Thread by @PeopleOfFinland

before we move on to deities, lets first take a look at the unseen, the ghostly and the vague, those who habit the skies and winds

Keijukaiset — fairies

Finnish fairies were habitants of cemeteries or churches.

they were very small, almost too small to see with bare eyes. they frequently swarmed funerals, looking like snowflakes or sparks, and were believed to be what spread the scent of death and decay.

over time and due to foreign impressions, Finnish fairies changed and they were no longer swarming in morgues, but dancing beautifully on the shores of lakes.

and where old fairies used to befall disease upon humans, the new ones only made them a little dizzy with their beauty.

Rahko — he had ONE JOB (and he did it)

Rahko was our “Man in The Moon”, he was assigned the work of taking care of moon’s phases.

he was a simple man who painted the moon black and then cleaned it again and so on and so on.

good job Rahko! we appreciate your work! big fan!

Kouko — i said these were vague

people believed that a bear shouldn’t be called a bear when it might hear, since it might unnecessarily attract a bear. Kouko was a code name for bear.

Kouko was also a messenger of death. if you heard his scream in the woods, death was nigh.

Hiisi — these are hard to explain

just like Hitto, who i introduced earlier, Hiisi could also mean a place or a creature. this is actually quite common to Finnish mythology and i’d like to open it up a little if you’ll allow me.

before the lines between a place and a creature were vague, and this meant that a certain creature didn’t necessarily only inhabit a certain place, but it WAS the place.

sometimes a place that looked out of the ordinary (a mountainside that appeared to have a face etched in)

people might learn to know rhe place itself as something that had its own spirit and being.

i hope i’m making at least a little bit of sense here 🤔🧠

so, Hiisi used to be a place before it became a creature.

boulders in the nature are called ‘hiidenkivi’ in Finnish: Hiisi’s stone. also potholes on solid rocks are called ‘hiidenkirnu’: Hiisi’s churn.

many places around Finland still bear the word ‘hiisi’ on their name.

over time, Hiisi became a being that opposed the church and its growing power in Finland. (Kekripukki and Nuuttipukki would’ve loved a Hiisi.)

there are tons of stories about Hiisi trying to sabotage the construction of churches. they were big creatures and tore the sites down.

but the church took over and drove the Hiisis to go live deeper into the forests, far from the sound of church bells they hated.

over time, many different kinds of Hiisi came to be; forest and water Hiisis. they became more and more harmless.

even now, when Finnish children are taught to properly pronounce the letter ‘S’ we use the poem: “Vesihiisi sihisi hississä”

‘The water Hiisi hissed in the elevator”

Rajaäijä — “border codger”

he is dead, and cursed. when he was alive he was someone who tried to make profit by moving the property pins.

he’s to keep doing that in his death and can only be released if someone returns the pins to their right places after him in the night.

Ajattarat — witchy women

they were nasty, mean creatures who would appear in forests only to misguide people so they’d get lost.

they also liked to cause nightmares to those who had fallen asleep in the forest.

Painaja — “The Presser”

you know that feeling you have in a nightmare? like someone, something is pressing on your chest? this is it.

nightmare = ‘painajainen’
‘painaa’ = to press
-> ‘painaja’ = the presser

Liekkiö — saved my fave for last

Liekkiö is the ghost of an unraised illegitimate child whom the mother has killed and buried in the forest. (or left the infant in the forest to be eaten by predators.)

these spirits would follow people walking in forests, shrieking or crying.

they might have appeared as wisps and generally only tried to find themselves into human company because they were in desperate need of a mother.

the only way to give peace to a Liekkiö without accusing the mother of child murder was to name it and bury the bones in a cemetery.

if the Liekkiö was seen as a human, it usually took the form of a child of the age the spirit should be.

Liekkiö could also appear from under floorboards or from wherever the infant had been buried.

“how can this sad thing be your favourite?”

because the times were so significantly different and it is exactly that cultural context in which this creature really becomes interesting.

to give birth to an illegitimate child during 1600-1700 was to become a social outcast.

so women would rather kill their babies than be rejected and be looked down on.

but at the same time child murder was a terrible crime so to scare these poor, traumatised women even more, such a thing as Liekkiö became a belief. to keep those women on edge most likely.

all in all, mythologies and old beliefs are so interesting to me because it’s just.. how culture and times can be seen reflected on the supernatural beliefs.

🕸🌬🕸🌬🕸🌬🕸🌬🕸🌬🕸🌬