Here is the author note from my picture book.—Aaron
My retelling is based mostly on “The Forest Bride,” in Mighty Mikko: A Book of Finnish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, by Parker Fillmore, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1922. Fillmore’s own retellings were based on folklore collections of Finnish scholar Eero Salmelainen, unfortunately still not available in English. I also consulted “The Mouse Bride,” in Tales from a Finnish Tupa, by James Cloyd Bowman and Margery Bianco, Albert Whitman, Chicago, 1940.