All I want for Christmas is a new translation, a new translation, a new translation.
That doesn’t scan quite the same as “my two front teeth,” but if I say it often enough, will it happen?
The Snowsinger could sing it into being for me.
She’s powerful. She can sing you into life. Or into death. Or out of it.
But getting it to scan.
There’s the rub.
Emmi Itäranta publishes her books in both English and Finnish. She writes them a chapter at a time, each chapter in one language, then the other, before moving on to the next. But this time she didn’t. Is it because, after years living in England, she’s moved back to Finland? As she said at the Helsinki Book Fair this October, it’s more to do with this text.
The Snowsinger (Lumenlaulaja) is a figure of myth. Her songs have been sung by many for centuries, and written down by men of letters in the nineteenth century. The Finnish national epic, Kalevala, was compiled by one such man of letters, Elias Lönnrot. He pops up in this book, too. The Snowsinger observes him and berates him. Here, she tells her own story.
And that is why Itäranta needed more time to tell it in English. She looked at two English translations of the Kalevala, but neither of them fit quite right. Finns just know the characters in this story, even if they haven’t heard from this view – others need more pointers. The “Goldilocks” translation (“not to big, not too small, not too hard, not too soft…”) is still to come. And the rhythm of the original is so particular. It is in trochaic tetrameter, like the witches’ chant in Macbeth: “Double, double, toil and trouble.”
There are witches, toil, and trouble aplenty here. The Snowsinger can control the weather, and, at will, turn herself into a giant eagle. When war comes to the North, devastating her sisters and her people, she takes revenge.
So let it snow, this Christmas. Through the whirling flakes you’ll glimpse an eagle, a bear, and a wolf. They’re ready to protect – but if they need to, they’ll use their claws.
Translator, editor, writer, reader
found in translation 
There is one passage in particular of The Kalevala, always stands out for me. It is the recital of woes a woman would experience as she marries and moves into her husband’s family home.
Quite horrifying.
It’s great stuff!