Could Kalevipoeg Have Been Human?
Henn Voolaid
Introduction
The present article is based on a graduate thesis by Martin Marek Mileiko presented at the department of physics of the University of Tartu in 1994 (A). Its intention was to shed light on the application of physics to areas commonly considered far removed from the field. The thesis received wide attention among scientists and was assigned the highest grade, attracting further attention and elaboration (see, e.g., (G) & (H)). The following, however, is but a fancy, a mind game with little relevance to reality, or even folklore for that matter. But why not play along?
Kalevipoeg, youngest son of Kalev and Linda, is the best known Old Estonian epic hero. Various natural monuments, such as furrows, beds and boulders, still bear witness to his adventures (D). From a human viewpoint, all these monuments are extremely large. The furrows are tens of meters deep and tens of kilometers long, and the boulders he is claimed to have thrown weigh hundreds of tons. Judging by this, Kalevipoeg must have been very big indeed. Could someone that size be human? The national epic offers no explicit answer to that question. The only intimation of his human station is his intimate relations with the mortal Saarepiiga (Isle Maiden) (C). The present work attempts to find out whether Kalevipoeg could have been human, based on the presumption that he actually did exist and that the aforementioned natural monuments are connected to him. We put forward the hypothesis that Kalevipoeg was an extremely large and strong person, and test it.
Method
Firstly, we determine Kalevipoeg’s height. For this, we simply take the length of his beds, since a bed is generally as long as the person who sleeps in it. There are several natural monuments in Estonia called Kalevipoeg’s bed, one at Alatskivi measuring 85 m, another of 40 m near Lake Saadjärv (B),and other equivalent monuments about the same. To simplify matters, we shall accept a bed length of 100 meters and consider it equal to Kalevipoeg’s height, LK.
Could a man of this stature perform the feats commonly attributed to Kalevipoeg?
To solve the problem we must first look at Kalevipoeg’s exploits (casting huge rocks and carrying a load of planks from Pskov), since these are frequently referred to in legends. Based on our estimated height, we must next determine whether a 100-m-tall human could have performed such deeds. If so, we have reason to believe that Kalevipoeg was human, if not, he must have been of non-human origin.
Our estimation is based on a method called scaling (E). In other words, the qualities of a body, such as muscular strength, are related to the so-called characteristic dimension. A body dimension may be called characteristic if it functions as a means for describing the body as a whole. For example, the characteristic dimension of a cube is the length of its side, the characteristic dimension of a circle is its radius, etc. So the characteristic dimension of an ordinary human is its height, LI, and the characteristic dimension of Kalevipoeg is his height, LK.
The greater a person’s characteristic dimension, the stronger the person, since muscular strength is a function of muscle cross-sectional area: the greater the area, the more myofibrils the muscle contains. A taller man with a proportionally-developed body has thicker arms with stronger muscles.
We reach the value to be determined (distance of the stone throw or weight of the load carried) by comparing the abilities of a normal human to those of Kalevipoeg. Ignoring the finer physical and mathematical details for the present purpose, we will apply the terms derived in Mileiko’s graduation paper (F). These allow us to estimate the distance, xK, of Kalevipoeg’s stone’s throw:
Formula 1:
Where
m is the mass of the body thrown by an ordinary man
M is the mass of a body thrown by Kalevipoeg
xI is the distance of a body thrown by an ordinary man
The stone-throwing hypothesis
Estimation of the stone-throw distance is based on one of Kalevipoeg’s longest-known throws, described in the legend of Painuva stone:
“Once again Kalevipoeg visited Finland. The Evil One had come to Viru [Estonia] to spite him and throw stones in front of seagoing ships. Kalevipoeg had seen Old Nick from Cape Porkkala in Finland and thrown a huge rock at him, which landed near Mohn, the tip of Cape Turbuneem, right under the Evil One’s nose without actually hitting him.” (D)
Geologists have estimated the volume of the Painuva stone at 340 cubic meters. The density of the rock (granite) being 2.800 kg/m³, its mass, M, is about 1000 tons. The throwing capability of humans is calculated according to grenade-throwing, a popular sport during Soviet times and similar to stone-throwing. Stronger men could throw grenades (m = 0.7 kg) some 80 meters. Again, to simplify calculations, we use a grenade-throwing distance of xI = 100 m and the characteristic dimension of a human LI = 2 m, that of Kalevipoeg, LK, being 100 m.
Based on the above formula (1), had Kalevipoeg been human he could have thrown a rock that size about 10 m, considerably less than the distance from Cape Porkkala to Cape Turbuneem, which is about 80 km.
How tall would a human Kalevipoeg need to be to throw a rock so far? We find this too from the same formula: with xK = 80 km, the result is approximately 2 km. Stone-throwing calculations therefore demonstrate that a man tall enough to sleep in Kalevipoeg’s bed could not throw the rock as far as claimed.
The board-carrying hypothesis
We next test our hypothesis according to the legend of how Kalevipoeg brought boards from Pskov:
“Once, Kalevipoeg forded through Lake Peipus, carrying seven hundred boards on his back, cursing the water that wetted his whatnot.” (D)
Using the same formula from Mileiko (F) to estimate Kalevipoeg’s capacity:
Formula 2:
Where:
M is the mass of Kalevipoeg’s load
m is the mass load of an ordinary human
We equate the mass load of an ordinary man with the mass of a large backpack, since legend has it that the load was not too heavy: “The load of boards was not too large / Nor was it too small, / Just the size of a man’s waist” (C). We may thus assume m = 30 kg, a fair weight for a hiker’s backpack. According to this formula, Kalevipoeg could carry approximately 75 tons of board across Lake Peipus.
Legend, however (D), has it that his load consisted of 700 boards of specific dimensions:
The boards were not thick
Somewhere over three inches,
Nor were they wide
Somewhere over two feet,
Nor were they long
Somewhere over three fathoms (C)
So we have a board about 0.08 m thick, 0.6 m wide and 21 m long. Given a wood density of 700 kg/m³, the load must have weighed about 500 tons. And a load like that must have been beyond the powers of even a 100-m-tall human Kalevipoeg. According to Formula 2, Kalevipoeg would need to have been at least 300 meters tall to carry such a load. Other legends say that Kalevipoeg could carry even heavier loads, some going as far as 1700 boards. Regrettably, the accounts mention nothing of the size of the boards in question, making it impossible to estimate the actual weight.
Why Kalevipoeg could not have been human
The examples suggest that human Kalevipoeg was much taller than 100 m. But a human body could never be that tall, let alone taller. There are at least two reasons for this:
Firstly, the bones of a man that tall would crush under his own weight: the mass of a body is proportional to the cube of the characteristic length, LI, while the strength of human bones is proportional to LI0.66 (A). Calculations show that the mass of a 100-m giant exerts nearly 200 times more pressure on his bones than that of a 2-m man. The bones of such a giant would therefore splinter and collapse under the weight of his body.
Secondly, a man of this stature would suffer from over-heating. The surface area of his skin would be too small to remove the heat emitted from such a huge body. Since the amount of heat produced by the body is proportional to the cube of its characteristic length, while the amount of heat emitted through the skin is proportional to the square of its characteristic length (E), the body of a 100-m-tall giant would emit 50 times less heat than an ordinary person, leading to over-heating.
To sum up, we claim that the Kalevipoeg who may have slept in the natural beds that can still be seen in different parts of Estonia could not have been of human origin. His muscles and bones must have been made of altogether different materials than those of ordinary humans.
Translated by Kait Realo
(Revised SH)
Article References
A) Kane, J. & Sternheim, M.; Physics; New York; 1978
B) Kirt, K. Tartu rajoon. Siin- ja sealpool maanteed; Tallinn; 1988
C) Kreutzwald, Fr. R.; Kalevipoeg. Eesti rahva eepos; Tallinn; 1975
D) Laugaste, E., et al.; Muistendeid Kalevipojast; Tallinn; 1959
E) Marion, J. B.; General Physics with Bioscience Essays; New York; 1996
F) Mileiko, M. M.; Kalevipoeg: kas üksikisik või koondkuju?; Graduate thesis. Tartu Ülikool; 1994
G) Voolaid, H. & Mileiko, M.; Kui pikk oli Kalevipoeg?; Luup, No. 7 (12); 1996
H) Voolaid, H.; Kui suur mees võis olla Kalevipoeg?; Postimees, 23. Aug 1998
