Mistress of Pohjola where cold, gloom and night predominate, divination rules, and "men eat each other," Louhi emblazons the darkness with her gown of glowing yellows, blues, golds and greens flowing like the living, ever-forming, changing, mysterious, and miraculous Aurora Borealis that showers the heavens of her northern Finnish home.1 Described by Kalevala (Land of Kaleval) translators as weakened, gap-toothed, ugly and shrunken by time and deed, Louhi's hidden yet profound inner beauty and feminine strength defy demeaning patriarchal and political stereotypes symbolizing the Crone in all women.

Misunderstood and mislabeled witch and evil sorceress by some scholars, Louhi is the Death Goddess-of-many-names who travels the blinding blackness of the unconscious guided by clairvoyance and clairaudience, wearing her shaman's feathered robes covered with all-seeing human and peacock eyes, to bring humanity the treasured jewels of wisdom found only in the most dangerous and horrific places.2 A lunar Great Mother, shapeshifter, illusionist, and messenger from the primordial abyss, Louhi and the winged dragon encircling her womb represent the psychical, mythic monsters whose spiritual hoard inspires hero quests, arouses nationalism and enlightens humanity.3

Louhi's spiraling purple neck tattoos, blue crescent moons, and multi-colored netted and webbed gown visually and symbolically portray her role as the selfish, insatiable and inescapable Queen of Fate.4 Fortune weaver, soul diviner and life taker, Louhi is the quintessential Crone Wise Woman, Nature incarnate, spinning the fortunes of those around her, able to create and destroy based on need, desire and sometimes whim. Unconcerned with traditional convention, sacrificing normality and acceptance, Louhi serves herself and her children before man or God thereby becoming the Kalevala scapegoat, but more importantly, succeeding in providing opportunities for her family based on choice rather than fear.

Committed to ensuring her eldest daughter a life void of domestic drudgery, Louhi designs near-impossible tasks for her Kalevala suitors to determine who will offer enduring personal happiness rather than the temporary, hollow satisfaction of wealth and goods. Ensnared by Louhi's demands, the seething white-hot anger, lust and greed of the Kalevala heroes is reflected in the gleaming eyes of the man locked within her web, puppetized and forced to prove his heroic, artistic and shamanic ability to win the saving love of the quintessential Maiden-for-rescue, the prize who forges champions.5

Louhi's primary command is the construction of her sampo: the archetypal symbol of rebirth and renewal that mills eternal plenty and makes the Mistress and her frigid country rich while the Land of Kaleval starves for its restorative, greening, feminine powers.6 Arms and hair raised in wildly electric vengeance, eyes despondent with loss and betrayal yet focused by the calm centering of rage, Louhi draws down galing winds, snow and ice to stop the desperate Kalevala men who brazenly attempt to steal her sampo. Rather than share her treasure, Louhi destroys the mill in a fit of unchecked madness that sets into motion a series of events resulting in her self-exile and transformation into the delicate, white dove shining from her center: the symbol of all Great Mothers and Queens of Heaven.7

Louhi's indomitable character remains eternally rooted in the Finnish culture that continues to embrace shamanism and totemic animism in spite of intruding Christianity. The epic poetry of and by gifted magicians, the light-hearted Kalevala straddles the thin line between Finnish fact and fiction inviting analysis, concretization and celebration by academics, religious scholars, artists and musicians worldwide.8

Image entitled Forging the Sampo copyright Akseli Gallen-Kallela

Cultivating aspects of the Crone

Louhi exemplifies the powerful, matriarchal role within indigenous and tribal cultures afforded the Crone, or Wise Woman. In pre-Christian cultures worldwide the menopausal Crone keeping her menstrual wise blood within her womb (also referred to as cauldron or sampo) houses the source of knowledge and wisdom for her people. Death Mother, Grand Mother and Medicine Woman, the Crone, or elder, guides and comforts souls both leaving and entering this world, acting as mid-wife, herbalist and shaman. For many older women the Crone years provide a time of joyful regal status spent directing and loving her family and community with wide-open heart and arms. I hope you will find the menopausal Crone years a magical, spirit-filled time as well.

Resources about the Crone stage of a woman's life include:

The Kalevala

Compiled by physician Elias Lonnrot during the early 1800s, the Kalevala is composed of over 22,000 lines (called runos) of incantations, dirges, weddings, deaths, drama, folklore, and mysticism collected from approximately 8,000 disparate Finnish rune singers. The empathy and respect Lonnrot felt for the people who provided Kalevala material and the love for his work are apparent in biographical details explaining the process of creating the massive epic.

The Kalevala grabs and entices the reader with humour, excitement, darkness and originality in addition to an equality of gender that is captivatingly refreshing. The Kalevala isn't generally studied prior to higher education levels, if at all, in the United States which is a shame. The epic offers a rich, bountiful storehouse of images and adventures that thrill young and old alike.

To date my very favorite version of the Kalevala remains Ursula Synge's Land of Heroes: A Retelling of the Kalevala, Atheneum Books, New York: 1978, c 1977. . The incredibly steep price of $200 for a used copy testifies to the book's literary value. I borrow my copy from the local library and hope to one day see Synge's copy reprinted.

Please find a few currently available versions and adaptations of the Kalevala to follow.

Kalevala On-Line

The Kalevala is a very long and wonderfully rich story. There are several versions and adaptations of the epic, as there always is with myth. Here a few on-line versions for your exploration.

Kalevala from the Finnish Literature Society

The Sampo by James Baldwin

Kalevala in Images

The best way to enjoy mythological metaphor is through images. The Kalevala has inspired artists of every genre and location. Here's a few links to artists exploring the Kalevala characters:

Finnish Kalevala site

Tamara Jufa

Akseli Gallen-Kallela

Impact of the Kalevala on Finnish Culture

I find it remarkable, heart-warming and hopeful that stories whose roots spread deeply into a culture's shamanic, indigenous past have had such a profound, lasting impact on Finnish culture. It is important to note that unlike Western Christian Culture in the United States, Finnish people embrace their indigenous heritage and laud the beauty and magic found in celebrating Nature and the invisible, mythological world that supports us all.

Virtual Finland - wonderful site including relevant, interesting information about Finnish culture from every angle - fantastic!

National Geographic - the impact of the Kalevala on J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings

Kalevala Women's Association

Bibliographic References

1. Pentikainen, Juha Y., Kalevala Mythology. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis: 1989, pp. 164, 172-174, 185, 234.

Synge, Ursula, Land of Heroes: A Retelling of the Kalevala, Atheneum Books, New York: 1978, c 1977, pp. 39, 57-59, 75.

2. Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press, Princeton: 1949, p. 53. Campbell describes the tyrant or monster (in this case Louhi) within hero myths: "Herald or announcer to the adventure (is) often dark, loathly or terrifying, judged evil by the world, yet if one could follow, the way would be opened through the walls of day into the dark where the jewels glow."

Walker, Barbara G., The Crone: Woman of Age, Wisdom and Power. Harper Collins Publishers, New York: 1985, pp. 29-39, 120-12. Walker details the Crone in history, religion and mythology.

3. Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press, Princeton: 1949, pp. 52-53. Campbell explains the dragon symbolism in hero myths: "...the unconscious deep- the rejected one wherein are hoarded all the rejected, unadmitted, unrecognized, unknown or undeveloped factors, laws and elements of existence."

Cooper, J.C., An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols. Thames and Hudson, London: 1978, p. 22, 55, 107.

Walker, Barbara G., The Women's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects. Harper Collins Publishers, San Francisco: 1988, p. 163.

4. Walker, Barbara G., The Women's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects. Harper Collins Publishers, San Francisco: 1988, pp. 162-163.

5. Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press, Princeton: 1949, pp. 55, 116, 118, 342-344.

6. Confusing and out of sync with comparative symbolic patterns in hero mythologies worldwide, the Kalevala sampo (or cauldron of rebirth and regeneration) is made for the Goddess of Death and Regeneration rather an integral, eternal part of her. Comparative research suggests that the sampo reflects the personal background of the perceiver: eternally spinning mill of plenty, boat, eagle, cauldron, World Axis, World Tree, cosmic womb, talisman, and the Great Goddess herself.

Ervast, Pekka, Key to the Kalevala. Blue Dolphin Publishing, Nevada City: 1996, p. x.

Kolehmainen, John L., Epic of the North: The Story of Finland's National Epic. The Northwestern Publishing Company: New York: 1973, p. 137. (special ordered through the library)

Pentikainen, Juha Y., Kalevala Mythology. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis: 1989, pp. 162, 166.

Walker, Barbara G., The Crone: Woman of Age, Wisdom and Power. Harper Collins Publishers, New York: 1985, pp. 100-105, 111. This reference is particularly relevant.

7. Cooper, J.C., An Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols. Thames and Hudson, London: 1978, p. 54.

Ervast, Pekka, Key to the Kalevala. Blue Dolphin Publishing, Nevada City: 1996, p. 19.

8. Kolehmainen, John L. Epic of the North: The Story of Finland's National Epic. The Northwestern Publishing Company: New York: 1973, p. 61, 93, 107, 112-117, 268-269. (special ordered through the library)

Pentikainen, Juha Y., Kalevala Mythology. Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis: 1989.

Rajanen, Aini, Of Finnish Ways. Dillon Press Inc., Minneapolis: 1981, p. 26, 63, 72, 76.

Synge, Ursula, Land of Heroes: A Retelling of the Kalevala, Atheneum Books, New York: 1978, c 1977.

Resources for further study

The Kalevala

Finnish Mythology

Finnish Culture

Saami Culture and Mythology

© Copyright 2006 Paula Vaughan
Not to be reprinted without permission.