Kevin's Watch

A Brief Introduction to Finnic Mythology and Finland in the Ancient Legends of Other Cultures

I was requested to post a thread about Finnish mythology for a while back, but what with one distraction and another, I partially forgot about it. However, I might try to remedy this laxness of mind now. I'll start with some geographical information, as the whole concept of Finno-Ugric peoples might be entirely new to many. If my writing gets harder to chew than a lorryload of styrofoam because of unfamiliar terminology, feel free to give me a poke and I'll edit it. Furthermore, some very rudimentary knowledge of Norse mythology might be required, at least in the portions where I compare these two with one another. If something causes a cloud of question marks to spin around your head, don't hesitate to ask about it. I've talked about a smattering of odds and ends relating to this topic elsewhere on this forum, so I may well repeat myself occasionally.

I'm using materials from Wikipedia whenever I deem them reliable enough. Scant as they are, this also helps in harvesting English-language texts available to everyone.

With the term Finnic, rather than Finnish, I refer to the Finno-Ugric peoples of the Scandinavian and Baltic areas plus those living in the Russian territories closest to the present-day Finland. Since I'm scarcely omniscient in this subject, I'll concentrate on 2-4 major topics: the Finns, the Saami, and the Estonians. Note that these Wikipedia links pertain to modern-day settings, and a good thousand years back, before the advent of Christianity, no clear national borders existed, and the habitat of Finnic tribes used to be much broader. Since then, many have become extinct, hence making it cumbersome to point out exact locations.

Finland lies between Sweden and Russia, and Estonia rises from the sea directly in the south. Simply put, Finland has a cold, ungenial climate, 4-6 months of permasnow during regular winters, and must endure the same polar twilight as Alaska. Even so, people have unceasingly lived here ever since the Stone Age.

Where exactly on the map?

Finnic peoples in Foreign Accounts

A careful reader can spot descriptions of Finnic peoples every now and then in old chronicles and Norse sagas. Oftentimes they, however, do not bear names equal to the contemporary inhabitants of Fennoscandia and some terms have an entirely diverse meaning. Some examples can be found in the following.

A helpful map: www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/euro ... olbeck.jpg

Aestii, Ests, Estonians

Tacitus (c. 100 AD) says:

On the right shore of the Suevic sea dwell the tribes of the Aestii, whose dress and customs are the same with those of the Suevi (Swedes). They worship the mother of the gods; and as the symbol of their superstition, they carry about them the figures of wild boars. This serves them in place of armor and every other defense: it renders the votary of the goddess safe even in the midst of foes. -- They even explore the sea; and are the only people who gather amber, which by them is called Glese, and is collected among the shallows and upon the shore.

Wulfstan of Hedeby (c. 900 AD) says:

This country called Eastland is very extensive, and there are in it many towns, and in every town is a king. There is a great quantity of honey and fish; and even the king and the richest men drink mare's milk, whilst the poor and the slaves drink mead. There is a vast deal of war and contention amongst the different tribes of this nation. There is no ale brewed amongst the Estonians, but they have mead in profusion. --
It is also an established custom with the Estonians that the dead bodies of every tribe or family shall be burned, and if any man findeth a single bone unconsumed, they shall be fined to a considerable amount. These Estonians also have the power of producing artificial cold; and it is thus the dead body continues so long above ground without putrefying, on which they produce this artificial cold; and, though a man should set two vessels full of ale or of water, they contrive that either shall be completely frozen over; and this equally the same in the summer as in the winter.

Adam of Bremen (c. 1100 AD) says:

We were told, moreover, that there are in this sea many other islands, of which a large one is called Estland. --They adore dragons and birds and also sacrifice to them live men whom they buy from the merchants. -- This island is said, indeed, to be very near the land of women --.

The Kvens of Kvenland (also spelled Quens, Käens, Cwenas, Quenland, Kvenland, Quænland, called Sitones in Tacitus' Germania): somewhat comparable to the present-day Finns, they inhabited a prehistoric kingdom called Kvenland, Kainuunmaa, Kaland, or Kalevala which stretched across both sides of the Gulf of Bothnia. They had permanent villages, hill forts, agriculture, and, according to some speculations, a form of military.

Tacitus says:

Upon the Suiones (Swedes), border the people Sitones; and, agreeing with them in all other things, differ from them in one, that here the sovereignty is exercised by a woman. So notoriously do they degenerate not only from a state of liberty, but even below a state of bondage.

This likely refers to a matriarchal system among the Kvens (such a custom would've been an abomination unto the Romans). Later, this gave ground to the belief that the Land of Amazons could be found in Fennoscandia, fortified by a blatant mistranslation: kven hovers very close to the Germanic kvinna, kvenna (wife, woman). In the Kalevala (see the introduction later), the witch Louhi reigns as the sovereign mistress over her dominion locatable somewhere in this area or to the north of it. Even these days a local stereotype lives on about the ladies of this region: that they're loud, dominant, physically strong, and quick to anger. I speak from experience here, what with having had such a grandmother.

Ohthere of Hålogaland (c. 900 AD) says:

The Sweons (Swedes) have to the south of them the same arm of the sea, called Ost Sea; and to the north, over the wastes, is Cwenland; to the west-north of them are the Scride-Finnas, and to the west the Northmen. The Cwenas sometimes make incursions against the Northmen over these moors, and sometimes the Northmen on them; there are very large meres of fresh water beyond the moors, and the Cwenas carry their ships overland into the meres, whence they make depredations on the Northmen; they have ships that are very small and very light.

Adam of Bremen says:

In this area there are also very many other islands, all infested by ferocious barbarians and for this reason avoided by navigators. Likewise, round about the shore of the Baltic Sea, it is said, live the Amazons. -- Some declare that these women conceive by sipping water. Some, too, assert that they are made pregnant by the merchants who pass that way, or by the men whom they hold captive in their midst, or by various monsters, which are not rare there. -- And when these women come to give birth, if the offspring be of the male sex, they become Cynocephali.

Possibly a very corrupted reference to berserkers or the local men wearing wolfskins upon their heads.

In the Norwegian language, the name Kven has long applied to Baltic Finns, rather than 'Finn', which means a person of Saami origin.

Chuds, suhnit, soomet, suomalaiset: Baltic Finns comparable to present-day Finns and Kvens, they inhabited Southern Finland and, according to some sources, sections of Estonia. Chudes in folklore.

Finns, Skrithifinns, Lapps, Lapponians: Various Saami tribes, see the Wikipedia link above.

NOTE: sometimes the denomination appears to point to Baltic Finns rather than Saami, there's some confusion over this in various sources.

Adam of Bremen says:

On the confines of the Swedes and Norwegians towards the north live the Skritefingi, who they say, outstrip wild beasts at running. On the east, Sweden touches the Rhiphaean Mountains, where there is an immense wasteland, the deepest shows, and where hordes of human monsters prevent access to what lies beyond. There are -- Amazons, Cyclops, and those Solinus calls Himantopodes, who hop on one foot, and those who delight in human flesh as food. The king of the Danes told that a certain people [the Saami] were in the habit of descending from the highlands into the plains. They are small of stature but hardly matched by the Swedes in strength and agility. These people, it is said, are to this day so superior in magic arts or incantations that they profess to know what every one is doing the world over. Then they also draw great sea monsters to shore with a powerful mumbling of words and do much else of which one reads in the Scriptures about magicians.

I have not yet personally met any Himantopodes. Perhaps pollution and Soviet nuclear tests have finished them off. The passage however manages to describe seiðr magic to a certain point of accuracy.

Wikipedia knows to add:

In 1835, scholarship draws a Balto-Finnic link to seid, citing the depiction of its practitioners as such in the sagas and elsewhere, and link seid to the practices of the noaidi, the patrilineal shaman of the Sami people. However, Indo-European origins are also possible.[8] Note that the word seita (Finnish) or sieidde (Sami) is a human-shaped body formed by a tree, or a large and strangely shaped stone or rock and does not involve "magic" or "sorcery;" there is a good case, however, that these words do derive ultimately from seiðr.

Karelians, Kirjalaland, Biarmland, Biarmia, Bjarmians: names for Finnic tribes and places dwelling approximately in-between the Kola Peninsula and lake Ladoga.

What to Read First

The Kalevala



The Kalevala (tr. 'Kaleva's Land', sometimes 'Land of Heroes') remains the best single source for Finnish mythology and a must-read for anyone interested in delving further into the topic. The long epic written in alliterative verse, proportionate to the Icelandic Eddas or Beowulf, was composed by Elias Lönnrot in the early 19th century from folk poetry collected in Karelia and other parts of Finland. Epical heroes and wizards fight against the evil forces of the witch of Pohjola, woo beautiful maidens, and venture on daring quests even into the pits of Tuonela (the netherworld) whence the hero can sometimes return only through bodily resurrection. A summarized description of the characters can be found here and synopses of the poems here.

Note: Lönnrot invented small portions of poetry to connect otherwise disjointed stories and sometimes picked up character attributes from a wealth of sources. The young warrior Lemminkäinen, for instance, is a blend of three or four different legendary heroes. Lönnrot furthermore assigned more humanlike forms to the leads: in the original myths Väinämöinen and his comrades are giants. More about that later.

English translation version 1 (public domain):
www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25953
www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33089

Version 2 (public domain):
www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5184
www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5185

Buy on Amazon (also other versions exist):
www.amazon.com/Kalevala-Epic-Finnish-Pe ... 192&sr=1-4

Wikimedia Commons gallery of Kalevala illustrations:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Akseli_Gallen-Kallela

Kullervo speaks to his cursed sword:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... alleen.jpg

Frescoes in the National Museum of Finland: Ilmarinen ploughs the adder-riddled field, the defense of Sampo
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... reskot.jpg

(I'll add more here if and when I find some other images online.)

A companion book (recommended by my English-speaking friend):
www.amazon.com/Kalevala-Mythology-Folkl ... 691&sr=1-1

Classical music adaptations by Jean Sibelius:
www.amazon.com/Sibelius-Kullervo-Sympho ... 924&sr=1-3
www.amazon.com/Sibelius-Finlandia-Karel ... 972&sr=1-3

Creation, Cosmology, Spirits

In Finnic mythology, the world was created from the egg of a water bird (often a pochard), the other half becoming the dome of the sky, the other the waters and land, while the yolk rolled off into the sky to assume the role of the sun. Several variations about the first living persons exist, but usually these included Ukko or Vanataat (a god of air or thunder) besides a Sea Giant (Ikuturso or Turisas) who mated with the maiden of air who, later (sometimes this 'trifling while' consists of 700 years) gave birth to Väinämöinen, the god of wisdom, poetry, and singing. He emerged from the waters as an elderly but powerful man, white-haired and bearded. In Estonian myths, at the beginning of all things Vanataat created the kalevid, giants, (ao. Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, Lemminkäinen, Kaleva), who later helped shape and build the earth and heavens. The Estonian Ilmarinen forged the stars, and Väinämöinen, the original Forestall, wandered about the lands, causing tall trees and flowers to shoot up from the soil with his magical singing and kantele-playing. Giants, overall, were considered to be the first-ever inhabitants of the north: a race called Jatulit, Jiehtanasit or Kalevanpojat (means the same as the Norse Jötunn) populated the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia before the Saami. They were believed to have fashioned various megalithic stone constructions like hiidenkiukaat (barrows) or jatulinkirkot (neolithic monuments) and thrown massive rocks (hiidenkivi, kukkarokivi, originally transported hither and thither by glacial currents during the ice age) while contesting with one another.

According to the prehistoric cosmology, an axis mundi nailed to the Northern Star supported the cupola of the layered welkins, which, according to some poems, were six or nine (compare to the Nine Worlds in Norse myths). A giant fox running through the upper airs illuminated them with the aurora as it whisked its tail. In the furthest north was situated the center of the world, and there, right below the axis mundi, roiled the herculean whirlpool Kinahmi, a route down into Tuonela, the dominion of the dead. In the remotest south hid Lintukoto, the collective home of (migrating) birds. The Milky Way (F. Linnunrata, 'bird's track'), was understood to guide the flight of birds. Kuumet and kapeet (certain types of sky spirits) obscured and released the moon during eclipses.

Only traces of age-old Finnic beliefs relating to cosmology remain, but the alignments of celestial bodies must've once greatly affected rituals and the general goings-ons of the shamans or witches.

Origins, Guardian Spirits

The origin, the birth of any object or condition, whether it be a stone, tree, sickness, etc. and its true name were important in warding off evil or conjuring something for aid. For instance, if a snake had bitten someone, a part of the curing ritual consisted of reciting verses about the origin of the serpent. The same would apply to someone suffering from a sword wound; a blade is forged of iron, and hence one would reach out to the very birth of this metal. Apparently this logic made perfect sense to our forebears.

"Ukko, mightiest of Creators,
He, the God above in heaven,
From the Air the Water parted,
And the continents from water,
When unborn was evil Iron,
Uncreated, undeveloped.
"Ukko, God of realms supernal,
Rubbed his mighty hands together.
Both his hands he rubbed together,
On his left knee then he pressed them,
And three maidens were created,
Three fair Daughters of Creation,
Mothers of the rust of Iron,
And of blue-mouthed steel the fosterers.
"Strolled the maids with faltering footsteps
On the borders of the cloudlets,
And their full breasts were o'erflowing,
And their nipples pained them sorely.
Down on earth their milk ran over,
From their breasts' overflowing fulness,
Milk on land, and milk on marshes,
Milk upon the peaceful waters.
"Black milk from the first was flowing,
From the eldest of the maidens,
White milk issued from another,
From the second of the maidens,
Red milk by the third was yielded,
By the youngest of the maidens.
"Where the black milk had been dropping,
There was found the softest Iron,
Where the white milk had been flowing,
There the hardest steel was fashioned,
Where the red milk had been trickling,
There was undeveloped Iron.
"But a short time had passed over,
When the Iron desired to visit
Him, its dearest elder brother,
And to make the Fire's acquaintance.
"But the Fire arose in fury,
Blazing up in greatest anger,
Seeking to consume its victim,
E'en the wretched Iron, its brother.
. . .

Every person possessed a so-called guardian spirit (luonto), which has little to do with angels in Christianity. This was believed to be the ghost of an ancestor, emerged from the collective abode of the dead from beneath deep waters. A child received her luonto only after teething, before which she would've been especially vulnerable to the influence of vindictive spirits. If the luonto was particularly eminent, a person could experience an etiäinen. Also many places, including individual houses, stood in the protection of various wardens: väki (the powers of diverse groups of spirits: for instance veen väki, the powers of water spirits) and tomte/tonttu (a dwarvish or gnome-like creature, mayhap best known for protecting saunas or grainholds). Plants and animals furthermore boasted with their own ancestral gods or guardians, so-called emuu, the first father or mother or their kin. Höyheneukko (feather-mother) was the emuu of birds, Lemmes the emuu of alders, Kyllikki the emuu of stones in some folk poems.

The human soul (scarcely analogical with any Christian ideas either) was believed to comprise of several parts called sieluolento (soul-wight), some of which could reside outside the body. Luonto granted a person their luonne (character, personality), and itse was a form of shadow-soul, a mirror image of one's self. If a person lost one of their sieluolentos, he might fall grievously ill or elsewise become depressed. Upon death or birth, a soul-bird, usually a water fowl, brought or snatched away the parts of soul. A Finnic noita (witch, shaman) would--after falling into trance--send one of his sieluolento into the otherworlds to listen to the advice of ancestral spirits or invite them over to the physical world.



I'll post more if this stirs any interest. So, (possibly) to come in non-specific order: rituals, customs, more about gods, spirits, and the worship of thereof, giant legends, important annual feasts, etc.

Interesting stuff, Zorm, thanks! You're right, Finnic mythology doesn't get much play in the West.

Some of these ideas remind me of Slavic mythology, especially the guardian spirits of the home (including a spirit who looked after the bathhouse, and one, usually an ancestor, who lives behind the stove).

With the term Finnic, rather than Finnish, I refer to the Finno-Ugric peoples of the Scandinavian and Baltic areas plus those living in the Russian territories closest to the present-day Finland. Since I'm scarcely omniscient in this subject, I'll concentrate on 2-4 major topics: the Finns, the Saami, and the Estonians.

This is not explicitly clear: are you saying that Finnic is an umbrella label which includes the Finnish? If not, please mark the line of distinction! It would be most appreciated!!

They worship the mother of the gods; and as the symbol of their superstition, they carry about them the figures of wild boars.

Interesting. Not a typical association: in fact, my cultural knowledge of the boar is such that it is impossible for me to bridge a connection between the boar and maternity which is strong, as the boar is such a "masculine" animal in most mythology (it is, among other things, associated with Arthur IIRC in one of the versions of the myth, perhaps the Monmouth or Mallory versions).

This island is said, indeed, to be very near the land of women --.

Oh indeed? Where indeed is this island? I would love to know.

For instance, if a snake had bitten someone, a part of the curing ritual consisted of reciting verses about the origin of the serpent.

This reminds me of how I once read that in Greek society, at least on some occasions, the Greeks would shift blame from the one who performed a sacrifice on an animal around the room until it reached an object, such as a knife, and then cast the knife into the ocean. In other words, put blame upon a thing unable to deny blame! A brilliant solution!

Of course, in a real attempt to cast blame and determine who was guilty, we would find ourselves in a system of infinite recursions.

aliantha wrote:Interesting stuff, Zorm, thanks! You're right, Finnic mythology doesn't get much play in the West.

Some of these ideas remind me of Slavic mythology, especially the guardian spirits of the home (including a spirit who looked after the bathhouse, and one, usually an ancestor, who lives behind the stove).

No problem.

There's been millennia of interaction (trade, wars, raids, marriages...) between Slavs and Baltic Finns, so undoubtedly ideas and customs have crossed tribal borders. I'm not really an expert on Slavic myths, but at least one example of deity exchange I can pin down: the Baltic-Slavic thunder god Perkūnas/Pērkons, which cognates with the Finnish Perkele. The latter is usually considered a loan. Outside folklore, DNA haplogroup studies have shown that some groups of contemporary Baltic Slavs descend from Finnic ancestors.

Holsety wrote: This is not explicitly clear: are you saying that Finnic is an umbrella label which includes the Finnish? If not, please mark the line of distinction! It would be most appreciated!!

Yes, it's an umbrella term; I'll fix. Folklorists and etymologists and so on utilize a gaggle of labels here to confuse us Muggles, but 'Finnic' does enclose several peoples living around the Baltic Sea: the Finns, the Karelians, the Ingrians, the Estonians, and so on. I might've made a mistake by clumping the Saami under this title, however, since Wikipedia likes to list them as Uralic, but I'm quite sure I've heard them being called Finnic also... Ah well, I'll write a line about that too.

Holsety wrote:Oh indeed? Where indeed is this island? I would love to know.

Me too. But that's Adam of Bremen speaking from beyond a thousand years. I don't precisely recall which old chronicle it might've been, but according to it, Scania (Skåne) was an island also. We're dwelling in Earthsea here, apparently.

Holsety wrote:Interesting. Not a typical association: in fact, my cultural knowledge of the boar is such that it is impossible for me to bridge a connection between the boar and maternity---

Yup, it's pretty unusual. Don't know more about this boar--mother earth godddess link myself, and Tacitus may well have had some fourth-hand knowledge or messed something up. Might try to look it up sometime; a relevant goddess called Maaema (Earth-Mother) does however exist in the Estonian pantheon.

Zorm, thanks so much for this! I find early history very intersting.

Furthermore, some very rudimentary knowledge of Norse mythology might be required,

Does having read Beowulf count?

deer of the dawn wrote:Zorm, thanks so much for this! I find early history very intersting.

Furthermore, some very rudimentary knowledge of Norse mythology might be required,

Does having read Beowulf count?

No problem, glad you found it interesting.

Beowulf isn't a bad choice, considering that it utilizes the same meter as the Kalevala and other forms of ancient Finnic poetry. It, however, paints a different kind of picture of the Giants (read: the race of Cain in B.) than for instance the Eddas. They weren't inherently hideous, malicious man-eaters, and, say, in Estonian folklore they're usually treated as heroes who fight against foreign invaders and the forces of evil. Furthermore, I'm later going to build a few bridges between Väinämöinen and the lineage of Beowulf himself, so...

Damn, I still apparently need to fix the first post before continuing this. Curse you, life and other distractions.

A sight for sore eyes, this topic. I have been to Finland several times, but only once did I venture north of Rovaniemi. I have close friends in Hki, Punkalaidun and Huittinen, and there is this weird longing pulling at my nerves to go back, time and again, and relive the times I spent there. The silence, weather, and landscape, specially outside stadi, are a huge contrast to Portugal's mad atmosphere, both socially and where the climate itself is concerned. Much of what has been presented here is new for me, not all of it, but quite a lot. An interesting time to return to this forum

Well, that is a coincidence, considering that my mom's spending a week's vacation right now in Lisbon. I'm afraid I'm a complete berk when it comes to knowing anything about Portuguese culture (Firenze's about the closest to the Mediterranean Sea I've ever visited, and that's a wholly different country...), but glad to hear you've liked it here. =D Right now, weather-wise, it's mainly very dark, foggy, and damp (and indeed silent, considering that even most birds have scooted away, but I guess my highly introverted Finnish character finds a certain solace in the gloom of November).

So, you told you like the landscapes; have you visited any of the national parks? Or, more bordering on the topic, any prehistoric sites? I haven't had a chance to rake through the areas around Helsinki, but the woods here in Southwestern Finland are filled with prehistoric relics, sometimes with bits of folklore attached to them. I personally find them quite fascinating.

So, how's it like in Portugal (aside from 'the mad atmosphere' you mentioned )?

Please allow me an hour to compose a proper reply. I have a stonemason and a painter wrecking the upstairs bedroom right now, and I still have half a ton of lumber to stack in the shed. I'll be right back

Oh, to the forges of Garra with it. I guess they won't open a Bore through the walls if I remain here for another minute or ten

I was in Puurijarvi and Päijänne, but I want to visit Oulanka, well most of Samiland really, maybe trace around all of it and get a few shots well into the Kola Peninsula and the Murmansk military ruins, I mean bases. This is something that creeps back into the waking sections of my mind every time I re-watch "Children of Men". The scenes in Jasper's cabin and the news snippets and memorabilia always make me feel like going abroad to in search of long lost echoes. I did a train tour of some former eastern-bloc industrial cities last year for exactly the same reason. At least here I can feel normal saying this

No prehistoric sites were seen. The iron mounds near Turku were on my list, but I got sidetracked so often that I ended up saving an entire next visit for that. And going back to that cool nightclub, er, I forgot its name Ostrobothnia? Bothnia? A place of sheer lycanthropy and mass biochemical fugue

How can I describe Portugal's current condition without sounding as if I had a loremaster's staff preventing my body from doing proper ventilation?

Geographically, this is beautiful; in recent years, the seasons became somewhat offset causing unbearable October indian summers and cold showers, even an occasional hailstorm, well into the first weeks of August. Crazy, but then again, the country doesn't stand out as it is since the weather turned weird everywhere. I can lucidly recall from my childhood years, late seventies and early eighties, when proper, regular winters gave birth to blooming springs of green and yellow and pearl, and those in turn to hot, but never scorching, summers. Hell, there was even a thunderstorm season within a season. No longer. But all in all, the perpetually stretching shores, rolling hills and granite encroachments to the northeast, plains and prairie at the center, well, for anyone enjoying fair weather, this is as perfect as they come.

The people have no ethics, morals, values, deontology, or esteem for stuff that has to be commonplace in any civilized society: knowledge, wisdom, age, experience, humility, and discipline are obnoxiously disregarded and those upholding such values become branded as naive or, worse, carriers of a superiority complex. Go figure.

The State is the main employer and provider of the people, which has infantilized three generations into a state of hapless lack of initiative and fear of entrepreneurship. Much to the flowering of this effect contributed having come out of a right-wing dictatorship that ended in 74 with a left-wing coup, followed by a period of proletarian, pro-soviet socialism, which ended in 86 when we joined the EU (which we should never have, not because I disagree with the principle, but because we were, and are, not ready for it); as a result, we have an electorate from which 50% of people don't vote at all, and there are no political parties that are not socialist; people live under the atavistic aegis of fear from the former regime's ideological inclination, and so for the past 37 years government after profligate and puerile government has been led to power merely by refusing to rule wisely instead of sticking to the "everyone has every rightm and for free" formula. The outcome of their follies has been somewhat understated in the news, as of late.

(to be continued)

(one day someone is going to have me enlightened about how a person who self-evaluates as an introvert, myself included, will oft bear the hallmarks of ten thousand concurrent universes all exploding in timelike fashion in different languages, and verbosely at that)

That's neat! I'd love to travel around Lappi also, but the lack of a car combined with train ticket and hotel prices have hindered it so far. It's ridiculous that one can spend a week or two in Czech Republic with the same amount of money that flows into a few days of inland 'cruising'. Which might well lead me to rant about the shortcomings and grievances and idiocies of this country, like you did. I suppose there's no land on the face of the earth that wouldn't suffer from its own set of weaknesses.

Eastern Europe does contain a fascinating array of sights from eroded Roman amphitheaters to these Soviet ruins. Miskolc was on my list of cities to see when I visited Hungary some months back (might have been an interesting combination of industrialism, mountains, and castle ruins), but we ended up hunting down some late Roman constructions instead. Maybe some other time.

To keep this thread on-topic, I probably should fish out some photos of barrows and cupstones locatable in Satakunta and Turku/Salo area, and toss in a few lines about the beliefs attached to them. I might actually know the iron-age mounds you're talking about: the very least there's a couple of larger ones a few kilometers south to the the Vanhalinna hill fort, which seemingly was an important base during the late Iron Age. Apparently it supported a small standing army.


Anyhow, thanks for the enlightenment about Portugal.

I'm afraid I don't recognize the nightclub, though. Not much of a nighttime person any more, thanks to early work mornings.

Don't set me ol'rusty hyperdrive going off on prices. An average salary in Portugal is €750 a month. The median supermarket cart exacts at least a €300 toll for a family of three. I am utterly convinced that this population harbors a forgotten, pre-cambrian gene pool safely tucked within

Cromlech near Évora.