Finnish epic’s songs awake of the shaman in all of us, according to English-language Kalevala performer.

On the surface, Nick Hennessey seems straight-talking and practical. Speaking with the kind of Manchester area accent that you might find in Cold Feet or Coronation Street, he explains how one of the highlights of his trip to Finland so far has been being bashed in the face with ski-lift. It, rather than a fight, explains his black eye.

But it’s a deep fascination with Kalevala, the series of poems and songs from Karelia collected by Elias Lönnrot and published in 1831, which explain his frequent trips to the far north. And, indeed, why he will be performing parts of the epic in English in Oulu on Thursday night.

Back in the year 2000, Nick, a professional storyteller and folk musician, was ‘looking for different stories to work with. I was interested in the relationship between singing and speaking. And a friend leant me a copy of Kalevala in English.’

Nick, now 44, had been a folk singer since his student days, when he studied theatre at the prestigious Old Vic before going to Agricultural College. For a while, he and his band ‘toured different bars’ and Nick is still part of the UK’s folk music scene, having performed with such English folk stars as Maddy Prior and Show of Hands. Eventually, when researching a Geography PhD on how people develop myths about their own communities, Nick ‘came across a storyteller. I was inspired by this art form. There’s this whole world of the spoken word that we never hear. And the only way to express them is to tell them. They’re like doorways to what’s really happening.’

And so Nick turned to storytelling and the stories in Kalevala seemed to be ideal candidates to be told rather than just read.

‘I decided that if I really wanted to understand these stories then I needed to visit the country,’ Nick explains, ‘so I could understand the verses in their context. So I got some Arts Council money and in April 2000 I went to Finland. I travelled up to Inari, because I’d always wanted to go to Lapland. And then I went over to Russia, to some of the Karelian villages where the stories had actually been collected.’

Talking to Nick about Kalevala, he seems to know it almost off by heart. He can pluck individual lines or runes from midair. There is a childlike, infectious enthusiasm for different characters, even specific spells quoted in Lönnrot’s work. In fact, his Kalevala-zeal was such that he entered Espoo’s annual Rune recital in 2000 and, despite performing in English, actually won it!

This triumph was despite the nerves induced by taking part as a foreigner. ‘It’s difficult telling stories from another culture,’ Nick muses. ‘The stories are very close to their identity, so you’re on sensitive ground.’

After this, Nick began touring with the Kalevala stories in the UK and for the last few years he has come to Finland around twice a year to perform Finland’s national epic to Finns in schools and clubs but with the added eccentricity of telling their national epic in his language.

Invited by the Finnish British Society, Nick has already been to Oulu three times and performed at the International School. He likes Oulu because ‘I love tar’ and ‘it seems very compact. I like a city when you can navigate it by foot. You can get a real a sense of it.’

And for Nick, a real sense of Finnishness can be discerned from Kalevala. ‘It’s very elemental . . . I think that’s one of the most important qualities of Finnishness,’ he says, thoughtfully.

‘Closeness to nature . . . the fresh lakes, the summer sun, the forest, the climate and the landscape. That’s what seems to emerge. English folk songs don’t seem to have that same elemental force.’ However, he finds it difficult to precisely compare English and Finnish folk music because English folk songs have a more ‘ambivalent’ relationship with the masses. They are more of niche market.

A well known folk song, at least amongst English folk fans, is Pete Coe’s the ‘Wizard of Alderley Edge.’ The song recalls a famous folk legend in which a farmer was taking his horse to market when a wizard appeared from a hole. Upon returning from the market, the farmer finds the wizard again but this time he takes him on a journey to a giant stone which he splits in two to reveal a pair of iron gates, which in turn lead to some sleeping knights and the making of a prophecy.

Nick raised the village Alderley Edge, near Manchester. As a boy, Nick used to go to exactly where the legend was supposed to have occurred and try to ‘enter the story.’ He would walk in and out of the place and imagine the ‘iron gates.’ For Nick, all storytellers, and more so the stories they tell, are like these iron gates.

The traditional shaman would enter a trance and, during his trance, descend to the spirit world where he would negotiate with the spirits on behalf of his people. He would be between two worlds          ‘The stories perform the same role that Lönnrot performed . . . they offer people a passage into a mythical time.’

His tour is called ‘Where the Bear Sleeps’ and Nick finds that bear imagery, along with much else, is shared between English and Finnish legends. Stories, he feels, take us to the edge of and over into our mythical past, into another world.

A performance of Nick’s can be seen here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0kS4tl-hwY

The storyteller and musician will transport his audience to Finland’s mythic past on Thursday, 16^th February at 6pm at Aitta 24, near the Market Square. Tickets will cost 12 euros.