A long time ago Finns, Finno-Ugric tribes and Baltic tribes practised animistic nature-based belief, where everything in nature had its own place and spirit. Trees were widely worshipped. Some trees, holier than others were called spirit trees. In this book, you will learn about ancient tree worship and mythologies and stories told about different tree species and gods, goddesses and magical creatures related to them. How these trees were used in folk magic and how people saw them. Sacred groves were very common. These special places were thought to harbour gods and goddesses, so they were also worshipped and given sacrificial gifts of food, drink and treasures. Altars were built in these groves for the purpose of worship. An altar was usually a large stone or a wooden table holding a statue or an image of a particular deity. Sacred groves were communally owned by an entire village and were generally located in the woods near the village. People could visit a grove alone or in groups to show reverence to the gods. It was believed that trees understood humans, especially women. People told their troubles to trees and felt certain that the trees kept their secrets. In the old days, people relied more on the forest than they do today. The entire forest ecosystem offered almost all of the materials needed for life: shelter and abundant food like berries, plants, mushrooms and animals.Learn about the Christmas tree tradition and how it arrived in Finland and the tree emuu's, these were spirits that created the different tree species. Niina Pekantytär aka Fairychamber is known for her passion and knowledge of Finnish mythology and folklore. Born in northern Finland, Niina grew up listening to these stories from a very young age.

It was the Kalevala that initiated the process leading to the foundation of Finnish identity during the nineteenth century and was, therefore, one of the crucial factors in the formation of Finland as a new nation in the twentieth century.

The spirit of nationalism that swept over the small peoples of Europe in the early nineteenth century touched faraway Finland and started the Finns on the quest of the Finnish. There as elsewhere scholars who were also patriots found that the native tongue, lost to the educated and the well-to-do, had been preserved in the songs and stories which were current among the peasants. Elias Lönnrot spent a long and busy life collecting those ancient runos from which he succeeded in building up a national epic, the Kalevala. This is Lönnrot's great contribution to his own country and to the world. Beside the material for the Kalevala Lönnrot made important collections of lyrics, proverbs, and stories. During his time and since other patriot scholars have made faithful records of the songs and tales which the old Finnish minstrels, the runolaulajat, chanted to the strains of the kantele. The mass of such material now gathered together in the archives of the Society of Finnish Literature at Helsingfors is imposing in bulk and of great importance to the student of comparative folklore.

Three Finnish siblings head for the logging fields of nineteenth-century America in the New York Times–bestselling author’s “commanding historical epic” (Washington Post). Born into a farm family, the three Koski siblings—Ilmari, Matti, and Aino—are raised to maintain their grit and resiliency in the face of hardship. This lesson in sisu takes on special meaning when their father is arrested by imperial Russian authorities, never to be seen again. Lured by the prospects of the Homestead Act, Ilmari and Matti set sail for America, while young Aino, feeling betrayed and adrift after her Marxist cell is exposed, follows soon after. The brothers establish themselves among a logging community in southern Washington, not far from the Columbia River. In this New World, they each find themselves—Ilmari as the family’s spiritual rock; Matti as a fearless logger and entrepreneur; and Aino as a fiercely independent woman and union activist who is willing to make any sacrifice for the cause that sustains her. Layered with fascinating historical detail, this novel bears witness to the stump-ridden fields that the loggers—and the first waves of modernity—leave behind. At its heart, Deep River explores the place of the individual, and of the immigrant, in an America still in the process of defining its own identity.