The
Estonian name for a
verse form characterized by
alliteration and
parallelism. This
metre is familiar outside the region from the
Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, and from the use Longfellow made of it in
The Song of Hiawatha. Finland and
Estonia share quite similar languages and traditional cultures.
In regilaul and Kalevala-metre the same idea is repeated in several lines, with the words varied so that different alliterations are used. The meanings can vary a fair bit from exact synonyms, because between them they weave a field of association around the meaning. An example is
Kus on orja odrapõldu,
kasupoisi kaerapõldu,
tüdruku linade põldu,
vaeselapse viljavälja?
Where's the beggar's barley field
the orphan's oat field
the filly's flax field
the cripple's cornfield?
The plural of regilaul is regilaulud.