Donald Duck – A Fantasy Comic ? Fantasy in Don Rosa’s The Quest for Kalevala

Katja KONTTURI

DONALD DUCK – A FANTASY COMIC ? FANTASY IN

DON ROSA’S THE QUEST FOR KALEVALA

Introduction

One wouldn’t instantly associate Disney’s Donald Duck comics

with the fantasy genre. Colourful comics with animal characters

would fit better as children’s tales, but we can separate at least two

Disney artists and writers whose comics can be seen as fantasy

because of their distinctive features. Those artists are the late Carl

Barks (1901-2000), who created both Duckburg and most of the

known characters including Scrooge McDuck; and Don Rosa

(1951- ), one of the most famous of the current Donald Duck

comic artists.

Keno Don Hugo Rosa or Don Rosa, as he’s better known for

the public, started his career as Disney artist in 1987 with a comic

called Son of the Sun. It was nominated for Harvey Awards, which

is a noted comic award named after Harvey Kurtzman, the founder

of the MAD magazine. The most appreciated of Rosa’s works has

been The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, a collection of

stories describing the history of Rosa’s favourite character based

on the facts given by Carl Barks in his comics. This collection won

the Eisner award, which is given for a creative achievement in

American comic books and is generally considered “the academy

award” of the comic industries.

Rosa is said to be the follower of Barks, as he refers to his

stories, writes sequels to them and generally follows the history

Barks wrote for the ducks. Rosa also shows his respect for his idol

by hiding the letters D.U.C.K. in his large “pin-up” pictures and in

the first frames of the comics. The letters indicate “Dedicated to

Unca Carl from Keno”.

Along with his dedication to the history Barks created, Rosa

stands out from the general Disney artists with his unique and

detailed style of drawing. In his comics it is common to see the

events of the plot in the foreground and something completely

different, almost slapstick type of comedy in the background. But

Rosa hasn’t become famous only by his humour and style of

drawing. One of Rosa’s biggest merits can be said to be his ability

to create long adventure tales in which he mixes the fantasy world

of Ducks with our own history, showing for example how Scrooge

was on the Titanic1, or how he’s a good friend with Theodore

Roosevelt, former president of the United States2.

My paper discusses Don Rosa’s comic The Quest for Kalevala

(original in 1999) and its fantasy elements. The fantasy in this

particular comic rises from its true origin: the myth. Rosa

combines the fantastic elements of the Finnish national epic The

Kalevala with iconic world-known Disney characters. The comic

takes place in Finland, where Scrooge, Donald and the nephews

travel in search for Sampo, the cosmic mill of prosperity.

As told in The Kalevala, Sampo is a mythic grinding mill, built

by the blacksmith Ilmarinen after Väinämöinen3, the hero of the

epic, asked him to create this device. The nephews’ Woodchuck

Guidebook knows that Sampo’s “[f]irst side produced grain, the

second side salt and [- -] the third side produced an unending flow

of gold coins!” (Rosa 2004, 6.) After this description, it is no

wonder why Scrooge wants to go to Finland to search for this

magical mill.

I have divided this paper into three sections. At first, I present

the primary world Finland and how the two separate fantasy

worlds, Kalevala and Tuonela, appear alongside with it. How do

the characters enter these secondary worlds from the primary

1 The Titanic episode happens in the comic The Empire Builder from

Calisota, published in the collection of The Life and Times of Scrooge

McDuck (2005). 2 Theodore Roosevelt appears in three comics by Rosa : The Buckaroo

of the Badlands, The Invader of Fort Duckburg (both belong to The Life

and Times of Scrooge McDuck series) and in The Sharpie of the Culebra

Cut (published in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck part II). 3 In the English translation, Väinämöinen has been traslated as

Wainamoinen. I use the original name because that’s how Rosa himself

refers to the hero of The Kalevala.

DONALD DUCK – A FANTASY COMIC ? FANTASY IN DON ROSA’S THE

QUEST FOR KALEVALA 3

world? Is there some sort of portal between them, or a mystical

object that helps them?

Secondly, I examine the two magical objects: Kantele (Finnish

zither) and the sword of Väinämöinen. What makes these objects

so special that they affect the whole story? Lastly I look into the

characters and their counterparts: who is the Väinämöinen of

Duckburg and how is it shown in the comic? How are these

characters from completely different settings combined in Rosa’s

story?

With all this I aim to show how the fantastic elements are part

of the story, both in the text and in the imagery, and how they can

be studied with the comic analysis of Scott McCloud and Will

Eisner. I also contemplate whether the use of these fantastic

elements has some sort of purpose. Is there a function or a deeper

meaning behind them or is the fantasy adventure of the ducks only

an ordinary, humoristic Disney comic?

The three different worlds

Finland – the primary world

The most important feature of fantasy literature is the

juxtaposition of the two worlds: the primary world, in which

everything is normal and follows the natural laws; and the fantastic

secondary world, where magic and supernatural elements are

present in an otherwise realistic world and the laws of nature can

be broken. (Nikolajeva 1998, 12-13.) With this definition, I argue

that we can most certainly look at Rosa’s comic The Quest for

Kalevala as part of the fantasy genre.

The comic presents primary world Finland, where the ducks

travel to search for Sampo, the eternal mill of prosperity. Finland,

which in this comic is represented mostly by its capital Helsinki, is

shown as a representation of the real country: it has all the actual

well-known and famous places drawn based on photos taken from

the city, which are easily recognizable for anyone who has visited

Helsinki.

Rosa truly makes an effort on making the representation of

Finland in his comic similar to the actual world Finland. This can

be seen for example in Rosa’s depiction of the building of Finnish

Literature Society (SKS) situated in Helsinki:

© Disney (Rosa 2004, p. 7.)

The only thing that differs between the drawing by Rosa and the

official building in Helsinki is the colour of the paint which is

yellow in the frame, but almost pink in the real building. There is a

good reason for that, as Don Rosa situates most of his comics to

the 1950s, so the representations of the local attractions are

described the way they were in that decade, not as they were in the

beginning of the year 2000. The reason behind this is the timeline:

Rosa has created an entire history for Scrooge McDuck, who –

according to both Barks and Rosa – was born in 18674. So he is

4 This comes clear in Rosa’s collection The Life and Times of Scrooge

McDuck. On the pages 6 and 23, there is a portrait of Scrooge when he

started shining shoes. The year in the small frame is 1877. On the first

comic of the collection, The Last of the Clan McDuck, Scrooge’s father

says it’s Scrooge’s tenth birthday – and he gets that shoeshine kit as a

present. (Rosa 2005, 6 ; 8 ; 11.) Hence, Scrooge was born in 1867.



already very old in the 1950s, and it would be impossible for him

to be alive in the year 2000. Hence Rosa’s stories usually take

place in that decade, which also was the golden age of drawing for

Carl Barks.

The Finland that Rosa depicts is logical and in every way

normal place without any hint of fantasy elements like a primary

world should be – until the ducks arrive. After they’ve entered both

Kalevala and Tuonela, they release the supernatural events also

into the primary world Finland. I will come back to this matter at

the end of this chapter.

Kalevala – the land of heroes

After giving a missing piece of Lönnrot’s notes to the director

of the Finnish Literarature Society, the ducks get a clue where the

fragments of Sampo might be located according to that piece of

notes Scrooge had received from Lönnrot as a boy. (Rosa 2004, 5;

7-8.)

Ducks travel to the coast of Western Finland, to a place called

Mustasaari. An old man directs them to the point of Mustasaari and

tells them to “visit the ancient lighthouse”, which is strange, as

the cape seems to be barren and unsettled. But as the ducks travel

closer, a massive snowstorm appears out of the blue sky and

suddenly the ancient lighthouse stands in front of them. (Rosa

2004, 9-10.)

Things get even more mystical when the ducks find a sword,

which is embedded in the solid floor of the lighthouse. After seeing

the sword Scrooge himself comments: “That’s the stuff of myth,

all right!” which hints that he also starts to wonder, whether there’s

something supernatural going on. All kinds of weird events start to

occur, most importantly the spirit of Väinämöinen, who possesses

Scrooge via the sword and calls the inventor of Sampo. The words

Scrooge speaks in the voice of Väinämöinen after the his spell

summons the inventor Gyro Gearloose instead of blacksmith

Ilmarinen are quite important: “Welcome, brother Ilmarinen –

Welcome home to Kalevala!” (Rosa 2004, 10-11; 13.)

This indicates that the ducks aren’t in Finland anymore. The

spirit of Väinämöinen, the hero of The Kalevala welcomes his

brother back home – he is reliable enough a character to be trusted,

so even the readers get a clear perspective on where the ducks are

and why the lighthouse could not be seen at first.

Later on even the nephews realize the truth and tell that to their

uncle Donald: “Ever since we entered the “astral lighthouse”,

we’ve been in a “different reality [- -] in Kalevala! (Rosa 2004,

16.)

© Disney (Rosa 2004, 16.)

The boat in the image above is one of the mysteries that take

place in the Mustasaari point, where the lighthouse has appeared.

When the ducks need to go to Tuonela, they find the boat on the

cape. It wasn’t there before and its sail filled instantly, even though

there was no wind. (Rosa 2004, 16.) The boat is obviously part of

the Kalevala magic: it stretches out of the frame, so we can see it

isn’t bound by the normal laws of physics – in this case these

frame borders which we may translate as the borders of the comic

world. As Will Eisner tells in his book Comics & Sequential Art,

the shape of the frame may indicate both time and feeling. By

breaking out from the frame, the image is brought closer to the

reader (Eisner 1994, 44; 46), and thus its power is shown in the

story.



Also noteworthy matters are the clouds in the sky. In the image

of the building of the Finnish Literature Society in the primary

world Finland, the clouds were quite ordinary, but the clouds in the

frames describing Kalevala world are long, stretching from the

border of the frame to another. It is a minor detail, but Rosa is

known for his little details which deepen the narration and the

composition.

So these are the final evidence on the transition to the other

world – even the characters speak of a “different reality”, which

can be translated as the fantasy world.

Kalevala can be seen in Maria Nikolajeva’s terms as a parallel

fantasy world. Parallel worlds may remind closely the folk legends

and seem to be quite the same as the real world, but at the same

time they may include weird habitants and magic. (Nikolajeva

1998, 49.) Since the world of Kalevala is part of the Finnish

folklore and an epic, and as it seems to be similar to real world

Finland but differs from it with the magical events, the term

Nikolajeva used is quite valid.

But how did the ducks move from the primary world Finland to

Kalevala, the fantasy world? Where was the door? The thing with

Kalevala is that there isn’t any concrete gate to it; instead there is a

magical object5 which opens the portal to Kalevala and the ducks

just slide between the worlds while the snowstorm covers

everything. They transfer from one world to another without

realizing it, and what happened and when isn’t clear for the readers

either. The first clue is the appearance of the lighthouse, which

wasn’t anywhere to be seen at first. Later on it becomes obvious

that the lighthouse cannot be part of the primary world Finland,

hence it has to be in Kalevala.

Tuonela – the realm of sleepers

5 I will return to that magical object in the next chapter.


Unlike Kalevala, Tuonela, the Underworld, has a distinct

“door”. It is a massive gateway guarded by two scary-looking

statues in an island covered with snow and ice. One must pass

between them to enter the land of Tuonela. Rosa describes Tuonela

as “the realm of the sleepers (2004, 16)”, a place where the dead

can sleep forever, as it can also be intepreted from The Kalevala:

Quick the hostess, Tuonetar,

Waves her magic wand of slumber

O'er the head of Wainamoinen,

Puts to rest the wisdom-hero,

Lays him on the couch of Mana,



In the robes of living heroes,

Deep the sleep that settles o'er him. (The Kalevala, Rune XVI)

6

The place of Tuonela is visually described as an icy cave

guarded by the skeletal, skull-headed figure Tuoni, the Lord of

Darkness. In the icy cave there are several doors behind which the

sleepers lie in their eternal slumber. And when Tuoni states: “None

who sleep in my chambers – May escape my greedy fingers!” it

becomes clear that when one enters to eternal sleep, one stays

sleeping and will never wake up. It is the place of death, as Donald

puts it. (Rosa 2004, 17.)


Tuoni can be seen as a typical character representing death in

Western culture with his skeletal appearance, though it is unlikely

6 Original Finnish text is ”Tuonelan emäntä [- -] [u]uvutti unehen

miehen, pani maata matkalaisen / Tuonen taljavuotehelle. Siinä mies

makaelevi, / uros unta ottelevi: mies makasi, vaate valvoi” (Lönnrot 2002,

112).

that he would pick up a scythe and go collecting people’s souls. He

is a definite fantasy genre character of the world of Kalevala. The

balloon representing his speech is covered with ice and the bottom

of it looks like little icicles. It also hangs up in the air without

pointing directly to the speaker; seems like the voice of Tuoni

comes from everywhere and at the same time it could freeze you

over. The balloon also rises above the frame, which indicates

someone so powerful that he’s not binded by the borders of the

frame.

The Kalevala’s Tuonela can’t be seen as a direct representation

of Christianity’s hell, as it isn’t the place of punishment for the

sinners. Though as a frozen, icy place it has a connection to hell as

it was described in Dante’s Divine Comedy, where the deepest

circle of hell was a cold place. But in this case, Tuonela is a

separate secondary world, an icy island inside the world of

Kalevala. It is a world within a world with distinct borders

separating it from Kalevala.

Messengers travelling between the worlds

What is also important about these two secondary worlds is that

not anyone can enter there. One of the main things of the passage

between the primary and the secondary world is the gate between

them and the fact that the gate isn’t open to just anyone

(Nikolajeva 1998, 77). The mere fact that the ducks were allowed

to enter to the lighthouse with the help of an old man, and to

Tuonela by Tuoni, shows readers that Rosa is definitely dealing

with fantasy.

Nobody else had entered to lighthouse before the ducks, as the

sword was still there. Donald’s remark can be seen as a revealing

one on this matter: “[- -] And I suppose it’s just been stuck in that

rock for thousands of years and nobody even noticed it?! (Rosa

2004, 11)” It is unlikely that the sword would have been there, if

someone else had found the lighthouse before the ducks. And the

only way the ducks managed to do it, was with the help of the old

man mentioned.

The expression on old man’s face was quite reclutant when the

ducks first declared they were searching for ancient ruins, but



when Donald reveals they are after Sampo, the look on man’s face

changes instantly. (Rosa 2004, 9.) He realizes that if these people

know enough of this place being the “misty headlands”, they are

worthy of finding the lighthouse too.

And when it comes to entering Tuonela, Tuoni tells Scrooge

and Donald: “Only those whose names are honored in my Book of

Sleep may enter.” According to this, it is also clear that not anyone

can just step inside of Tuonela. The only reason why Donald and

Scrooge may enter and talk to Louhi is Donald’s ability to sleep. In

Tuoni’s Book of Sleep, Donald is referred to as “a devotee to

slumber”, so he can enter the place freely – and take his uncle with

him. (Rosa 2004, 17.)

With these two examples provided, I claim that the ducks are

messengers, characters that can both open portals to another world

and move between them more easily than anyone else. Nikolajeva

describes a messenger as someone who comes from the secondary

world and has magical abilities (1998, 82), but I suggest that the

ducks should be regarded as messengers. They’re not from the

primary world as they live in Duckburg, which is a fictive place,

and their abilities to both find the portals to secondary worlds and

open them indicate that they aren’t in the same level as the other

characters. Even though they don’t possess magical abilities, they

must have some special qualities to do so.

A good example of this suggestion is how the ducks release the

supernatural elements from Kalevala and bring them to primary

world Finland. As they enter Tuonela, they anger Louhi, the

mistress of Pohjola by stealing the lockpin of Sampo from her. But

Louhi absorbs some of Scrooge’s life essence, and by using that

she calls to the help of Magica DeSpell. Together these two

witches attack the ducks and Louhi summons the ancient monster

Iku-Turso to destroy primary world Finland. (Rosa 2004, 19; 24-

25.) Even though it is Louhi who uses Väinämöinen’s kantele to

call the giant frog-like Iku-Turso, it was initially the ducks who

gave her the power to break free from Tuonela.

So it is the messenger abilities of the ducks that enabled the

supernatural beings from a fantasy world to move across the border

between the worlds, and cause the damage to Helsinki city center.

On the next page we see the monster Iku-Turso standing on top of

the Helsinki Cathedral in Senaatintori holding the tower of the

Stockmann building in its hand.7 This is also a good example of

why crossing the borderline between the primary and secondary

world is so difficult. If the portal were open to just anyone, these

kind of monstrosities would gain access to a normal world much

more easily.


The magical objects in The Quest for Kalevala

Sampo

One couldn’t write a paper on The Kalevala’s fantasy without

referring to its most mystical object: the Sampo. As a source of

eternal wealth, Sampo has been the object for many scholars,

artists and writers, who have tried to grasp something of its

essence. The Kalevala describes Sampo as a mill that grinds grain,

7 We can interpret this frame also as an intertextual reference to the

original King Kong movie (1933) in which King Kong is standing on top

of the Empire State Building holding an airplane in his hand.



salt, and gold coins (Lönnrot 2002, 68; The Kalevala, Rune X). It

can’t be nothing but magical, but it’s not a means to travel between

the worlds, only a means of getting wealthy. In this paper, the term

“magical object” refers to a different kind of matter.

The magical objects are typical motives in fantasy literature.

They’re similar to the gates and portals as their function is to create

a passage from the primary world to the secondary world.

(Nikolajeval 1998, 87.) According to this definition, Sampo can’t

be seen as a magical object, since it hasn’t got anything to do with

the passage between the worlds. But there are two distinctive

magical objects in Rosa’s The Quest for Kalevala: kantele (Finnish

zither) and the sword of Väinämöinen.

Kantele – the Finnish zither

There are two different kanteles in the comic. The first one is a

regular, in every way ordinary kantele that the old man starts to

play after he’s met the ducks and pointed them to the lighthouse,

which is not anywhere to be seen, as Scrooge comments. The man

himself answers: “Of course not... Not yet! [- -].” But he’s willing

to help them. After the ducks leave he starts to play the kantele.

Soon after that a massive snowstorm rises and covers everything –

and then the ducks find the lighthouse. (Rosa 2004, 9-10.)


It is quite obvious that the lighthouse wasn’t there in the first

place. It was unseen to both the ducks and the readers. But when

the mystical old man plays his kantele the music opens the portal to

another world, to Kalevala. And that portal is hidden in the

snowstorm.

At this point it is important to note that it wasn’t only the

kantele doing the trick, as it wasn’t the famous kantele from The

Kalevala, but also the man himself. As Don Rosa tells in his

preface to the Finnish translation of The Quest for Kalevala, he

was pondering how to describe the heroes of The Kalevala. He

ended up in a solution: to distinguish the The Kalevala’s heroes

they were drawn humanlike so they would get the dignity they

deserved. (Rosa 2000, 6.) On the contrary, all the other “human”

characters have animal-like features, like dog’s ears, pig’s snouts

or black button noses; even Elias Lönnrot, the assembler of The

Kalevala, as you can see of the frame below.


This is a common feature of all the characters in Disney comics,

no matter who is the artist. The people are generally described in

an animalistic way to “soften” their actions. Deborah O’Keefe says

that it’s easier for the reader to enter the fantasy world when the

habitants are animals who act like humans. The normal



assumptions of their perhaps morally questionable actions can be

set aside as they’re not entirely human. (O’Keefe 2003, 61.)

And another fact is, as Scott McCloud points out, “the

universality of cartoon imagery”. So the more “cartoony” the face

is, “the more people it could be said to describe”. (McCloud 1993,

31.) It is much easier to identify with a character that hasn’t got

many distinctive features. That’s why Disney uses these iconic

characters, and for the same reason Rosa distinguishes the heroes

of The Kalevala from normal people: they are indeed different

from the ordinary.


The man ducks met on the coast was indeed very much

humanlike with his regular nose. This is the first hint the readers

get that we’re not dealing with a typical Disney character – but

with Väinämöinen himself as we see the resemblance with the old

man and the hero later on in the comic.

There are also other proofs that the old man is disguised

Väinämöinen, who has been guarding the pieces of Sampo. When

Väinämöinen is about to leave, he declaims lyrics of a song to

Scrooge and the lyrics are the same as in the image above: “Don’t

distress yourself for silver – Never betray yourself for gold! (Rosa

2004, 31)”. In addition to that, the old man in the final frame of the

comic speaks to Scrooge the same way Väinämöinen does: his

balloons are wavy and the font in the balloon is the same as the

font of Väinämöinen8. (Rosa 2004, 35.) These are clear evidence of

the identity of this mysterious man.

The other kantele that appears in the comic is of course the

famous kantele made of pike’s jawbone. It was long lost in the sea,

but Donald manages to rake the kantele from the waves. With this

kantele, it doesn’t matter who plays it and how; only a single chord

is enough to fulfil the wishes of the player. Scrooge only needs to

touch one string with his cane and thus call Väinämöinen to help

them against Magica DeSpell. The same way Donald is able to lure

the monster Iku-Turso back in the sea with his very off-key

playing. (Rosa 2004, 23; 29.)


As one can see, a mere desire is enough for the kantele to work

its magic. You don’t have to be a bard or a shaman, only a little

twang of the string brings the owner of the kantele to its presence.

Väinämöinen is such an impressive figure that the whole character

8 This use of different font for the heroes of The Kalevala can be seen

even more clearly in the Finnish translation, in which the first letters in

the balloon are written in very ornamental capitals. It is a distinct way of

showing who’s talking at the moment.



of him towers over the borders of the frame. His presence doesn’t

fit in a space of a regular character.

Scrooge did get a clear note from the kantele, but Donald’s

musical abilities only allow him to produce very off-key tunes. Yet

he manages to get Iku-Turso’s attention and distract him from

destroying the city of Helsinki, and finally lure him back to the sea.

(Rosa 2004, 29.) Both of these cases demonstrated the magic of the

kantele: how it is capable of working wonders even in the hands of

a non-magical being.

On the other hand, with a skilled player the kantele can do

incredible things. When Louhi takes the kantele, her playing calls

Iku-Turso from the sea. Her notes take place on the staff and form

a real melody. In proportion, when Väinämöinen plays, his notes

alike are in order on the staff and not just hang loosely in the

balloon.9

The kantele of Väinämöinen has various magical abilities. As

mentioned above, it is able to summon people and beasts to its

presence. It can also send people away, like Donald sends both

Magica and Gyro Gearloose back in their homes.10

(Rosa 2004,

30.) And as it is told in The Kalevala, the kantele enchants its

listeners: “That music – even more beautiful than gold!” Scrooge

says and forgets the coins Sampo is producing when Väinämöinen

starts to play his instrument. (Rosa 2004, 31.)

9 Both of these notes form a melody of real songs. When Louhi plays,

it’s Wagner’s «Ride of the Valkyries», and when Väinämöinen plays, it’s

part of the «Finlandia» by Sibelius. (Rosa 2000, 6.) These choices might

refer to a battle between good and bad : Louhi is willing to conquer

Finland with her choice (it is said that some European dictators favoured

this song by Wagner), and Väinämöinen’s choice « Finlandia » can be

seen as a song of national pride of a small country, whose epic hero

Väinämöinen is, and how the people of this country fought the big Soviet

Union during the Winter War (1939-1940) and never surrendered. 10

But it’s also worth mentioning that Donald’s abilities to use kantele

aren’t that good: he sends Gyro to Magica’s hut in Vesuvius and Magica

to Duckburg in Gyro’s workshop.


On the frame above, we can see the notes setting neatly on the

staff, when a true master of kantele is playing. The magic of the

instrument goes beyond the frame borders preparing the spell and

changing the weather. We can also see the clouds I mentioned

earlier: again they stretch all the way from border to border and get

darker as the weather chages.

Most importantly, the kantele can open portals to different

worlds. In the end of the comic, as Väinämöinen starts to play the

kantele, the weather changes and the boat the ducks were travelling

on starts to lift up to the air. “This is just like in the conclusion of

the Kalevala - - he’s going back to eternity!” the nephews realise

and they head off from the boat. Väinämöinen himself states he

goes “beyond the Northern Lights”. (Rosa 2004, 32.)

In The Kalevala, it is never minutely said that Väinämöinen

would go to eternity, but his journey in the English translation is

described to as:

Sailing o'er the rolling billows,

Sailing through the azure vapors,

Sailing through the dusk of evening,

Sailing to the fiery sunset,

To the higher-landed regions,

To the lower verge of heaven;



(The Kalevala, Rune L.)11

However, this description fits to Rosa’s story as well, because

the boat Väinämöinen and Scrooge are in is rising up higher in the

sky. At the same time the borders of the frames are turning wavy

and more decorative, as my example below demonstrates. Usually

in comic analysis this states a dream narration, or dream-like

situation, like Will Eisner described (1994, 44), but in this case we

can interpret this as a transition to another world.


When Scrooge finally realises he’s not ready to go with

Väinämöinen, he lets both him and Sampo go. As you can see from

the frames on the next page, he drops far from the air through a

cloudlike portal to a pile of snow next to Donald and the nephews,

who claim they had swum ashore “hours” ago. But for Scrooge it

seemed like seconds (Rosa 2004, 32; 34), which is another proof of

them being in a different world.

11

The original Finnish text shortly describes how Väinämöinen’s

journey takes him to « yläisiin maaemihin, alaisihin taivosihin » (Lönnrot

2002, 364).


An element typical of myths and folklores and also of some

fantasy stories based on them is that the time in the secondary

world goes in a different pace than in the real primary world;

usually slower (e.g. Nikolajeva 1998, 65). What seemed to Scrooge

to be merely seconds was several hours for the other ducks.12

It is

also important to note that when Donald and the nephews jumped,

they were in the world of Kalevala, but Scrooge was on his way to

much further, to a whole new world behind the northern lights.

You can see from the images how he’s dropping from far, far

away, and actually falls down through the frame border – like he’s

been somewhere else but in this comic. This time difference

distinguishes the primary world and the secondary worlds from

each other and clarifies the fact that we indeed are talking about

separate realities.

The Sword of Väinämöinen

The previously mentioned sword of Väinämöinen is the other

magical object of the comic. Cast by the blacksmith Ilmarinen, the

hilt of the sword is beautifully decorated: the pommel is shaped

like a head of a dog and the guard is cast to a shape of two horses.

Huey, Dewey and Louie recognise it as the sword of Väinämöinen

12

A similar thing happens also in C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series in Prince

Caspian, when the children from the primary world return to the fantastic

Narnia and realize hundreds of years have been passed in Narnia’s time

yet it was only a year since their last journey.



based on the illustration they find in The Kalevala. (Rosa 2004,

11.)

Kalevala itself describes the sword of the Väinämöinen in a

following way:

On the sword-point gleams the moonlight,

On the blade the sun is shining,

On the hilt the bright stars twinkle,

On the edge a horse is neighing,

On the handle plays a kitten,

On the sheath a dog is barking.

(The Kalevala, Rune XXXIX.)13

It is clear that Rosa has read the description of the sword from

The Kalevala and created his own version of the sword for his

comic. There is even the image of the sun on the blade, just as it

described in the poem.


13

The original text goes: ”Olipa miekka miestä myöten, kalpa

kantajan mukahan, / jonka kuu kärestä paistoi, päivä paistoi lappeasta, /

tähet väististä välötti, hevonen terällä hirnui, / kasi naukui naulan päässä,

penu putkessa puhusi.” (Lönnrot 2002, 285.)

Embedded in the solid floor of the lighthouse, surrounded by a

“spotlight” coming from the ceiling, the sword is left there for a

purpose. When a right person finds the place and so for the sword,

it is there to create a mental connection to Väinämöinen himself.

So when Scrooge touches the sword as seen on the previous

page, a greenish glow surrounds him and his eyes turn yellow. As

he starts to speak, it is not his voice anymore, but someone’s who

speaks in a more archaic tone. This is shown with the use of a

different font for the readers. There is also a difference between the

balloons of Scrooge and Donald in the image: Donald’s balloon fits

nicely in the space of the frame whereas Scrooge’s (or to be exact

his possesser’s) balloon rises above the frame borders. (Rosa 2004,

11.)

When it comes to the images of the comic, the reader is

provided with even a clearer interpretation, when a grey figure of

Väinämöinen appears behind Scrooge to prove that it is indeed him

speaking through Scrooge’s mouth. The figure of Väinämöinen can

be seen as a pale reflection behind Scrooge, but it is so clear that

even the nephews notice it, so it is not there for only the readers to

see, but visible to the characters also. (Rosa 2004, 12.)




As for this kind of “astral receiver” (Rosa 2004, 15), the ducks

can also use the sword to summon people – or more likely,

Väinämöinen does the work through Scrooge, as he calls out to the

blacksmith Ilmarinen, the inventor of Sampo. But because Scrooge

is the vessel Väinämöinen uses, the magic of the sword gets a little

twisted and the spell summons the inventor Gyro Gearloose from

Duckburg instead of the blacksmith from The Kalevala. (Rosa

2004, 13.)

The goal of Väinämöinen is to forge Sampo back together and

for that he needs a blacksmith. But even though Scrooge is under

the influence of an ancient shaman and wizard, he is still Scrooge

and the only inventor he knows is Gyro Gearloose. Hence, he is the

one Scrooge manages to summon with the power of Väinämöinen.

Characters and their mythical counterparts

There are cases of fantasy stories in which the primary world

and the parallel fantasy world are connected, and when the

protagonist from the primary world enters the other world, he or

she discovers that the inhabitants of that world have counterparts in

the “real” world. They might not have exactly the same names or

appearances, but there is some kind of similarity, which indicates

that we can talk about counterpart personalities.14

Even without Rosa’s explanation in his preface (Rosa 2000, 6);

it is clear for the readers that some of the duck characters have

their mythical counterparts in Kalevala world. Scrooge is no doubt

Väinämöinen and Gyro Gearloose represents Ilmarinen. Less than

obvious though is Donald being Lemminkäinen, but yet again quite

obvious is that Magica DeSpell is the counterpart of Louhi, as she

helps her to take on Scrooge to get Sampo back.

All these representations come out visually clear in the comic,

as Rosa has included a couple of adaptations of the famous

Kalevala paintings of Finnish painter Akseli Gallen-Kallela: The

Forging of the Sampo and The Defense of the Sampo.

14

A good example of this kind of fantasy story is The Talisman by

Stephen King and Peter Straub.


Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Forging of the Sampo (1893)

15

15

Oil on canvas, 200 x 151 cm, Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki,

Finland. (Suomalainen taidegalleria 1999, 57.) Photo © Seppo Ilpo.



On the previous page we can see the clear connection between

the frame from The Quest of Kalevala, and the painting by a

famous Finnish painter, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, who is most known

worldwide of his illustrations of The Kalevala mythology. The

composition of the characters and the old forge is almost the same,

even though the positions of the images are the exact opposite:

Gallen-Kallela’s original painting is set in vertical position and

Rosa’s frame in horizontal position.

Rosa’s frame also makes clear Gyro Gearloose’s position in the

story: he is the new blacksmith, the Ilmarinen of Duckburg, whose

goal is to forge Sampo back together. When Gallen-Kallela’s

painting shows us how Sampo was forged, Rosa’s frame creates an

adaptation of it with the slight change that now Sampo is being

forged back together from the pieces.

The other adaptation of Gallen-Kallela’s paintings is Rosa’s

version on The Defence of the Sampo on the following page. Here

we see clearly how Scrooge represents the comic’s Väinämöinen

and Magica DeSpell is the counterpart of Louhi. Yet again, the

composition of the characters corresponds perfectly the original

painting: even the earmuffs of the caps on the nephews’ heads

mimic the hair of the oarsmen in the painting. On the basis of the

storyline, these details don’t really matter, but they do create a

clear connection to the paintings and add some sense of familiarity

to the readers who know their Kalevala.

But the counterpart issue is not that simple. For instance, the

blacksmith Ilmarinen never appears in the comic, only his

representation Gyro Gearloose is present. Gyro is comprehensively

taking over the place of this hero of The Kalevala. However, both

Scrooge and Magica and their counterparts Väinämöinen and

Louhi appear in the comic. So there is a time when Scrooge is

taking over the place of Väinämöinen (guiding the forging of the

Sampo and finding the famous kantele), but their roles separate as

soon as Scrooge calls him to their aid against Magica. Magica also

turns over her place as the main villain in the comic to Louhi when

she realizes she’s not a match for the mythical hero and shaman

Väinämöinen.


Akseli Gallen-Kallela, The Defence of the Sampo (1896)

16

16

Tempera on canvas, 122 X 125cm, Turku Art Museum, Finland.

(Suomalainen taidegalleria 1999, 73.) Photo © Seppo Ilpo.



Quite soon after the events described on the frame based on the

painting The Defence of the Sampo on the previous page, all the

ducks get separated from their counterparts of the ancient heroes

and realize they no longer fulfil the purposes of the heroes and

have only been puppets in a larger story to get Sampo back.

These two frames which represent “the duck view” on the

famous paintings, offer a link between the myth and the

contemporary comic; thus providing the reader a unique view on

Finnish culture and the national epic. These frames are not in any

way emphasized to point out their importance, they’ve just been

added as a part of normal comic narration. To realize the

references, the reader needs to know the original paintings and then

the poses and the composition of the ducks create a link to the

Gallen-Kallela’s paintings and offer the clear vision on the

relationship between the ducks and their mythical counterparts.

In the end of this chapter, I would like to add that I have

hesitated talking about parodies in this context, because the point

of Rosa isn’t to ridicule the original, but to show it a short of

homage in a “duck way”. But to confirm: the postmodernist view

on parody has other forms and meanings than only making the

original piece ridiculous. Linda Hutcheon says that “[p]ostmodern

parody is a kind of contesting revision or rereading of the past that

both confirms and subverts the power of the representations of

history” (Hutcheon 1989, 95).

With Hutcheon’s description on postmodern parody (1989,

107), I can agree on these frames being parodic. By making these

images Rosa is conscious of the cultural continuum, but at the

same time he challenges this authority that Gallen-Kallela has had

with his paintings based on the events of The Kalevala for over a

hundred years. Rosa shows that even an artist of a popular

contemporary comic can use these famous paintings as a source

material to create a new way of describing the events of The

Kalevala and combine them to the modern Disney characters.

Conclusions

In this paper, I have discussed widely the fantastic features of

Don Rosa’s The Quest for Kalevala. I have shown how Rosa uses

both the primary world and the two different secondary worlds in

his comic. Both Kalevala and Tuonela have distinctive features as

fantasy worlds and entrance to both requires the use of different

portals. In Tuonela’s case, the portal is a concrete gate, but to

access Kalevala, you have to use a magical object, the kantele.

Even the title of the comic refers to the most common fantasy

theme: the quest. With these examples provided, we can surely

remove the question mark from my article’s title and state that

Rosa’s comics can be regarded as part of the fantasy genre.

Rosa’s ability to combine the fictive representation of the real

world, its people and events, with the fantasy world that arises

from the Finnish national epic is unlike in any other current Disney

comic artists works. It is also a typical act for postmodern narrative

which combines both fictive and historical elements and deals with

high and popular culture oppositions crossing constantly their

borders (Hutcheon 1989, 15; 28).

By putting contemporary (and quite popular) culture characters

in an adventure in a world of high literary epic Rosa makes his

comic a postmodern piece of narrative. This kind of playing with

the opposite genre styles and combining them both explores and

comments the possibilities of the field of a mass production comic.

In addition, Rosa uses characters of Disney, one of the symbols of

the Western capitalistic world, in an epic which was put together to

strengthen the rising national pride of a small country under the

supremacy of Russia. These facts create a strong contrast of

opposites which is how postmodern stories question the ruling

discourses of different genres.

But to put postmodernist discourse aside is there a point behind

the story and the quest of the ducks? Why add such fantastic

elements to a Donald Duck comic? Is it all just for a laugh, for a

thrill of an adventure, or is there a deeper meaning behind Rosa’s

comic?

This sort of adventure comic in which the ducks are on a quest

in search of different kind of treasures is very typical of Don Rosa.

The treasure might be mythical, like the hidden city of Eldorado, or

lost during the history, like the destroyed library of Alexandria.

What is common to this type of stories is that the treasure does

exist, but when it’s found Scrooge is unable to collect it as an



addition to his fortune. It might belong to a museum or it might be

lost just after being discovered. What is left of the adventure hunt

is usually a single item of memorabilia that Scrooge carefully

places in his special trophy room.

The same thing happens also in The Quest for Kalevala. The

hunt for the mythical mill of eternal prosperity ends when

Väinämöinen takes the Sampo with him beyond the northern lights.

Scrooge is left behind with the handle of Sampo. Scrooge’s greed

for easy money was literally sinking their boat, when the amount of

coins was building up. He was about to destroy not only his own

but also the lives of his relatives. Only the music from the kantele

could wake him up from this hypnotized state. When the boat

started rising up to the sky, Scrooge still wouldn’t let Sampo go,

not until Väinämöinen reminded him: “Are you ready to go with

me? – Have prosperity eternal? – Forsake your own Kalevala –

Where a lost love still awaits you?” (Rosa 2004, 31-33.)

Väinämöinen refers to Scrooge’s time in Yukon, where he was

prospecting gold and where he left the love of his life, Goldie

O’Gilt. Scrooge has never admitted it in public, but the most

valued of his possession is a lock of hair from Goldie’s head17

. The

words of Väinämöinen made Scrooge realise what he values most

in life: it is not money, it is his memories. This tendency to discuss

moral questions of greed and wealth appears in various comics by

Rosa and it’s his way of showing that there is much more in

Scrooge’s personality than his greediness and penny pinching

lifestyle – like his name should suggest.18

So as Rosa discusses (yet again) the themes of greed and

whether money makes one happy, he does that by using fantasy

and at the same time touches both the readers of the contemporary

comics and the readers of old folklores and epics.

To conclude, I have showed that Don Rosa’s Disney comics can

be regarded as fantasy comics. His postmodern way and talent on

combining mimetic elements to a fantastic narration brings new

17

This is revealed in Rosa’s final comic The Prisoner of White Agony

Creek (2006). 18

One of the most revealing comics on this matter is Rosa’s A Letter

from Home (2004).

readers acquainted with the Finnish national epic, and offers a new

view on the known story as we see it from the duck perspective.

REFERENCES

EISNER Will, 1994, Comics & Sequential Art, USA, Poorhouse Press.

HUTCHEON Linda, 1989, The Politics of Posmodernism, London,

Routledge.

The Kalevala, 1888, translated by John Martin Crawford, in

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/ .

LÖNNROT Elias, 2002 (original 1849), Kalevala, Viborg, Denmark,

Nørhaven Paperback a/s.

McCLOUD Scott, 1993, Understanding Comics, the Invisible Art, New

York, HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

NIKOLAJEVA Maria, 1998, The Magic Code. The Use of Magical

Patterns in Fantasy for Children, Göteborg, Graphic Systems.

O’KEEFE Deborah, 2003, Readers in Wonderland. The Liberating

Worlds of Fantasy Fiction, London, The Continuum International

Publishing Group.

ROSA Don 2000, Sammon salaisuus ja muita Don Rosan parhaita,

Portugal, Norprint Artes Gráficas S.A.

ROSA Don, 2004, The Quest for Kalevala, Uncle Scrooge, 334,

Gemstone Publishing, pp. 3-35.

ROSA Don, 2005, The Last of the Clan McDuck, The Life and Times of

Scrooge McDuck, Timonium, Maryland, Gemstone Publishing, pp. 8-

23.

Suomalainen taidegalleria : Albert Edelfelt, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Juho

Rissanen, Helene Schjerfbeck, Hugo Simberg, 1999, edited by Eija

Kämäräinen, Porvoo, WSOY.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/kveng/

Donald Duck – A Fantasy Comic ? Fantasy in Don Rosa’s The Quest for Kalevala

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