He is the star of the show, and thousands of epic poems and tales. They do go on, and on... and on... and all in Finnish. Join the dots.

The son of Ilmatar, he spent 730 years in her womb and became so bored waiting to be born that he took matters into his own hands and crawled out.

His life was full of odd discoveries and peculiar inventions. For example, he discovered fire in the belly of a fish which was in the belly of a fish which was in the belly of a fish. This unconventional flame could have inspired the invention of the world’s first mythological microwave oven.

He also invented a vaguely harp-like musical instrument, using the bones of a gigantic pike and the hair of a maiden (who was presumably equally gigantic). This was called a kantele and proved so popular that it’s now the national instrument of Finland.

His kantele came in very handy for magical purposes, as Väinämöinen was a real whiz at singing spells. His musical duel with Joukahainen was probably the forerunner of the Eurovision Song Contest. He won the duel, but lost the prize as Aino, the young lady concerned, drowned herself.

That was always Väinämöinen’s problem. He was a ladies man, but had terrible trouble getting the ladies. His attempt to marry the very attractive daughter of Ice Sorceress Louhi was a disaster. He went to all the trouble of presenting her with the specially-made magic Sampo machine as a wedding gift, but his potential mother-in-law was as cold as an icicle and the marriage was most definitely off.

Share this page Cite this article

Article last revised on September 14, 2018 by the Godchecker data dwarves.
Editors: Peter J. Allen, Chas Saunders

References: Coming soon.

Permissions page

---