'' The Man Who Spoke Snakish '' () is a novel by

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

n author

Andrus Kivirähk Andrus Kivirähk (born 17 August 1970) is an Estonian writer, a playwright, topical satirist, and screenwriter. As of 2004, 25,000 copies of his novel ''Rehepapp ehk November'' (''Old Barny or November'') had been sold, making him the most popul ...

, first published in 2007. It is set in an imaginary Estonia during the Middle Ages. The novel was awarded the Stalker award of

Estonian science fiction Science fiction and fantasy in Estonia is largely a product of the current post-Soviet era. Although somewhat earlier authors, like Eiv Eloon and , do exist. Eesti Ulmeühing is an organization for print science fiction in Estonia that awards an ...

in 2008.

Summary and key themes

The protagonist is Leemet, an Estonian who is part of a diminishing group of forest-dwellers, upholding ancient traditions and speaking the ancient "snake-tongue" which lets them control animals and speak with snakes. In the assessment of Alfie Howard and Diane Nelson,

The novel is set in a fantastical reimagining of thirteenth-century Estonia during the Northern Crusades, when the land is being invaded and settled by Germanic Christians. Kivirähk's novel tells the story of Leemet, one of the last Estonians to continue living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the forest, which the rest of his people are gradually abandoning in favour of village life, agriculture and Christianity. Leemet is also one of the last people — by the end of the novel, the very last person — to speak Snakish, an ancient language that was taught to humans by snakes many generations ago and that gives speakers the power to control most animals. Leemet's people have lived in close relation to the non-human world for millennia, practicing their traditional spirituality in sacred forest groves, hunting animals for meat, telling myths and stories and embarking on complex relationships with members of non-human animal species, especially snakes, wolves and bears. The novel employs magical realism alongside elements of folklore, including from the Estonian epic ''
Kalevipoeg ''Kalevipoeg'' (, ''Kalev's Son'') is a 19th-century epic poem by Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald which has since been considered the Estonian national epic. Origins In pre-Christian ancient Estonia there existed an oral tradition, known as ...
'' .. the Finnish ''
Kalevala The ''Kalevala'' () is a 19th-century compilation of epic poetry, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling a story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and retaliatory ...
'' ..and Estonian folk tales such as "The Northern Frog" ..and "The Tale of the Man Who Knew Snake-Words" .. The shamanic culture of Leemet's Estonians bears similarities to traditional
Finno-Ugric Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic languages, Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in ...
culture, for example, worship in sacred groves (practiced to this day by the
Mari people The Mari ( ), also formerly known as the Cheremis or Cheremisses, are a Finno-Ugric peoples, Finno-Ugric people in Eastern Europe, who have traditionally lived along the Volga and Kama River, Kama rivers in Russia. They live mostly in the Mari E ...
of the Russian Volga). In Snakish, the way of life of the "old times" and the Snakish language are both rapidly disappearing as hunter-gatherers leave the forest to settle in villages.

Audiobooks, translations, and adaptations

In 2008 an audiobook was published, read by the Estonian actor

Tiit Sukk Tiit Sukk (born 21 November 1974) is an Estonian stage, television, voice, and film actor, director and television presenter. Early life and education Tiit Sukk was born and raised in Jõgeva, Jõgeva County, where he attended primary and secon ...

. The novel has been translated into English (2015), as well as Czech (2011), Latvian (2011), French (as ''L'Homme qui savait la langue des serpents'', 2013), Russian (2014), Danish (2015), Dutch (2015), Hungarian (2015), Spanish (2017), German (2017), Macedonian (2019), Lithuanian (2020) and Polish (2020). In 2009 a board game with the same name was released by the game developer Revaler in cooperation with the newspaper ''

Eesti Päevaleht (Estonia Daily) is a major daily Estonian newspaper, from the same publishers as the weekly '' Eesti Ekspress''. Another newspaper under the same name is published weekly in Stockholm, Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is ...

''. The French translation was awarded the

Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire The (GPI, 'grand prize of the Imaginary'), until 1992 the , is a French literary award for speculative fiction, established in 1972 by the writer Jean-Pierre Fontana as part of the science fiction convention of Clermont-Ferrand. Initially pur ...

for the best foreign-language novel in 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mees, kes teadis ussisonu Estonian novels 2007 novels Novels set in Estonia