Marjatta's son

A FIGURE WITH NO NAME AND AN ACT. The epic does not name him and this record does not invent one: the id is a patronymic and the primary name is the phrase the poem uses. The record DOES NOT SAY HE IS CHRIST. Readers of the canto have said so for two centuries and the canto plainly invites it; what the poem states is that a fatherless child born in a stable is made king and that the old singer leaves, and that is what is recorded.

Parentage

• parent: Marjatta

Relations

• condemned by: VäinämöinenNon-symmetric; nothing written onto the pre-existing record.Reference treatment: Väinämöinen orders the killing of the boy. (secondary)
• supplanted: VäinämöinenNon-symmetric. This is the last event in the epic and the corpus could not state it.Reference treatment: the child is named King of Karelia, leaving Väinämöinen no choice but to retreat; Marjatta's son replaces Väinämöinen as the central figure and Väinämöinen departs the land. (secondary)
• baptised by: VirokannasIn-batch.Reference treatment: the child is baptised by Virokannas and named King of Karelia. (secondary)

Sources

• The son of Marjatta is the infant of the Kalevala's last canto who answers Väinämöinen's death-sentence, is baptised King of Karelia, and whose coming ends Väinämöinen's age.: Reference treatments of the Kalevala's cantos and of canto 50. (secondary)