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Paper short abstract

In the history of Estonian folklore studies, various metaphors have been used regarding older song traditions. Metaphors taken from nature, especially botanical ones, have been very common. I study the nature metaphors used by Jakob Hurt, Kaarle Krohn, and their contemporaries.

Paper long abstract

In the history of Estonian folklore studies, various metaphors have been used regarding older song traditions. Metaphors taken from nature, especially botanical ones, have been very common. I study the nature metaphors used by Jakob Hurt (1837–1907), Kaarle Krohn (1863-1933), and their contemporaries. I examine how nature metaphors are used in correspondence between Estonian and Finnish scholars and in popular writings, and what these metaphors mean.

Epic songs, which consisted of different plots, were not suitable for folklorists who typologized songs. When publishing, folklorists were tempted to cut them into pieces. At the same time, the ideal was to leave the songs as they had been collected. The use of metaphors in correspondence reveals the writers' complex choices and ambivalent attitudes toward the songs.

The correspondence between Hurt and Krohn before the publication of Seto Folk Songs, sheds some light on the unexpectedly emerged problem of the systematisation of songs, and uncovers complex issues that arise when living singing tradition is fitted into a system designed by a researcher. Also, the vocabulary and metaphors used in the letters explain the aims and ideology of the created publication as well as the personal relations between the correspondents.