Hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää, Suomi!

[varjohaltia]

Today is Finland's 90th year in existence as an independent nation. Since I didn't find any good articles about the festivities, and the weather there looks pretty crummy, I'll offer you Finnish Christmas instead. Enjoy!

Comments

[hyanan.livejournal.com]

The vowels! They burn my eyes! ;)

[boredtech.livejournal.com]

So in Finland, Santa has Gnomes and not Elves?! WOW! I totally want to go there and meet David the Gnome now. :)

[varjohaltia.livejournal.com]

Translating this stuff is a bit chancy, but yes. Santa has beings known as "tonttu" ("tomte" in Swedish) who are generally small, benevolent beings that help you. Traditionally you're supposed to leave them treats outside your house, and they're supposed to help you with housework and whatnot, not entirely unlike boggans. In that sense they're not too far from the Keebler-kinds of elves that you see in the American Santa lore, although they tend to dress more sensibly. (More realistically the treats got eaten by animals, such as hedgehogs.)

As the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonttu) on the subject obfuscates, the word for "elf" in Finnish overlaps some of these creatures and the Tolkien style elves, which aren't at all part of the traditional Finnish mythology. Typically "haltia" without any modifier is a Tolkien style elf, whereas if it's modified by something it refers to the gnomes instead. (With the exception of modifiers such as in the case of wood elves, dark elves, sea elves etc., but by that point it should be obvious from context.)

[roguer.livejournal.com]

"Hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää, Suomi!"

There are far too many vowels and dots for me to even begin to imagine how that's pronounced. ;)

-Roguer