Wäinölä 🇫🇮

Stay tuned for more journeys of exploration into the mythic lands of Finno-Ugria. [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

The giant spruce by the sacrificial niche. Photograph by: [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

If your first thought on seeing birches is “bar codes,” your soul may require immediate woodland treatment. [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

“To the memory of the Shemeikka and Vornanen lineages of rune-singers and hunters. Wayfarer, halt! The spirits of the noblest of your people address you from antiquity. Erected by the Karelian Cultural Society with the support of the public in the summer of 1929.” [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

As with Varemöhk, Frestreikka, or Metä Äijä ('Man of the Forest') was likewise the recipient of offerings at the Syytinkoukar sacrificial niche in Muurla, Finland. Recorded tradition maintains that in the 1850s and 1860s hunters would still offer bird toes and paws of the mountain hare. At the time of my visit there were coins and flowers left there by other visitors. Photographs by: [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

A glacial erratic in Muurla, Finland, known as Varemöhk. Offerings were made here to a forest guardian called Frestreikka, whose pedigree leads to Viena (White Karelia), from where his cult was carried to this village by White Karelian wolf hunters. Based on the items found at the site, the worship seems to have continued at least into the 1950s. Photograph by: [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

“Another time the Chudes¹ came in great numbers to Lake Nuortijärvi — for Nuortijärvi lay along one of their main routes through Kola — and they laid waste to an entire Skolt Sámi village, killing every soul. Only one lass they spared, taking her along with them, supposedly as a cook. At the mouth of the Lutto River they stopped and spent the night in an abandoned cabin. There the lass began to pity the men, saying: «You poor fellows are terribly dirty and your clothes are in a dreadful state. Would it not be a good idea now to wash all your garments clean, since there is plenty of water and a kettle here? I will do the washing.» «Well, that would be fine,» said the men, and they took off all their clothes and lay about completely naked in the sauna while she went off to do the washing. But she stuffed the rags, the kettles, and everything else into the ice-hole and fled. At last the saundrels² realized the washergirl’s treachery and set off in pursuit of her. But they all froze in the winter frost. One of them managed to run as far as Rippisalmi before collapsing onto the ice, bent over and exhausted.” — Samuli Paulaharju: Kolttain mailta (1921) [“From the Lands of the Skolts”], p. 32. Quoted segment translated by Wäinölä. ___ ¹) The Čuđit are hostile foreign raiders or enemies in Sámi tradition, often associated locally with peoples approaching from the south or east. ²) Neologism from sauna & scoundrel. Coined for this post. Original text has the word saunakyöpelit, but in lack of a suitable accurate translation, a wee bit of liberty was taken. Photo: Skolt girl Marja Gerasimov doing laundry. Taken by Frans Äimä, Kolttaköngäs, Petsamo, 1927. Colorized and extended sideways [incl. actual manual work, not just clicking on buttons]. Original photo (CC BY 4.0): Finna.fi 🔗 [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

An animistic understanding of radio from the 1920s “And the same old Savonian personified space in the manner of the ancient Egyptians when speaking of the modern radio: «Whoever builds a radio set needs plenty of those mitten-thumbs and all manner of lever contraptions, which gather from the Air-Sphere Maiden her sensory impressions and gifts of speech.»” — Ahti Rytkönen: Savupirttien kansaa (1931) [quoted segment transl. from the original Finnish] The radio does not create sound. Its little thumbs, senses, and levers gather speech-gifts from a female being inhabiting the air. The modern machine has been understood through an older animistic grammar. Space is not an empty transmission medium; it is a personified bearer of voices, from whom the apparatus collects what is already present. Art: Reclining female borrowed from Akseli Gallen-Kallela. The rest of the illustration by: [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

N:o 2816 by Karl Fazer (🇫🇮) might easily be the most stylish box of candy ever sold. [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

If you've ever wondered what the ancient Finnish or other Finno-Ugric hillforts looked like, of which often nothing but a couple of portal stones remain, then here's some good news. There is ample reason to believe that the fortification seen in this 1898 photograph (top; colorized) taken by U. T. Sirelius in Khanty territory in the Vasyugan region of Siberia is fairly close to e.g. ancient Finnish ones. Saitpa nei'on, voitit vallan, Sorrit jo sotiveräjät, Langetit jo lautalinnan. — SKVR VII2 3003. Ilomantsi, Europaeus, D. E. D. H, n. 201. 1845. [ You won the maiden, won dominion; you crushed the battle-gates, you brought down the plank-built fortress. ] Lower-left photo: the "battle-gates", lower-right photo: Hakastaro hill, the site of an ancient hillfort. Photos by Leif Rajalin. [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

Finnish national costumes as advertised in Kotiliesi ('Home hearth') magazine in 1939: 1: Central Finland (Jyväskylä region), 2: Alavus, 3: Jurva, 4: Central Ostrobothnia (Härmä & Isokyrö), 5: Häme, 6: Tuukkala, 7: Pyhäjärvi, 8: Tuuteri, 9: Munsala. [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

Emäntälehti : Martta-yhdistyksen äänenkannattaja. Kaikki numerot vuosilta 1902–1939. PDF: [ 1902 ] [ 1903 ] [ 1904 ] [ 1905 ] [ 1906 ] [ 1907 ] [ 1908 ] [ 1909 ] [ 1910 ] [ 1911 ] [ 1912 ] [ 1913 ] [ 1914 ] [ 1915 ] [ 1916 ] [ 1917 ] [ 1918 ] [ 1919 ] [ 1920 ] [ 1921 ] [ 1922 ] [ 1923 ] [ 1924 ] [ 1925 ] [ 1926 ] [ 1927 ] [ 1928 ] [ 1929 ] [ 1930 ] [ 1931 ] [ 1932 ] [ 1933 ] [ 1934 ] [ 1935 ] [ 1936 ] [ 1937 ] [ 1938 ] [ 1939 ] ZIP: [ 1902–1939 ] @emantalehti

Johan Kortman — The abduction of Kyllikki (1890) [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

An automobile hurtles through the dark night sky like a meteorite that has pierced the atmosphere. At the wheel is a devilish figure, clutching under his arm a naked woman intoxicated by speed — and by fear as well. It is Kalevala's Lemminkäinen at the wheel, with Kyllikki beside him. Gallen-Kallela transforms this ancient tale of the snatching of a bride into a modern context, where the traditional sledge is replaced by a red car, and the hero, Lemminkäinen, becomes a motor-car fanatic. Bil-Bol from 1907 is a jewel of poster art, and one of the most popular works ever produced by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. According to one story, Gallen-Kallela designed the poster for his friend Yrjö Weilin; according to another, for the Swedish Baron Cedeström, who that same year founded the car dealership Bilbolaget i Stockholm and later flew a small airplane named ‘Bilbol.’ Available as poster at the Gallen-Kallela museum. 🔗 [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

Hooked crossword puzzle (1925). [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

What was actually found in Germany (left) vs what wasn't (right). [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

“Without asserting anything about nationality, it may be stated that the cultural condition of our Stone Age continues in the culture of our Lapps. The difference, however, is that the greater part of the Lapps have long lived as reindeer herders; in the Stone Age reindeer husbandry cannot have been the principal livelihood. Another difference is that the Lapps long ago abandoned the use of stone and fashioned the tools and implements of daily life from bone. But if, nevertheless, we wish to give life to the image we have obtained of Stone Age settlement, we do not do so by comparing the life of the people of that time with peasant life in villages, nor even with life on forest homesteads, but with the Lapps — and then the mental image is correct.” — A. M. Tallgren: Suomen historia I – Suomen muinaisuus (1931) [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

Two expressions of the same ritual logic: Christianity inhabiting a seasonal system (left), and Yule operating on its own terms (right). Christmas as Ritual Season (Not Doctrinal Feast) Even among committed Christians, there is no consensus on the origins or historical grounding of Christmas symbols. What is defended is the season itself, not the accuracy of its explanations — further evidence that Christmas operates primarily as a ritual season, not a doctrinal feast. This becomes clear not through speculative “Pagan gotcha” arguments, but by listening to Christians themselves. Some explicitly acknowledge that Christmas customs were adapted from earlier seasonal practices to facilitate conversion. Others accept that the date does not correspond to the historical birth of Jesus, insisting instead that “it symbolizes it.” Still others reject pre-Christian continuities outright — while nevertheless continuing to observe the same seasonal behaviors. That word — symbolizes — is decisive. Symbols do not require historical precision; rituals require only repetition, timing, and social participation. Ritual Time vs. Historical Time Ethnographic and folkloric sources consistently show that midwinter was treated as a period of heightened ritual efficacy, long before Christian theology attached new narratives to it. Nils Lid documents Scandinavian Yule as a complex of ritual acts involving food left untouched for unseen guests, offerings to household and field spirits, fertility divination, and calendrical forecasting tied explicitly to Christmas night and morning. These practices persist well into the Christian period with little theological reinterpretation. In Finland and the wider Finno-Baltic sphere, Andreas Nordberg records Christmas as a threshold season used for agricultural omens, weather divination, and future prosperity — functions incompatible with a purely commemorative feast. Douglas Hill's broad comparative survey shows Christmas repeatedly appearing in European folk belief as a power-bearing date: • weather and harvest omens tied to Christmas moonlight and sunlight • beliefs about births on Christmas conferring special abilities • prohibitions against cutting certain trees or burning specific woods during the season • ritual bread baked on Christmas Day believed to cure illness None of these depend on the Nativity narrative. They depend on timing. Just as Italians name weekdays after planetary gods without conscious pagan intent (lunedì, martedì…), Yule — now called Christmas — operates as a functional inheritance rather than a remembered one. The ritual persists even when its older meanings are no longer articulated — or are actively denied. Hill notes this pattern explicitly: practices once embedded in Pagan seasonal rites are not erased by Christianity, but reframed, blessed, or tolerated as long as they no longer threaten doctrine. The blessing of ploughs, beating of bounds, and seasonal use of greenery survive precisely because they serve social and agricultural continuity, not theology. Even attempts to reinterpret symbols — such as identifying the evergreen tree with the biblical burning bush — confirm the point: the ritual object predates the explanation. Therefore it may be reasonably concluded that Christmas did not replace an earlier ritual season. It inhabited Yule. The Church supplied narrative and doctrine; the calendar supplied power. What endured was not belief, but practice — repeated annually at the moment when the year itself appeared most vulnerable. That is why Christmas still works, even when no one agrees on why. Sources: • Nils Lid: Joleband og vegetasjonsguddom (1928). • Andreas Nordberg: Jul, disting och förkyrklig tideräkning (2006). • Douglas Hill: Magic and Superstition (1968). [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]

“Runic Minstrel. Petri Shemeikka represents not only a moribund generation, but still more, a vanishing phase of development. His ancestors have been Carelia's best hunters, in whose snares the deity of the forest himself drove the game; they have been mighty wizards and runic minstrels. Petri also, even as they did, has supported himself by hunting, fishing and clearing woodland; he has charmed the court of the forest-god with incantations and won the mermaid's favour, and in his leisure hours in his cabin he has sung his ancient runic songs. He is the last vestige of this age of fairy tales. The succeeding generation dwells in bright cottages and reads the newspapers.” — I. K. Inha: Pictorial Finland (1896) [ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]