Mari Kaasinen has explained that Kanteletar and Kalevala have been used as a source of inspiration for the music of Värttinä.
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A cappella group Rajaton has recorded several songs with lyrics taken from Kanteletar.
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The name consists of the base word kantele (a Finnish zither-like instrument) and the feminising morpheme -tar and can be roughly interpreted as "goddess of the kantele" or "zither-daughter", a kind of muse.
Lyrics come from many sources, two main traditional sources are the Kalevala, the national epic of Finland, and the Kanteletar.
The song, "My Kantele", is a traditional Finnish song from the 1840 collection Kanteletar and is also sung by Loituma.