It’s shaping up to be the perfect Spring day here, so I thought it was time to take this song out of the vault.

Suvetar, fine matron
Arise to see the seeds
Raise the matron´s corn
So that we may be spared pain

Manutar, matron of the earth
Lift up the shoots from the ground
New shoots from the stumps
So that we may be spared pain

Suvetar, fine matron
Arise to see the seeds
Raise the matron´s corn
So that we may be spared pain

Manutar, matron of the earth
Lift up the shoots from the ground
New shoots from the stumps
So that we may be spared pain

Feed us with honey-eats
Give us honey-drink
Delicious honey-grass
On a blossoming knoll

You have shining silver
You have glistening gold
You have shining silver
You have glistening gold

Suvetar, fine matron
Arise to see the seeds
Raise the matron´s corn
So that we may be spared pain

Manutar, matron of the earth
Lift up the shoots from the ground
New shoots from the stumps
So that we may be spared pain

Feed us with honey-eats
Give us honey-drink
Delicious honey-grass
On a blossoming knoll

You have shining silver
You have glistening gold
You have shining silver
You have glistening gold

Rise up, O maiden black from the soil
Rise up, O maiden black from the soil

Underground crone
Most ancient of Nature´s daughters
Make the peat shoot forth
And the ground turn over

Underground crone
Most ancient of Nature´s daughters
Lift up a thousand seedlings
To reward my efforts

Or even better:

“The first way to give cultus to the gods is to believe in the gods; the next to acknowledge their majesty, to acknowledge their goodness without which there is no majesty.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

At the end of last year, Värttinä announced that Karoliina Kantelinen would be joining the group (replacing Johanna Virtanen). I’d come across Kantelinen a few years ago, and I was impressed with her vocal ability; and she certainly comes with an impressive background:

Karoliina Kantelinen is a singer and an ethnomusicologist from Helsinki who specializes in different ethnic singing styles. Her doctoral dissertation is on the old yoik tradition from Russian Karelia, formerly a Finnish territory. She currently teaches folk music at the department of musicology in the University of Helsinki. At this moment Karoliina is finishing her artistic doctoral studies at the Department of Folk Music in Sibelius-Academy. Known for challenging the old established ideas and concepts of interpreting Viena Karelian yoiks, Karoliina uses the traditional Kalevala style as her inspiration for new contemporary folk-based compositions. With her distinctive broad-ranged voice, she is also known as a ‘lament singer’ whose unique ability spans a range of emotion from anguish to compassionate sensitivity.

Note: Youtube seems to be having some issues and some of these are randomly not displaying. Hopefully this will clear up soon.

Someone over on Google+ shared this article on the typical reticence of Finns.  If you haven’t met any Finns, you may not know that we tend to be a quiet people. I include myself in there, despite being a Finnish-American, because the Finnish traits run strong in my family.

A person moulded by his or her own culture will not necessarily understand an interlocutor’s background or manners. This can lead to misunderstandings, as in the case of an example given by Berry.

“An American drove a Finnish visitor into the Appalachian Mountains to show her the stunning autumn foliage. The Finn sat quietly in the car, staring at the landscape. Suddenly the American stopped the car, demanding to know what was wrong with the silent guest. Another Finn would, however, have understood that the guest was just admiring the scenery in silence, in the typically Finnish way,” he says.

I know this kind of experience well; the quiet Finn watching the scenery in this situation could easily be me. I’ve had my share of people here in the US react this way to me.

I liked this concluding comment on Finnish silence:

Cultures marked by active discussion do not always appreciate the benefits of Finnish silence.

“Finnish silence is a method of preserving harmony with nature, oneself and others. It’s natural for Finns to move between fluent active listening and speaking while respecting others. A Finn thinks profoundly before expressing himself on a subject of importance,” acknowledges Berry.

First, the New York Times’ travel section recently featured on article on Finnish Lapland.

There were seven of us on this weeklong trip last February in the small town of Akaslompolo, about 95 miles north of the Arctic Circle. My friend Iina, a Finn, and our de facto guide, had sold us on the idea of renting a log cabin, with tales of dancing skies, burning saunas and the likelihood that “you’ll become infected with Lapland madness, which makes you return again and again.”

Second, Wikipedia’s main page mentions that today is the traditional date assigned to the death of Bishop Henry of Finland. Henry is the figure most associated with the Christianization of the Finns; interestingly, though, he may never have even existed.

Happy Solstice/ Good Yule/ God Jul/ hyvää joulua to everyone!

*raises a mug of glögg to all of you*

Artist: Värttinä
Album: Vihma
Song: Aamu

Now at long last dawn is breaking
and the night is overcome.

The clouds run from the rising light
as dark skies scatter before the morning’s calm.

This brightness is my true delight
and my happiness rests upon it.

The Weather Channel has taken it upon itself to name winter storms the way that hurricanes are named; a move that has been largely panned by the meteorological community. This week, though, I came across this list of the names they chose for the storms and I was struck by how pagan it is. I was especially impressed with the ‘U’ name.

Hat tip to MariUver.

An interesting look into the Mari Pagan religious revival and the thoughts of some of its practitioners about it and the Russian Orthodox Church.