fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2580 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2580 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 082 secrets from Secret Submission Post #369.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Uh. That's about all. I'm quite well-versed in Finnish folklore, if anyone wants a special field.

I don't know anything about finland. Can you tell me your favourite folklore story?

Sure thing! Fun fact about Finland. We were among the last countries in Europe to become industrialized, so a lot of folk beliefs survived practically until the Second World War. Folklore has been collected from 1880's forward, and we have one of the world's largest folklore archives.

My favorite is a phenomenon known as "metsänpeitto" or forest's cover. Sometimes a person or a domestic animal or something would suddenly disappear in the forest, and though there would be search parties they could not be found. This was because they were in the forest's cover.
The person would be able to see the people searching for them, but if they tried to call out to them no word would come out and they would find themselves being unable to move, and the searchers would walk past them without noticing them. To the searchers they would appear as a rock or a tree stump.
Sometimes a strange creature would come to the lost one and accompany them through the forest. If the lost person is a child there were reports of it feeding and protecting the kid.
There was three ways to get out of the forest's cover. First was to ask a priest to bless the forest (they often refused), second was to sound the church bells and the third was to ask tietäjä to bind it (literally means "the one who knows", they were local wise men, sort of like wizards).

Have another, more amusing story: When the Christianity came the Finns weren't really fond of getting baptized, so the church payed them a little. After receiving the payment the Finns would go to the nearest lake and wash it off, and then go back for seconds.

Do Finnish people actually like Moomin as much as the Japanese do? (in Tokyo, there are like, moomin-themed cafes, and toys everywhere)

Well I can't say if we like it as much as the Japanese do, but we do like it a lot. Especially my generation (born in early 90's), who grew up with the cartoon.
We got a couple of Moomin-themed shops, quite a lot of toys and stuff like plates and mugs made by a Finnish company Iittala are hugely popular (The website's in Finnish, but pictures: https://store.iittala.fi/Brandit/Arabia/Muumit/c/Muumit). And there's a Moomin-themepark! (http://www.muumimaailma.fi/en/home the website plays music, be warned)
We have quite the appreciation for the original, more adult stuff too. The comics are usually running in at least one news paper at any given time. And quite many enjoy the books.

If you're still around, I would love to know more folklore! The forest cover sounds so spooky, yet also somehow comforting. I'm really curious about tietäjä and what exactly they do/how.

I am around!

I try to keep this as non-complicated as I can, so here goes:
There are two kinds of powers in Finnish folklore väki and luonne.
Väki (can be translated to mean either power or people) is sort of thing that appears in nature and stuff. Things that have väki include: forest, ground, water, rock, dead, iron and women (women gave birth so their väki was assumed to be in their vaginas). If väki was disturbed it would turn into viha (=anger) and that would go into people and make people ill. Väki could manifest itself into elves (Finnish word for elves is haltia or haltija which is a reference to owning property). Everything in Finnish folklore is a damn elf.
Tietäjäs had luonne. Luonne means strength of character, and either a woman or a man could have it, though most often tietäjäs were men. Luonne could be picked up by example, if a new-born had teeth in its mouth already.
Tietäjäs had 4 major jobs: 1) Curing illness caused by viha (they were usually quite good healers anyway) 2) returning stolen goods 3) "sending back the dog" 4) getting people safe from the forest's cover.
Usually the mere mention that tietäjä was in town would return stolen goods, and if not tietäjä would mark the thief. "Sending back the dog" refers to if someone had been cursed (since all Finnish women had väki, they could in theory all do curses and other spells) sending the curse back to the one who put it there.
Now curing illness is the really interesting part. See tietäjäs weren't really magical, they were just stubborn. The trick to getting the angered väki out of the person, was to get more angry than it. Basically the tietäjä would get super-mad, stomp around, start frothing at the mount and recite poetry in Kalevala-metre. (Kalevala is the Finnish national epic written completely in poetry) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trochaic_tetrameter#Kalevala_meter)

[ SECRET POST #2580 ]

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