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In Finnish language, two main metrical systems prevail. The first one, the old oral Kalevala meter – often called runosong meter or Finnic alliterative tetrameter – is usually described as an antithesis of regular rhyme and stanzas, and it has peculiar rules for syllables. The second one, the wide metrical system of rhymed poetry, is closer to other European poetics with various kinds of stanza structures and accentual or accentual-syllabic meters, found across the genres of literary poetry, Lutheran hymns, folk songs and contemporary popular music. The first documented examples of rhymed poetry are from the 16th century. By the 19th century, it started to supersede the Kalevala meter.

In this article, my aim is to analyse what is known of the early history of the rhyme in Finnish language. I am trying to take the first printed rhymes seriously: not assuming that their creators did not know how to rhyme, but that they had their own ideals on good poetry (potentially quite different from ours) and the possibilities of Finnish language relating in complex ways to what there already was in the oral sphere and in other languages.

As a conclusion, I argue that the 16th century literary uses of rhyme and Kalevala meter may both be seen as part of a conscious process of creating literary poetics to the Finnish language: the authors were not trying to transfer the oral metre to literary uses as such, nor did they take the existing models of rhyme in older literary languages without modifying them into the local contexts.