Väinämöinen, The Ultimate Hero Of Finland - Finnish Myth -  

For anyone interested, here's a version of the poem "birth of väinämöinen and the world" being sung by finns: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XRdCsEVFd4I.html There's also english subtitles, which are not exact, but rather bring the point across while maintaining the rythm

As a Finn, I feel compelled to comment: "Helvetti perkele on your perse!" Quite happy someone is checking our largely overlooked mythology. Most people think we go with the Norse one and doesn't even know we have our own instead.

The Finnish name used for the kind of spellcaster such as Väinämöinen is "tietäjä", literally meaning "knower". They channel their powers through music, yes, but that power is based on knowledge, particularly the knowledge about the birth and origins of things, called "synty". If you knew the "synty" of something you'd have power over it; for example Ilmarinen sings about the "synty" of iron while forging the Sampo. It's been theorized that the reason the spells were sung was because the knowledge was guarded closely and the singing was an attempt to garble the words to make them less obvious 😆 Knowing this adds an interesting depth to the story of Väinämöinen's departure; a newborn child spoke to Väinämöinen about his origins, his "synty", and the origins of the world; the child had power over him and of many other things. He was ashamed but he might also have thought such a child a better leader for his people than he was.

And, may I add, the writer Tolkien was one of influencers that we have these stories alive these days. As the forest elves in Tolkien world, the language had some Finnish to it.

J.R.R Tolkien, as a linguist and the creator of Lord of The Rings, was very, very fond of Finnish language and mythology of Kalevala. Gandalf is based on Väinämöinen - and the Elven language he created is very similar to Finnish language. He liked the tender and flowy nature of Finnish language, so he decided that it should be the language of the Elves - fairest creatures of them all. And that's a fact. And we Finns are very proud of that.

"I didn't think that people would watch my videos" - To be fair, I'm not Finnish so I probably wouldn't count as one of the people who would complain but... xD

The instance where Väinämöinen sang his opponent into the swamp he didn't kill him. The man was Joukahainen, a young confident man and he went on to do alot of stuff afterwards. The excange is known as the "kilpalaulanta" or "competitive singing"

I'm so so terribly sorry for the way I treated you in the last video you did on Finnish Mythology. You seem like a cool guy, you didn't deserve all that. You probably don't remember me, but I hope each of us can grow a little as a person :)

I often avoid Finnish mythology videos because they are often pretty bad (even when by Finns) but I'm glad I didn't this time, because I was pleasantly surprised! Also you pronunciation was surprisingly good! I'm not going to hold pronunciation of Finnish against people :'D I have some notes and extra thoughts though because I can't shut up about Finnish mythology. In older mythology Väinämöinen is kinda a lesser god, not as primordial origin as depicted in Kalevala. He is in older mythology, a son of Kaleva, Kaleva being a god king of humans. Sons of Kaleva are these kinda demigod giants who shaped the earth, had weird adventures and were usually gods of some human activity/important profession (Ilmarinen - smith, Väinämöinen - sage (tietäjä)). Kalevala is the place, Kaleva is the person. -la ending in Finnish denotes place. In Finnish mythology all the gods have their own realms with their own palaces, named after themselves. So Kaleva has Kalevala, Tuoni has Tuonela (death), Tapio has Tapiola (forest) and so on. Before Kalevala Louhi was Loviatar, goddess of illness and daughter of Tuoni, the god of death. The deities of death before Christianity weren't seen as evil, scary yes, but not evil. Kalevala separates Loviatar and Louhi into different characters (while they were just different variations of the same character in different areas) and then mixes Louhi with the Pohjan akka (Hag of the North). It's not a huge leap as Tuonela was literally in north. Everything in Finnish mythology is in the same horizontal plane. Pohjola though is associated with winter and cold, and they were seen as kinda evil or at least antagonistic. I don't think Kalevala in general is a very good source for Finnish mythology. It's an okay source for Karelian folklore though. Kalevala is mostly gathered in different areas of Karelia. Karelians are one of the Baltic Finns, which also includes Finns and Estonians (and others), and therefore they do have very similar mythology and folklore as Finns, but there's differences too. And in addition Elias Lönnroth did take some artistic liberties when putting the myths together, like the ones I mentioned earlier, so it's debatable how much it tells about Karelian folklore either. In general it's not very useful to look at Baltic Finnish mythology through the Indo-European lens, because at it's core it's widely different. There's influences though of course, but they are more surface level character traits and such. As said Baltic Finnish mythology is horizontal unlike Indo-European mythologies, which are vertical with underworlds for the death and heavens for gods. The gods are all kings and queens of their own realms, everyone relating to a natural phenomena. Everyone of these natural realms have a king and queen, who have both their own tasks in their kingdoms, they have children, who are lesser gods, and they have servants, who are the elves (nature guardian spirits basically). The heroes in Kalevala are basically the lesser gods as they are sons of a god. They were deities of humans. There was actually another god king of humans, Untamo, who was Kaleva's brother, with his own realm and children, and who mostly just represented the specific tribe the tribe telling the story was at war with. They were kinda the deities of humans. My interpretation is that in their worldview humans were just one part of nature and so they also had gods but they were no more special than the other deities. The reason why the "higher" gods, the kings and queens, aren't talked about so much in folk poetry and spells, is that they were powerful and likely kinda scary and they shouldn't be bothered or their names evoked in small matters. The lesser gods or elves could deal with more daily matters.

Somehow much more interesting to listen a foreigner dive in to kalevala than it was reading about it at school,and we read it a lot in classroom.

Voi Helvetin Perkele sun perseelles! I have to add that Don Rosas Väinämöinen (Aka "The Quest for Kalevala") is one of the best Väinämöinen out there, combining two things that Finnish people love: Donald Duck and Finland being mentioned.

Your pronunciation of "Ilmatar" and "Sampo" are spot on (the stress on the first syllable thing gets many times overlooked by foreigners when saying Finnish names) Other names may need some practice though. For example, I heard you say smth like "Pohoola" instead of the correct name "Pohjola"(phonetically smth like POHH-YO-LA) So the "y" ("j" in Finnish) sound was missing:) Great video and good to see videos about Finnish mythology. :))

suomi ei ole ensimmäinen kieleni, pahoittelut mahdollisista virheistä. rakastan suomea ja mytologiaa, kiitos kun puhuit huomiotta jääneestä mytologiastamme!

I am Finland's native, lived there all of this life. And this is so lovely, so... thank you :)

Ancient Finnish poems were oral tradition at least from Bronze Age. The ending of Väinämöinen is of course millenias younger layer, which only comes after Christianity has taken hold in pagan Finland.

I'm so happy that RU-vid channels like this are making the Kalevala known to us Finns as well. The Kalevala is cool when talked about in English! :D

This was great stuff! You should have a look at Estonia's version of the Kalevala, Does mention Väinämöinens aul lad! (Father for the people wondering what aul lad is) 😅

I'd love to hear more Finnish stories (love the Irish ones too!). I'm curious about a story about a death in a river and a death goddess... not sure how it goes, I'm sure you could figure it out :) BTW, I love your accent! I'm also interested in Finnish stories because I discovered some Finnish ancestry. Not expected at all.

Another incredible fact about Finnish folklore is that so many magic spells have been collected from the Balto-Finnic area (most in the world, in fact!). I have been reading up on them more and I find them very inspiring.

very well put video! thank you. for me, the most interesting part about the leaving of Väinämöinen is the age gap metaphora.. Christianity was 'young' at that time, but the relation makes me think how old was the old culture.. Numerical relations like that in kalevala always peaks my interest :)

I've waited for this one! All heil Väinämöinen! 💪

The best Part of that final poem is that even when it is clearly a christian influence, its not exactly out of place and very much just as important as rest of the poems In essence you could call that particular incident the synty of Christianity, but in the context of Finnish mythology Extremely clever in my opinion, given that knowing how something came to be gives it legitimacy and influence over it. For example knowing the synty of wounds was one way to heal them (you needed to know the origins of the very 1st wound and leverage this knowledge over the new wound that was basically an offspring to the original.. so basically you told the wound to go away or you tell their parents what a prick you were which is just supremely amusing

Jokes on you, I'm Finnish Canadian so of course I'll watch your video. And don't worry. I gotta correct my partner how to pronounce "hyvä" almost every time I try and teach them vocabulary.

Just kind of stumbled upon this channel. Great video! Love the content. Very funny and entertaining, my friend. Going to give you a bit of a binge today. Looking forward to more Finnish mythology and maybe some early medieval Finnish history?

man as a finn im so glad you gave me a spark to engage with finnish mythology more!!

The first pronunciations already got me giggle, this is gonna be good 👌😄

Finnish American here. Just letting you know that I have the same Celtic Tree of Life tapestry as you have behind you.

Very nice video! Names were still getting butchered, but I think we as finns have mostly gotten used to it XD. One tip I'd give is that while google translate hates finns, so do not trust it, but the way it says Väinämöinen pretty good, and gives a pretty good example on how to actually say the ä Cheers!

Helvetti perkele! I don't know if it's been discussed in some of your videos before, but I REALLY like Väinämöinen singing in order to use his spells and magic. That's why I always felt captivated by the scene in LotR where Gandalf and Saruman speak/sing to the mountain Redhorn to make it wake and rise up in anger and, conversely, to calm down and sleep.

In the version I'm familiar with, sampo made grain, salt and gold. It could be read as sampo making/giving its owner bounty of nature, sea and earth. But who knows. Also... I think they wanted one specific wif from the north lands, Louhi's beautiful daughter, and only Ilmarinen managed to survive trials put up by Louhi.

If i remember right(😅) there was one version of this story about Väinämöinen and Baby King (PS. it was just like you said Väinämöinen would representing old ways while Baby King would represent as Jesus or christianity 😂) Väinämöinen said that Baby would be future King of Finnsh but not a fair king to all, so Väinämöinen tried to persuade others to abandon the child for sake that next possible king would be fair to all. But when the child heard that it started to oppose to Väinämöinen buy questioning and insulting old and foolish Väinämöinen while reminding that Väinämöinen him self said that he would be King of Finnsh. For that Väinämöinen became angry to the baby for using his words against him and sad when the others Finns were starting to agreeing child's worlds, so not to star to fight between Finns he chooses to leave, but he reminded to all that when time comes and finnish people's needed his help, he would come for them.

Such a great tavern keep! Nice to see another Finnish myth video! You know I have to say something about pronunciation of Louhi (sorry about that :D), the way you say it makes it sound like it's written as Lauhi, for future reference try saying it more like "low - he". Helvetti perkele on your perse!

General story of sampo taught in schools (yes. they teach it) is that sampo produced salt, flour and gold when turned.

When i was young (In Finland) i was taught the Sampo basically just generated all the riches itself, and didnt take them from anywhere. And it didnt cause salted ocean, it just broke during the scuffle as both Louhi and Ilmarinen/Väinämöinen wanted it so in the fight they both accidentally destroyed it and the remains sunk into the sea. The pieces then washed up on the shores and became some of the world's most valuable artifacts.

A Soviet army is walking through a finnish field in 1939 during the winter war. Suddenly a voice yells at the other side of a hill. The voice says: "one finnish soldier is equal to ten soviets" The soviet commander sends ten soldiers to the hill. They hear gunfire, then silence. Soon the same voice yells again: "One finnish soldier is equal to a hundred soviets!" Angry soviet commander sends a hundred soldiers to the hill. They hear gunfire and screans followed by a longer silence. Soon again the same voice yells: "One finnish soldier is equal to a thousand soviets!" Now furious, the soviet commander sends a thousand soldiers and a tank to the hill. They hear even more gunfire and explosions. Then silence. One heavily wounded soviet soldiers crawls from the hill and yells: "Commander! Dont send any more troops, its a trap! Theres two of them!"

I enjoy the stories wither they are clan lore or other lore. Your after credit scenes are great I hope they become a regular thing.

thank you for the content and you great style!

Next time I get roasted, I gotta try singing myself a boat and peacing out

The crazy thing is stuff like the Lord of the Rings drew tons of inspiration from Finnish mythology and yet no one talks about it. One of the cooler things I picked up living in Finland was some of their myths. Though I can't read the Kalevala in it's original form yet xD.

Been so long since I read the Kaleva/Kalevala, but I loved Väinämöinen...even if him tricking Ilmarinen to get the Sampo felt really foul. Unrelated but...Getting a Spanish version of the Kalevala was so hard! I had to go to a lot of bookstores in Buenos Aires to finally find a copy 🙄 Good to find a channel that even mentions Kalevala! Consider me interested 👀

That last bit got me good 😂😂😂 yes bring in your gods, we have many here! 🖤🖤🖤 I live, I die, I live again 🤣☠️🖤

I thank you sir for great story tavernkeeper. We shall drink for your name! Skal!

Interesting video, thanks! There's a persistent belief (including, or perhaps especially here in Finland) that Finnish mythology is somehow totally separate and divorced from other European mythologies, on the grounds of "Finnish is Uralic, the rest are Indo-European". I'd say that's a huge oversimplification; those are language groups, not cultural identities or ethnicities. Nobody would lump Finnish and Samoyedic, or Irish and Punjabi together into the same culture just because they share the same linguistic ancestor 4000+ years in the past. Early Uralic speakers began to intermingle with early indoeur. speakers before the uralic speakers ever even came into what we now consider to be Europe. Proto-Finnic people themselves were the result of uralic speakers mixing first with proto-indoeur speakers, then proto-baltics, then proto-germanics, and then later baltic, germanic and slavic peoples. For anyone interested in this topic who can read Finnish, I highly recommend the book Itämerensuomalaisten Mytologia by Anna-Leena Siikala. She goes into great depth analyzing the influences and overlap between Finnish mythology and those of neighboring countries.

I missed you yesterday for lunch so I watched you today

Helvetti perkele on your perse, I love how into Finnish mythology you are. To me it's whack that someone in Ireland is more versed in our mythology than your average Finn. It's sad how we have forgotten our history, and it's not taught in school either.

I hated reading these poems as a kid for my finish teacher. But it is interesting to listen to this from a person from Irland.

Kalevala - direct translation is "Home of the Heroes".

Noniin on hyvää!

I know many DnD rollplayers (not typo) diss bards as useless, but you definitely wouldnt want to cross Väinämöinen - pretty much the most epic depiction of epic level bard there is - be it about singing, being wise or being able with the sword ;) Anyway, talking about singing and poems in general - in Finland thats not just territory of Väinämöinen, "loitsurunot" (spell/hex/enchantment -poems, not how to exactly translate) run super deep in the finnish history. The written finnish language is rather young, so for very long time we had only oral tradition and this would be how much knowledge was passed on. I have here with me copy of 1880 book of finnish ancient spellpoems ("Suomen kansan muinaisia loitsurunoja") and there are poems for every situation - be it to bring luck for fishing, hex bad luck on your enemy, to going to sauna, different poems to mitigate different pains from childbirth, to make cows have more milk and on they go. Whatever situation - theres bound to be poems for it ....and obviously these poems are just some versions of them and everyone who knew these would bound to make his own versions of them as well. Interestingly enough, some of the poems are no doubt really old, but some of the poems are certainly after christianity as the singer is using god, jesus etc instead of the traditional finnish deities and spirits. Anyway, even as finn, ive always found it funny how a nation that is known for its silent people actually has pretty damn vocal "hidden" side not many people are aware of - then again, the especially ridiculous number lyrics heavy metal bands around here does kinda highlight the point even more ;) ...we actually do have ton of other music besides metal (....) - but as most of the world isnt yet that interested in the finnish language, theres pretty much zero awareness outside finland. If anyone wants to hear what singing Kalevala sounds like, you can search on youtube "Kalevala laulettuna" - there are couple guys who are singing it through poem by poem. ...but its actually good to remember that Lönnrot who collected the poems to make Kalevala also as far as i understand edited those poems rather much...to make them more "fitting" of national epic so to speak. Basically the original poems could have rather much excessive cursing and vulgarity as well - old folk is known for its erm colorful use of language afterall, so yeah unfortunately it can be said we have now sort of censored version of the original poems. For anyone who is interested in games, well there is finnish iron age survival game "UnReal World" - but mythoswise i found interesting "The Mooseman" ...its NOT finnish game nor is it about Kalevala either - but it is about finno-ugric mythos from the Komi/Perm/etc view. So modern day Russia - but ofcourse the finno-ugric ties far-far predate the Russia. While there are very much clear differences, anyone who knows his ancient finnish mythos cant miss out the signs of the shared past in the deep forests of long past.

One of tolkiens stories is a direct "copy" of the story of kullervo from the kalevala, if i remember correctly the books name is either "the narn" or "the children of Húrin". It is a great story and really worth the read :)

Thanks for bringing the mythologies of the home country to the masses. Definately worth a listen. I did not see the initial video yet, but the pronounciation is still ways off and I could not even identify most of the names initially without reading the nicely provided text. Cant hold it against you though.

The origin story of Väinämöinen and his mother reminds me of the Gnostic story of Sophia and Yaldabaoth

Nice video! The names were pronounced well enough, Perkele 😅! Just wanted to share my perspective on the christian influences on Kalevala/finnish mythology. I do not see it as a solely negative thing. Of course it is sad that some lof the originals are lost. But still we retain some of them and even in the influencwd versions there is some of the originall quirkiness to be seen. And for me is more important that the old mythos is still around to influence and to be influenced by. It is just a sign that it is still alive. It is also great to see it adapted to modern audiences. Like the kids books by Mauri Kunnas or the adventures of uncle Scrooge by Don Rosa. Also there is videogames like "the Unreal world" or (announced) "Among the trolls". Not to mension numerous appereances in songs, television or movies. I think our national epic is still going strong!

Interesting Tom Bombamadil makes a lot of sense now

The woman giving birth to the baby is commonly referred to as Virgin Marjatta

Väinämöinen is Amazingk! Torilla tavataan \o7

GREAT VIDEO HERE FROM BRASIL 🇧🇷😎👍

Concerning song magic, it can also be found in the rest of the Nordics. In Scandinavia and Iceland it is called Sejd.

Tom Bombadil is the LOTR character most inspired by the Kalevala.

I want to see you next cooking video to dress up as the Swedish chef! Because that was good at the start

I was expecting Id to appear in that rather Freudian prologue.

There is a Christian influence in the wording of Kalevala, but in general it's very pagan. Also the book was written from multiple stories that varied a lot and Elias did take some artistic licence to make it more coherent story with an ongoing narrative

I wonder why dwarves have names that often mean elf

Ukko. Ukko Ylijumala. Dude the overgod in english. Finland's overgod of ancient times. Or that's what I kinda.. remember.. from somewhere.

Yes I'm just nitpicking but Louhi is pronounced "LOW-hi" (single vowels are all short so the "i" in "hi" is like the i in "little;" all multi-syllabic Finnish words have the main stress on the first syllable--in English it's usually on the second). I do so love your videos and their wide scope! While living in Finland I'm still learning bits of ancient lore from you. It's not really a subject that comes up that often in an ordinary conversation. Keep up your fine work!

HELL YEAH!

Helvetti perkele on you perse! En tosiaan ole vielä päässyt introa pidemmäs, mutta kun kerran käsketää nii pitää kommentoida.

0:06 Gesundheit!

He reminds me of Tolkien's Tom Bombadil character. Also the White Dwarf from Warhammer fantasy. He could have inspired both

I'm all helvetti perkele on your perse right now!! 😂😂

Now were doing finish voices only.

helvetin perkele perseeseesi :D:D

There is a difference between an ultimate hero and an anti-hero, and Väinämöinen falls into the anti-hero category, at least in the Kalevala created by Elias Lönnrot. Väinämöinen is not great as a ultimate hero, he makes many mistakes, behave unjusty and wrongly, fails, cries a lot and even acts as a villain when he steals the Sampo from Pohjola out of pure envy. These themes of the sad tragic antiheroic man already appear in old folk poems, runes, based on which Lönnrot created his own "Frankenstein's monster," i.e. the Kalevala. But in addition to this, there is Väinämöinen, older than the runes and earlier, who is not a hero, but a deity of waterways, backwaters and rivers that protects travelers and rules the streams as Ahti rules the lakes and ponds. But there is little left of this much earlier Väinö god in the folk poems that was collected by academics in the 17th-19th centuries.

do you have the video on Ilmatar and the creation of the world?

Väinämöinen seems like the Odin or Loki, may be like Rama (Indian epos)

fear not for finnish is nigh on impossible to pronounce for people who don't spend eons attempting to master this eldritch language of ours.

I think that was the best attempt of trying to pronounce finnish i have ever seen it do be hard unless u are from Estonia

Also prayer-spells of ol were all sing like verses of Kalevala. We Finns were thought to be as "Land of the Witces" most medieval period and even after... But in Finland Witch is not female thing, it just means that you are magician...

Please do something about the really cool Nart epics of the Caucasus , the ancient legends of the Circassians and Ossetians . The Narts are the coolest superheroes ever ! The leading Nart is Soserique , who was made out of stone and came alive !

I'm really sorry for being so mean in the comments of the last video you did on Finnish mythology.

Väinämöinen siunatkoon ja tiedon salatun antakoon, teille kaikille jotka tietoa janoavat ja haluavat. Hyvää päivänjatkoa teille kaikille, Päivätär teidän päivänne valaiskoon ja Kuutar teidän yönne kirkastakoon.

Did... did he just casually say perkele?!

Were you supposed to link the Kalevala in the description? Am i blind? Or did you just not remember to put them there?

It looks like a water pump / milll that can generate electricity and is powered/operated by a jet of water! And it's obviously is connected to there agricultural!! This could be a machine that's generated maybe electricity water and whatever flowers you want to grind up

On the level of 'archetypes', many native cultures lost their ancestral wisdom to Christianity and it seems the original creation story and the ancestral rishi=Vainamoinen gave way to Jewish religious history for the Finns as well with conversion to Christianity coming from outside the country. That their folk singers and psychics were able to recognize this and integrate it in the stories of their people when it was happening is interesting. Nowadays many indigenous people seek for their ancestral wisdom but how well can that be done if in many generations there have not been people who carry on the insights and practices supporting that level of the psyche and relationship to the cosmos? What could make Vainamoinen to speak again within the souls and minds of that nation? .I believe they are still incredibly intimately connected to nature.

Kalevala is pronounced "Ka-le-va-la" All the syllables in equal times apart. There's a rhythm, like 1-2-3-4 : ka-le-va-la. It's like a machine gun. All within one second. There's no real pitch accent, although the first 3 syllables are pronounced with even tone, and the last one just slightly drops down in pitch. But never mind, you're doing all right. Finnish language is weird, and hard to pronounce if you are not familiar with it. But not bad. Not bad at all :)

I would say that Wäinämöinen is much closer to Tom Bombadil than Gandalf. On the other hand, the story of the Sampo is almost 1 to 1 with the One Ring.

Fucking A non-greek mythology. We need alot more of this.

I just never get sick of saying it! lol

Don't worry, we don't expect you to be able to pronounce Väinämöinen. Voinomoinen was cute attempt. Sounds like Such Butter. Haha.

Work on the Pronunciations my friend :). And thanks for the Black Dragon tales!

Once I'd have loved to have seen a movie adaptation of Kalevala. Now? Studios can stay the f*ck away, they'd just politicize it.

Mä ikke tildekkes..!😘 Nice video it was! 👍

you should check Väinämöinen comic...

The world has gone so crazy, that I'd like to call (loitsia) Väinämöinen back! No more new age- let the old Gods rule!

will you do the Persian hero rostam

Debate is, when people wanna be right regardless of what the truth actualy is, as long as it's what they think is the truth. To me, truth is more important than who is right about what is truth. I don't care to debate, I care to learn it.

No worries about butchering Finnish names. Being interested enough in Finnish mythology to make videos and reading stories about it is such a show of respect that butchering some pronunciations doesn't matter at all.

Louhi, Laufey, Loki.....are the "Scary" Jotunn just Finns? Oh Swedes.....(p.s. yes I know Laufey wasn't Jotunn)

Can't believe I've been accidentally pronouncing it right this whole time