Central figure of the Kalevala; foundational sage-shaman-poet of the Finnish-Karelian oral-epic tradition. Born to the cosmic-primordial-mother Ilmatar (the air-spirit-virgin who descended into the sea and became impregnated by the wind and waves) at the cosmogonic emergence of the Kalevala-cosmos; spent thirty additional years in his mother's womb before emerging as a fully-grown sage. parentIds=[] per registry conventions for cosmic-emergence figures. Canonical deeds include singing the world into ordered form (Runo 2), the singing-contest with Joukahainen (Runo 3), the courtship of Aino (Runo 4-5), the descent to Tuonela seeking the words of magic (Runo 16), the Sampo-commissioning to Ilmarinen (Runo 10), the canonical Sampo-recovery expedition (Runos 39-43), the composition of the kantele from the jawbone of a great pike (Runo 40), and the departure in his copper-boat at the rise of the Christian-era child-Jesus-figure born of Marjatta (Runo 50) — the canonical polytheistic-to-Christian transition narrative of the Kalevala. The kantele (5-stringed plucked harp) he composed remains the foundational Finnish musical-instrument and a central iconographic attribute. The "promised return when the Finnish people need him" preserves the broader Indo-European-and-Eurasian sleeping-king-and-savior-figure mythologem (Welsh Arthur, Norse Holger Danske, Armenian Mher the Younger), encoding Finnish national-cultural-identity anchors. The Akseli Gallen-Kallela painting "Väinämöinen's Departure" (1906) and Jean Sibelius's Kalevala-themed compositions (Kullervo Symphony 1892, Lemminkäinen Suite 1896, Pohjola's Daughter 1906, Tapiola 1926) established the late-19th-c. and early-20th-c. Finnish national-romantic artistic canon anchored in the Väinämöinen-figure.