The Ancient Legends of Finland




Finnish mythology is not very well known and is little discussed, even in academic circles. It embodies a great wealth of oral tradition recorded in the last century by wandering folklorists near the Arctic Circle. These dedicated amateur ethnographers preserved the ancient stories of the Far North, for today, the rune-singers' art is almost completely gone. Some of these legends and myths resemble the Viking Sagas, but there are other elements, strange artifacts of ancient shamanism seemingly from far off places to the east, beyond the Ural Mountains. The origins of Finnish wisdom and mythology may be as far flung, perhaps, as China and Tibet.