The Blind Musician follows the lives of a young girl, a boy, and a professional musician. All of whom are blind. Korolenko paints a moving, sympathetic and careful psychological portrait of these three characters as he explores the different ways in which they experience blindness. As he attempts to explain the various actions and decisions of these characters, as inherently linked to their disability, Korolenko investigates the power of sight in...

The storyteller stands beside the fire, swaying, dancing, miming, singing, reciting. With one hand he shakes a gourd rattle, with the other he swings a conga -- a flyswatter made with a buffalo tail on a wooden handle. Anklet bells tinkle as he moves. Three young men beat a wooden drum with sticks. Listening to him is a crowd of men, women, and children. They sing along at a song's refrain, they repeat whole lines of the story when he pauses to see...

Not so long ago, in the tiny, isolated villages of Finland, where prolonged summer days gave way to endless winter nights, people would pass the time by singing the many adventures of their favorite heroes: the mighty, magical men and women of ancient days. They sang of old Vainamoinen, greatest of sages and magicians, who helped create the world but never could find a woman to wed him. They sang of his friend and ally Ilmarinen, first among craftsmen,...