Finnish Creation Myth (from the Kalevala)

[Jamie123]

I mentioned before how delightfully weird the Kalevala is. I've started reading it start to Finnish (excuse me for reusing your pun, Zil! 😁), and just got to the end of Canto 5. The creation myth at the start (Cantos 1 and 2) is so delightfully uber-weird it deserves a bit of artwork to celebrate it! Here we go...

The Creation

We start with a beautiful Air-Girl who grows bored living amongst the ether (where there's nothing much to do) and comes down to earth. However, there is not yet any earth - only Waves and Wind. She is helpless at the hands of these villains, who ravish her until she becomes pregnant.

She remains pregnant for seven hundren years, without giving birth. One day she is lying in the ocean when a duck flies down and lands on her kneecap. It lays seven eggs: six of them gold and seventh iron. The duck sits on the eggs to hatch them, and they become warm and finally red hot. In pain, the Girl shakes them from her knee, and one of them smahes. The yolk of the egg becomes the sun, the white the moon, and the shell the earth and the sky.

The Girl travels around the new-made world. She hollows out the ocean floor beneath her feet. She carves river valleys with her hands. She lifts up soil and rocks and forms them into mountain ranges. Finally she builds four mighty pillars to hold up the sky. Then finally she gives birth. She has a son Väinämöinen - the first and greatest of Heroes.

Väinämöinen has been in her womb for so long that he is already an old man when he is born. Because of this, however, he is very, very wise. He travels all over the world, but finds there is nothing yet that grows - only bare rock earth. So he finds Sampsa, the Spirit of the Fields, and bids him to sow seeds everywhere.  Trees and grass and flowers sprout up, and everything is very beautuful. But...

...a hideous monster rises up out of the ocean and...

(No more time - and we're still barely half way through Canto 2! Stay tuned for the next thrilling instalment!)

Edited September 25, 2024 by Jamie123
Wrong sort of yolk

[Carborendum]

12 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:

I mentioned before how delightfully wierd the Kalevala is. I've started reading it start to Finnish (excuse me for reusing your pun, Zil! 😁), and just got to the end of Canto 5I said before how weird the Kalevala is, but the creation myth at the start (Cantos 1 and 2) is so delightfully uber-weird it deserves a bit of artwork to celebrate it! Here we go...

The Creation

We start with a beautiful Air-Girl who grows bored of living amongst the ether (where there's nothing much to do) and comes down to earth. However, there is not yet any earth - only Waves and Wind. She is helpless at the hands of these villains, who ravish her until she becomes pregnant.

She remains pregnant for seven hundren years, without giving birth. One day she is lying in the ocean when a duck flies down and lands on her kneecap. It lays seven eggs: six of them gold and seventh iron. The duck sits on the eggs to hatch them, and they become warm and finally red hot. In pain, the Girl shakes them from her knee, and one of them smahes. The yoke of the egg becomes the sun, the white the moon, and the shell the earth and the sky.

The Girl travels around the new-made world. She hollows out the ocean floor beneath her feet. She carves river valleys with her hands. She lifts up soil and rocks and forms them into mountain ranges. Finally she builds four mighty pillars to hold up the sky. Then finally she gives birth. She has a son Väinämöinen - the first and greatest of Heroes.

Väinämöinen has been in her womb for so long that he is already an old man when he is born. Because of this, however, he is very, very wise. He travels all over the world, but finds there is nothing yet that grows - only bare rock earth. So he finds Sampsa, the Spirit of the Fields, and bids him to sow seeds everywhere.  Trees and grass and flowers sprout up, and everything is very beautuful. But...

...a hideous monster rises up out of the ocean and...

I've never studied Finnish mythos.  But this story's skeleton is pretty much the same as the Greek/Roman creation story.

[Jamie123]

2 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

I've never studied Finnish mythos.  But this story's skeleton is pretty much the same as the Greek/Roman creation story.

There are similarities for sure - but each mythology has its own distinct flavour. I'm getting to like the Kalevala (though I'm still only up to Canto 6).

[Phoenix_person]

If you like metal, these guys do a lot of kalevala-themed stuff. This is legitimately one of my favorite songs ever (though I always skip the long outro).

https://youtu.be/wpP-mGOcPfU?si=5YqA3YPn0omG3Tuf

[Jamie123]

15 hours ago, Phoenix_person said:

If you like metal, these guys do a lot of kalevala-themed stuff. This is legitimately one of my favorite songs ever (though I always skip the long outro).

https://youtu.be/wpP-mGOcPfU?si=5YqA3YPn0omG3Tuf

Very powerful music! I've read there are other Finnish rock bands that have been inspired by the Kalevala too. Something worth exploring!

[Jamie123]

OK...Episode 2...

The Hideous Beast does terrible distruction on the earth, burning and reducing everything to cinders. But worst of all it makes a new tree grow - a mighty oak that blocks out the light of the sun and moon and casts the world into darkness. Väinämöinen believes that his mother can help. She has gone back to lying in the ocean, and had become friends with the powerful Sea People. So he calls out to her...

The Air-Girl sends a Sea-Man to help her son. He is not very big - barely as tall as a man's thumb, or the span of a woman's hand. Väinämöinen wonders how much use he will be, until the Sea-Man begins to grow. He grows and grows until he is an enormous giant - so tall that his eyes are six feet apart!

 

The Sea-Man swings his mighty axe and fells the tree with one chop! Light returns and the trees and plants can grow again! The world is saved!

(Still not finished Canto 2. There's going to have to be a Part 3!)

Edited September 24, 2024 by Jamie123

[Jamie123]

The saga continues....

Väinämöinen finds seven grains lying on a marten skin by the seashore. He clears out a glade in the forest (leaving just one tree -a birch - for birds to perch on) and and plants the seeds. They grow to become the first ever field of barley.

People multiply across the Earth. Although the Air-Girl and the Beast and other such beings are not seen anymore, there are stll plenty of magicians. None of them is greater than Väinämöinen. One day Väinämöinen is challenged to a magic duel by a young wizard called Joukahainen. The upstart boasts he can easily beat Väinämöinen, but he is no match for the Air-Girl's son. He is soon trapped in a magic swamp, and at Väinämöinen's mercy.

He offers Väinämöinen his best horse, his best sword, the best animals from his farm if only he will release him, but Väinämöinen cares nothing for these things. In desperation he offers Väinämöinen his sister's hand in marriage, at which Väinämöinen finally relents. He releases Joukahainen, who returns home to tell his family.

He expects his mother to be furious, but to his surprise she is delighted. Nothing would please her more than to have Väinämöinen as a son-in-law! However, Joukahainen's sister Aino is not pleased at all: she tells everone she does NOT want to marry Väinämöinen, but no one takes the slightest notice of her.

Aino's mother tells her to put on her best clothes and jewels - those made for her, for her own wedding by the Sun Daughter and the Moon Daughter. Aino does so, but wanders off on her own. After several days, she comes to the seashore where she sees three mermaids playing in the waves. "I will be the fourth!" she says. She takes off her beautiful clothes and jewels and jumps into the ocean.

A hare is chosen to take the news of Aino's drowning back to her family. He arrives just as the maids of the house are taking a sauna. (Yes...the Finns had saunas, even back then!) The maids want to cook the hare, but he tells them he has an important message for their mistress. When Aino's mother hears the news she sobs and sobs and sobs for hours, but nothing will bring her daughter back.

And there's the moral of the story, made quite explicit: "Never force your kids to marry people they don't want to marry, otherwise they might end up drownded!"

We're on to Canto 5 now, would you believe?

One day Väinämöinen goes fishing in his little boat. He catches a very strange looking fish, but soon discovers it is not a fish at all: it is Aino transformed into a mermaid. She tells him "You're a foolish old man! You only ever wanted me as your skivvy. You lost me once and now you've lost me again!" She jumps out of the boat and is gone.

In grief, Väinämöinen cries out to his mother, the Air-Girl, whom he believes to be long dead. But she replies, assuring him she is still alive, and gives him dating advice. She says he should look for a new wife amongst the maidens of the North, who are far lovelier than any he has seen before!

 

 

Edited September 25, 2024 by Jamie123

[Jamie123]

Pause for thought...

I am totally new to the Kalevala, and have only read as far as Canto 6. My only other sources are Keith Bosley's introduction to his translation (which is rather highbrow and intended for proper scholars - not me!) as well as Tolkien's version of the Kullervo cycle, so I'm anxious to avoid the Dunning-Kruger effect. These reflections may be utter rubbish, so beware...

The main characters in the early Cantos are the Air-Girl and her son Väinämöinen. In Finnish, the Air-Girl is called Ilmatar and sometimes this is treated as a proper name, but it really just means "female air". She has various other names: Nature Daughter, Sky Maiden, Ocean Mother. I find her arc so fascinating. She begins as a totally helpless victim, with no control over her situation - a victim of rape no less! She enters a period of latency, as she swims through the primordial ocean. But then everything changes when the duck arrives. She is no longer passive but strenuously active. She becomes the Master Builder of the cosmos - paralleling Christ/Jehovah in the role of creator. And yet she is not God. (Or at least not God with a capital G. You could call her a goddess, but she is subordinate to "The Old One" - the "All Father" who is only occasionally mentioned.) Following her labours of creation, she goes into labour - the supreme act of creation. Perhaps the creation of her son and the creation of the world are intended to mirror each other.

But this burst of active creativity ends quickly. She remains powerful and important, but as a facilitator and adviser. Others now play the active parts. When the Earth is threatened by the Beast, she acts as liaison with the Sea People who can help. Väinämöinen continues to turn to her, and she gives him advice.

Is this perhaps the ideal arc of femininity as conceived in ancient Finland? She suffers, she endures in passivity, for a short time she creates and then she steps back and let's others take control of what she has created?

It's myth of course (and second-hand myth too!) but myths don't come out of nowhere. They mean something. When I've read more I'll no doubt have changed my ideas, but if anyone has any thoughts I'd love to hear them.

Edited September 25, 2024 by Jamie123

[zil2]

1 hour ago, Jamie123 said:

Is this perhaps the ideal arc of femininity as conceived in ancient Finland? She suffers, she endures in passivity, for a short time she creates and then she steps back and let's others take control of what she has created?

Jordan Peterson talked with someone named Mary Harrington, where she talked about "the female hero's journey" (the link should jump you to the start of the bit: 51:43 - 56:44, so only 5 minutes - less if you speed it up like I do¹).  I found the whole video interesting, but you might find this snippet interesting.

¹She's the first person in a long time I couldn't listen to at 2x (had to slow down to 1.75, which is annoying, because Peterson speaks incredibly slowly to my ears).

[askandanswer]

Having read @Jamie123's summary I'm so glad that I can now cross Kalevala off my reading list - a minute or so reading this has saved me a lot of time.   

[Jamie123]

13 hours ago, zil2 said:

Jordan Peterson talked with someone named Mary Harrington, where she talked about "the female hero's journey" (the link should jump you to the start of the bit: 51:43 - 56:44, so only 5 minutes - less if you speed it up like I do¹).  I found the whole video interesting, but you might find this snippet interesting.

¹She's the first person in a long time I couldn't listen to at 2x (had to slow down to 1.75, which is annoying, because Peterson speaks incredibly slowly to my ears).

That is very interesting - thank you Zil! I'll watch the whole thing later. It's interesting that feminism wants to get rid of the mother, because (to state the obvious) without mothers there would be no more people! The same could be said about MGTOWs.

[JohnsonJones]

Well, I'm enjoying your take and summarizations.  Nice work.  I look forward to the rest of it.