer and the Edda and I don't know what else, as well, but the little bit of this epic she quoted sounded easy. It's got that Longfellow rhythm -- listen (read it aloud), here's the first bit (I got it off the Web):

Golden friend, and dearest brother,
Brother dear of mine in childhood,
Come and sing with me the stories,
Come and chant with me the legends,
Legends of the times forgotten,
Since we now are here together,
Come together from our roamings.
Seldom do we come for singing,
Seldom to the one, the other,
O'er this cold and cruel country,
O'er the poor soil of the Northland.

But I've only copied the intro and first "Rune" onto my computer, and that ran ten pages -- and there are 50 Runes!

I must have been mad.