HAAVIO, MARTTI (1899–1973) was a Finnish poet, folklorist, and scholar of comparative mythology and phenomenology of religion whose multifaceted career and comprehensive scholarship stemmed from a deep knowledge of Finnish history. After a childhood spent in Lutheran vicarages in Ostrobothnia, Tavastia, and southwestern Finland, which gave him a taste of the diversity of Finnish folklife, he became one of its leading scholars, analyzing Finnish language, literature, folklore, religion, and culture. As a poet who published under the pseudonym P. Mustapää, Haavio also introduced modernism into Finnish poetry while emphasizing its roots in the past.

Haavio began his scholarly work as a student of Kaarle Krohn, who was the University of Helsinki's first professor of Finnish and comparative folklore, in 1908. Haavio's doctoral dissertation Kettenmärchenstudien was based on the principles set forth in Krohn's Der finnische Arbeitsmethode (The Finnish work method). The dissertation was published in Folklore Fellows...