sunnie_star

Analyzing the Finnish mythology was an important step of my work. It helped to understand better the origins of Finnish and where many of their tradictions and costumes came from. 

The Finnish mythology has many elements in common with Estonian mythology, but also Scandinavian, Baltic and Sami.
 

It is believed that Mikael Agricola was the first one who listed the main divinities venerated in Häme and Karelian regions. Agricola wrote their names and characteristics in verse. Later on, in XIX century Elias Lönnrot did a research much more in detailed. He travelled through the country gathering folk poetry and rewrote it the national epic poem the Kalevala. Nowadays the Kalevala is the most important source of the Finnish mythology what we have.

One of the main Gods described by Lönnrot is Ukko. In beginning he was a natural spirit like many others, but then he became the God of Gods (fin, Ylijumala). In fact the Ylijumala was also another way to call Ukko, which literally ment “God who is above”.
In the Finnish mythology not only Gods were adored, epics heroes, elves, natural spirits were also venerated. Ancient Finnish pagans believed in an animistic world, which means that for them every creature and natural phenomenon owned a soul as nothing could live without soul. Also it was believed that human soul could leave the body to gain more experiences, but it was dangerous since the person could die, if the soul stood aside for too long.
 

In the Finnish mythology also animals were sacred. It was believed that the most sacred animal was the bear. Ancient pagans believed it came from the sky and they had special rituals when they killed one, so he could reincarnate in other animals of the forest. Since the bear was so sacred many names were given to it, such as metsän vanhus, which means “the old of the forest” and jumalavilija “the grain of God”.

An other very important animal in the finnish mythology was the bird. The most important one was the swan because with its long neck it could see through all three world: the underworld, the human world and the above world.

Also in the ancient cosmology it was believed that was a bird who gave life to all the universe.

dateanna

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Hello!

I was recently accepted into a program in Phoenix, AZ, I will be working with the homeless population of the area. I am relocating to Phoenix from Boston at the end of July. It was suggested to me that learning some Spanish will help because a large population of the area has Spanish as their primary language.  Throughout high school and college I took French, so I have no Spanish in my background. I am looking for a good tutorial to learn some Spanish in the next few months and then continue when I get to phoenix. I looked into Rosetta Stone, but it’s just so expensive! Does anyone know of anything similar that is user friendly, good for beginners, and won’t break the bank? I am willing to spend a few hundred dollars, but I want something that’s worthwhile.   I am just looking to communicate, hold a basic conversation. I don’t really need to be able to read or write it, though maybe that will come someday.

I’m not sure that I am in the right community; hopefully someone can help me! Thank You!

bezoomniy

Hi ,

I'm writing a graduation thesis about individualism in French and English-speaking countries now and I'd really appreciate if you'd give me your opinion:

list at least three assosiations which come up to ur head when u hear the word "individualism".
Please, answer in French if you are from a French speaking country and in English if you are from an English speaking country

Thank you a lot for your help :)

enjoyrussian

This is information for the most motivated applicants for one of Russian language summer courses at Russian language school «Enjoy Russian». If you are really interested in Russian language, history and culture, but you can not afford studying in Russia, you can apply for the scholarship, covering the tuition fee in our Summer Russian Language Program in July or August 2009.