Estonian Folktales: The Heavenly Wedding, compiled by Piret Päär and Anne Türnpu, is a captivating collection of over thirty Estonian folktales, all translated into English. This unique anthology offers readers a fascinating glimpse into Estonia’s rich folklore tradition, presenting stories that are both enchanting and unconventional.
The book features a diverse selection of tales, all sourced from the Estonian Folklore Archives in Tartu. Each story has been carefully chosen to reflect the long history of storytelling in Estonia. What’s particularly intriguing is that the stories were selected to be read aloud during one or two storytelling evenings. The tales are designed to subtly reference each other, with one story providing a “seed” for the next. In other words, the order of the folktales is just as intentional as the selection itself, which I found especially fascinating. As I read, I often wondered what thread connected each tale to the next. While I didn’t read the stories aloud, I could easily see how they would make for a fun and engaging evening with friends.
However, the most fascinating aspect of the book for me was the commentary section. At the end of each folktale, a paragraph provides an analysis of the key motifs in the story, along with relevant historical and cultural context. This section helped me understand how Estonian folktales share connections with similar stories from around the world.
The stories themselves, much like the original Grimms’ fairy tales, are far from the Disney versions we might be familiar with. The mood of the tales is often dark, and the moral of the story can be ambivalent or even ambiguous. I would recommend this book to readers interested in Estonian folk culture and those who appreciate fantastical stories that are perplexing, mysterious and thought-provoking. While these stories could be read to children, I think adults and young adults would have enjoy the book the most.
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Publisher: Varrak, 2005 (repring 2015, 2022, 2024)
“Estonian Folktales: The Heavenly Wedding” (2005) compiled by Piret Päär and Anne Türnpu in ESTER
Mirt Vissak
Tallinn Liivalaia Library