Upbringing Shapes Character

Upbringing Shapes Character is the poem’s explicit lesson from Kullervo’s life: a childhood described as ill-nurtured and foolish is linked to an adult who cannot change his nature or attain better judgment. When Wainamoinen learns of Kullervo’s death, he directs the lesson beyond this single life, warning future generations not to entrust children to foolish or unsuitable caregivers. The concept joins a bleak account of formative damage to a practical admonition about responsibility for the young.

Kullervo as the Example

In Rune XXXV, Kullervo is introduced as a youthful wizard in blue and scarlet stockings. The passage says that he henceforth lingered with his parents, but his return to their company does not mean that his character has been remade. Instead, the poem immediately sets out what has not changed: he could not alter his nature, gain higher wisdom, or win better judgment. The repeated negation makes the claim emphatic. Presence in a family home and the passage of childhood into later life do not, in this account, automatically undo the effects attributed to his earlier care.

The poem then looks back to the conditions of Kullervo’s early years. It calls him ill-nurtured as a child and describes him as having been rocked in stupid cradles by a nurse of many follies. These are the passage’s concrete images of deficient upbringing: care is present, but the person providing it is characterized as foolish. The contrast matters. The poem does not describe Kullervo as simply unattended; it presents his early formation as shaped by the quality of the care he received. His later inability to gain wisdom or better judgment is placed directly beside that account, making the movement from childhood to adulthood an argument about lasting influence.

From Childhood to Adult Limits

The poem’s sequence gives the concept its force. It first presents Kullervo in the present, still unable to change his nature or improve his judgment, and then identifies the earlier nurture that frames those limitations. This arrangement makes his adulthood look less like a fresh beginning than the continuation of a damaged formation. The passage does not describe a successful correction, nor does it offer a later teacher or experience who reverses the childhood influence. Its stark emphasis is on what Kullervo cannot become: not wiser, not better judged, and not different in nature.

That formulation is severe, but its scope should be read carefully. Kullervo is the poem’s particular example; Wainamoinen’s later warning converts that example into counsel for future child-rearing. The text connects early nurture with later character through this life and uses the connection as a reason for vigilance. It does not need to portray a theory of education in abstract terms: the sequence of foolish care, adult incapacity, and the final warning supplies its practical logic. The tragedy lies in the distance between the possibility of responsible care and the poem’s account of a childhood already shaped by folly.

Wainamoinen’s Warning

After Kullervo’s death, Wainamoinen, identified as an ancient minstrel, hears the tidings and speaks to the nations yet unborn. His address shifts the focus from what happened to Kullervo to what later generations should prevent. He warns them: "O, ye many unborn nations, Never evil nurse your children, Never give them out to strangers, Never trust them to the foolish!" The commands widen the lesson beyond the particular nurse described earlier. They caution against evil or foolish care and against handing children over to strangers, treating the choice of caregiver as a serious responsibility rather than a private detail without consequences.

The warning’s closing movement returns to the condition of the child. Wainamoinen says, "If the child is not well nurtured, Is not rocked and led uprightly," and continues by invoking the child’s growth to manhood. The image of rocking thus recurs with a changed emphasis: first it belongs to Kullervo’s foolishly tended infancy; in the warning, it becomes part of the positive standard of proper nurture, joined to being guided uprightly. The repeated image links the personal history to the general counsel and makes care an ongoing responsibility, not simply the provision of a cradle.

Narrative and Ethical Significance

The concept is delivered through a compact narrative pattern: Kullervo’s adult limitations, a backward glance at his early care, his death, and Wainamoinen’s address to future generations. That sequence turns character description into instruction without detaching the lesson from the life that prompts it. Wainamoinen does not merely pronounce a general rule; the rule follows the report of Kullervo’s end and names the danger the poem associates with failing to nurture and guide a child well.

The ending therefore makes the poem’s claim both intimate and communal. Kullervo’s history supplies the example, but the appeal to unborn nations makes prevention a responsibility shared across generations. The language is admonitory rather than a detailed account of how good upbringing works: the poem specifies the duties it wants readers to heed—do not entrust children to the foolish, and ensure they are well nurtured and led uprightly. Its central contrast is between formative care that leaves a lasting mark and a future in which adults take greater care over who raises the young.