The Kalevala, or runic, songs are based on a tradition of at least a few thousand years old. It was shared by Finns, Estonians and other speakers of smaller Baltic-Finnic languages inhabiting the eastern side of the Baltic Sea in North-Eastern Europe. This book offers a combined perspective of a musicologist and a linguist on the structure of runic songs. Archival recordings of the songs originating mostly from the first half of the 20th century were used as source material for this study. The results reveal a complex interaction between three different processes participating in singing: speech prosody, metre, and musical rhythm.CONTENTS:1. Introduction2. Estonian old folksongs: history, tradition, collections and availability3. Estonian prosody4. The metrical structure of Estonian folksongs5. Estonian folksong as musical performance6. Realization of the prosodic structure of Estonian in sung folksongs7. Realization of prosodic structure in recitation and laments8. ConclusionsAppendix: Notations of Estonian folksongs and laments