Finns ANCIENT relationship with Water | Lakes and Rivers of Finland
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
- Join me on a journey through Finland's breathtaking landscape as we delve into the country's fascinating relationship with its numerous lakes and rivers. Discover the ancient myths and legends that have been woven into the fabric of Finnish culture for centuries, and explore the profound impact that these natural wonders have had on the Finnish way of life. From the calming waters of Lake Saimaa to the rushing rapids of the Oulanka River, come with us as I explore the rich history and cultural significance of Finland's mythical relationship with its lakes and rivers.
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#finland #nature
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F.A.Q.
How old are you?
31
About Kaleva and Sampo. As a child I heard the version of the story, explaining why sea water is salty. Because when Sampo sank, it still continued to produce salt.
Just a random thought. Well done video, and keep doing these tradition stories. 😊
If I feel bad I imagine myself on the pier of our mökki on a calm summer day.
I agree that Finnish lakes and rivers are so beautiful. Set in the forests , they are truly a place apart.
Thanks again Aaron for this video.
Spot on. Water is extremely important to me personally, and to the Finns in general. There needs to be water a water body next to me to feel relaxed. In the summer, there's nothing better than staying on a shore watching the sunset, when it's all peaceful and quiet... Finland is culturally divided into Western (/Southern) "sea-loving" people and Eastern (/Northern?) "lake-loving" people. We should also not forget the swamps, bogs and mires, where the high water table depth defines the ecosystem.
Best tap water in the world. Great to brew all manner of beverages with too!
Lake Finland is very different from sea Finland. I always think of lakes as the deep, bog-like secret within the land, and while I'm by the sea I feel a certain "saudade", a mixture of longing and isolation.
I agree that Finnish lakes and rivers are so beautiful. Set in the forests , they are truly a place apart.
Thanks again Aaron for this video.
Watching this video as I'm sitting by the lake, Thank you for a beautiful video
Among the artists of modern times, the most famous in relation to the subject is Tuomas Holopainen - keyboard player, composer and lyricist of the band Nightwish, whose lyrics often describe water or are the setting of the story being told, and he also describes himself in them with the term 'Ocean Soul'.
Finland is the land of thousands of lakes, not just thousand lakes. the saying "tuhansien järvien maa" has been mistranslated to English.
Land of a Thousand Lakes sounds much better, land of thousands of lakes doesn't roll of the tongue as easy, I would bet you it wasn't mistranslated at all
@@IrishinFinland You may be right about the English translation, but in Finnish it's only 3 words, and it's more like poetic...
Beware of Iku-Turso ja Näkki!
Interesting, as a boy my father would take me to visit the few neighboring Finns for Sauna. Each had an unheated, natural looking pool or pond next to his sauna. We would go from the Sauna to the pool to swim. My father believed in rolling in the snow after Sauna as well. It appears a lot of Finnish tradition made it to America.
Are you living somewhere in Minnesota or UP of Michigan?
@@oh2mp Yea, many Finns moved there during 1600-1700-centuries already, though a part of them travelled through Sweden or British Islands.. Perhaps there were big forests, and Findians?
Alaska now but my family is from Minnesota.
@Turmoil Dot I live in New England. My home town and neighboring town had a large influx of Finns in the late 1800 to early 1900s. I grew up hearing the language spoken by the older folks. My aunt still speaks it
@@jhtsurvival Very nice to hear! And about the original language, it could even give some working place, with English language skills of course.
In the beginning of 1900-century, many Finnishmen travelled to U.S. also for some temporary work or gold and then came back to Finland richer. At least 2 of my late relatives were there also, about 120 years ago. Everybody there weren't lucky, but died for example in the mining accident. We had also those kind of news in our newspapers in Finnish or Swedish (we have these two official main languages), so I have found important material from archives, for my tiny genealogy collection. But of course, many delightful things happened also, like my grandmother's connections to few U.S. Finnish-speaking women during wars in 1940-1945. They helped us for example by sending warm clothes for children. My granny with her friends gave those forward, but also to her two sons (my dad and his brother). 😊
I am fortunate enough to be able to see the gulf and a myriad of lakes in a few minutes distance away and have even travelled over the frozen surface of the gulf a couple of times now.
There was a sense of 'you don't belong here' creeping in the back of my neck when I did it the last time though and in just a few days after there have been incidents of near drownings.
I love water. My mind is at ease near water and forest.
I'm at my happiest in summer, when I can take boat trip to islands near by. Running through the woods and walking on the big beach rocks. Jumping into the sea water with all the fishes and kelp.
Even just showering is healing for me. Sauna is just big +
"Vesi vanhin voitehista"
"Water, the oldest of lotions and ointments" (but without the alliterative Kalevala charm that's lost in translation...)
Even today, I got a wound that needed a few stitches, the wound care instructions were to shower daily...
Irish in Finland have "The Kalevala" translated to English, in one of his videos. There "Vesi vanhin voitehista" is translated "Remedy the oldest, Water". It is brilliant translation, after you only have thought and said it aloud for a few times more! 👍
@@TurmoilDot Thanks for that! It scans and sounds just like it should! 👍
Nice suprise to see my hometown in this video! Langinkoski in Kotka (1:40 - 3:05)
Beautiful dude. Really makes me miss our summer cottage by the sea *sigh*
Great video ❤thanks!
Thank you!
I'm well late to the party here, but yeah. I'm at home nowhere else as I am at Saimaa. I can't really fathom living somewhere I could not just get to natural water bodies, to hear the waves and smell the water, see the morning mist lifting off it and settling on the surroundings, or go fishing with just my own thoughts as company when the world gets a bit much, you know? My favourite islands have massive boulders displaced by the passing Ice Ages and seams in the stone where the volcanic material settled when it all was just cooling magma. They've been there long, long before I came around, and they'll still be there when no one will remember my name. I don't know how much we base our cultural identity on our mythology, these days, but some things have lasted us as lodestones for the heart through the ages.
I Love My Land
Being a Finn living in Australia I feel this about rivers and lakes but I never go in. Hard enough getting in the shower. I just don't like getting wet.
I want to express my deepest gratitude for all the videos you share of Finnish culture in history. I understand and so many levels now why I felt drawn to the things that I’ve been drawn to all my life. Your videos will inspire my creative endeavors that I’ve already started to create before finding your channel.Thank you 🙏🏻💜
Hi! Could you tell, what was the most difficult for you in learning Finnish as an English-speaker? Or maybe you made a video about it already?
Me and my ancestors have lived by the same lake since 1500s. Loved the video
That's awesome 💪🏻💪🏻
180000 over one kilometer long, million ponds under that size. Plus we have water everywhere basically. Its drinkable after boiling, amd most cases dont need to boill u can easy find some spring.. ppl come and visit us. Do dipp in our lakes and sauna hard.
It is good to remember that Kalevala is a creation of Elias Lönnrot, not an original Finnish epic. It could be called the first fantasy book based on old Finnish poetry. It isn't a reliable source of what the ancestors of modern day Finns actually believed - especially since people in different parts of the country had different beliefs.
Vetehinen is an obscure creature. Some sources say it may have been some kind of spirit of a drowned person, trying to lure other people to drown as well. There are also stories of vetehinen or näkki changing its form and presenting itself on land as for example a big dog, eager to play with kids and lure them onto its back so it can carry them back into the lake and drown them.
Loviatar / Lovetar / Louhetar / Louhi is usually associated with Tuonela, the "land of the dead". That's why she is also often depicted as the mother of pains and illnesses.
It seems our ancestors were rather animistic in their beliefs. Therefore it's just natural that water, just like every other aspect of nature, was full of different spirits in their eyes, some more powerful than the others. And it's always a good idea to have a good relationship with all kinds of these nature spirits so they don't turn nasty.
Thank you, you obviously know these things! Still, I'm thinking that Kalevala would be the best book for starters, but I'm not a professional... (Vai onkohan meillä jotain pientä Parhaat kootut -tyyppistä kokoelmaa alkuperäisistä runoista? Terv. Harrastelija) 🤔
@@TurmoilDot Kalevala and Kanteletar are indeed good starting points, and they are also the "Parhaat kootut" versions of the old poems, at least according to Lönnrot's taste. But as far as I know he didn't see much value in the lyric poetry that Kanteletar represents because it was mainly sang by women and told of everyday things. He preferred the epic poetry sang by men and compiled the material he liked best into one continuous story by making changes here and there and composing new lines to connect and complement the original material. For example the story of Aino and the story about fishing Vellamo's maiden were originally separate entities (if my memory serves, in the original versions Aino doesn't drown but hangs herself with the gold and silver belts), but Lönnrot thought they should be parts of one continuous story so that's what we now have in Kalevala.
For anyone interested in the original material there is the skvr.fi database (SKVR = Suomen kansan vanhat runot, "The old poems of Finnish people") which holds most of the old poetry gathered from Finland, Karelia and the "forest Finns" of Sweden's Värmland during the national romantic era and later.
This time period is also good to keep in mind when talking about what the old folk poetry tells about the beliefs of our ancestors. The poems were mostly written down as late as the 19th and 20th century. Though undoubtedly there is a lot of much older material preserved in them, what they actually represent is the folk beliefs of the era they were gathered in as well as what the people who were still singing the stories by then thought their ancestors believed in. In other words they are not original sources, just stories about what may once have been the original sources.
One more thing to remember is that most of the poetry was gathered and Kalevala created during the time of language quarrels in Finland. The reason for this work was not merely an academic interest in folklore but the need to show that contrary to many claims of Finnish being a simple and rough peasant language fit only for everyday use among the working class it was actually a very rich and nuanced language that could very well be used for art, higher education and government too, just like - and also instead of - Swedish. Creating a magnificent national epic was in its own way part of this "proving the worth of the Finnish language".
Water is beautiful.
Very nice video from you once again. Thanks!
For me it is the sea and rivers.
🇫🇮 Thank you 😊
Finns. The nation of waterflow.
Spring rivers are my favorite
I thought it would be about drunk finns drawing at midsummer.
Do you mean this video and the header of it? Drunk Finns are the most noisy and disturbing group of all of us, that's why they are first noted everywhere. But biggest part of Finns do not drink so much, and alcoholics die younger...
i literally am from lake lohja and lohja ridge is where i will be berwe have these things that are very important
*be berried in
A really uplifting video, Aaron. Thank you. My Finnish friend says that their lakes are part of what they are, lakes are the soul of the Finnish.
I've grown up in the lakeland region, so for me lakes are the core of what I think of "back home". For me, the most "Finland" place in Skyrim is area around Riften, since that's how September and October look like at my parent's house... until the leaves drop and it just looks murky until snowfall. April and May look a bit like Falkreath I guess.
Very nicely analysed.
Only time I feel at peace is at our family cottage by the lake, well it's a man made lake with locks, but still, midsummer eve with a glass of whiskey on our beach is the best feeling in the world! Both a still evening and the light sloshing of water against the rocks are like lithium to me!
Kaunis video.
Kiitos 😁
Hello Irish guy. It seems you haven't introduce Seita. In ancient finnish world hunting, fishing were those ways to keep you alive and seita's were big part of that world.
Great job once again!
I just love lakes, rivers and the coast! Enough said.
I read an article couple of years ago. It was about finnish railways and the decicion to build them in the first place. In this article it was mentioned that one option for railwsys would have been a canal network through finland. Would be interesting to see what finland would look like if that was built instead of the railways.
Ohhhh, yeah that would of been interesting!
Are you familiar with the event "Tervasoutu" in Oulu? I've gathered it is an annual event where you row along an old tarboat route from Vaala to Oulu. Might be interesting but I have never attended it. They do have a webpage.
I lived my whole life next to the sea. I have no relation to lakes, never even swimmed in lake.
Ok 👍🏻
Beautiful video! This captures exactly the mentality I carry with me even though I was born and and live in the US. I always seek out bodies of water wherever I live and travel. Now psychologists are talking about the mental health benefits of so called "blue spaces," something Finns and of course other peoples have known in their souls for thousands of years.
Thank you! Where do you reside in the US!?
@@IrishinFinland New Jersey, so I like to visit both the coast and the many mountain lakes here too! Large rivers everywhere too! Thanks again for the video!
@@IrishinFinland Hey, I wonder if someone already told you about the name Loviatar... I mean lovi is basically the shamanistic trance state of mind and the -tar ending adds to the word a reference to the female like -ress does for waitress. So the name has in affect a meaning of short - which is closely adjoined with those who would have 'magical powers'. Otherwise the word lovi also mean's a hole or a space in between.
@@lyrigageforge3259 Hi, this Deity is described in Wikipedia, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loviatar . There aren't all deities of Kalevala or of other old collections in Wikipedia. Some of them are only in Finnish language, and it too could be hard (too old) to understand even to Finnish people. Not a good situation, we could say. 🤷
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