Which Tolkien work was published posthumously in 2015 as his version of the Kullervo story?

The story behind the answer

The Story of Kullervo was published posthumously in 2015 as Tolkien’s version of the Kullervo story.

Tolkien wrote the work while he was a student at Oxford, probably between 1914 and 1915. It draws on the Finnish national epic Kalevala and follows the tragic figure Kullervo, whose story involves family separation, revenge, and disastrous fate.

The text was not published during Tolkien’s lifetime. Verlyn Flieger edited the surviving material, which was issued together with Tolkien’s lecture “On The Kalevala” and related notes. The volume provides an unusually direct view of Tolkien’s early engagement with Finnish mythology.

It should not be confused with The Children of Húrin or The Fall of Gondolin, posthumous works based on Tolkien’s own Middle-earth mythology. The Kullervo material belongs to his early adaptation of Finnish source tradition.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Oct. 2026

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