Ilmatar- Finnish PrimordialPrimordial"Virgin Spirit of the Air"

The Virgin of the Air

Before the world existed, Ilmatar dwelt alone in the vast spaces of the sky, a virgin spirit with no companion and nothing to see but endless emptiness. She wandered through the airy wastes for ages, but solitude wore on her until she could bear it no more. She descended from the heights and let herself fall to the primordial waters below.

The sea stretched in every direction without end. The east wind blew hard across the water and stirred waves against her body. The wind and the sea moved over her and within her, and she conceived what would become Väinämöinen, carrying a child without ever knowing a consort.

The Seven Hundred Years

Seven hundred and thirty years she floated. The child would not come. She drifted with the currents in growing heaviness, unable to find rest, unable to set foot on land that did not yet exist. She turned northward with the current and southward against it, though there was yet no sun and no direction held meaning.

At last she cried out to Ukko, the god above the sky, begging him to relieve her suffering. She wept for her loneliness and for the weight of a child who had grown old within her before drawing his first breath. Then, across the limitless water, a goldeneye appeared, circling the endless sea in search of a nesting place.

The Creation from the Egg

The goldeneye flew in every direction and found nothing but water. Then Ilmatar lifted her knee above the surface, pale as a barren island, and the bird settled upon it. It laid seven eggs, six of gold and one of iron, and began to brood.

For three days the bird sat, and the warmth that was hatching new life was also burning Ilmatar's skin. Her knee blazed as though pressed against fire. She endured it, then could endure no more. She jerked her leg, and the eggs rolled from her knee into the deep water and broke apart.

From the fragments, the world formed. The lower shells became the earth. The upper halves became the arch of the sky. The yolks ran together into the sun, the whites into the moon. What had been nothing but wind and water now had ground, light, and the dome of heaven overhead.

The Water Mother

Ilmatar swam through a world taking shape around her, and everything she touched became something. Where her foot struck bottom, fish pools hollowed out. Where her side pressed against the sea floor, shorelines rose. Where her head dipped beneath the waves, deep channels formed.

She pointed her hand at the water and headlands appeared. She kicked and reefs broke the surface. She scattered islands across the sea and laid down the hidden shoals where ships would one day founder.

The Birth of Väinämöinen

The world was made, but Väinämöinen was still unborn. He had grown old in his mother's womb, ancient before he ever saw light. He called out from his dark confinement to the sun, asking it to shine upon him and set him free. The sun did not answer. He called to the moon. Silence.

So the old man freed himself. He pushed with his finger against the bones that caged him, forced the lock of his prison with his left big toe, and crawled out of his mother's body headfirst into the sea.

For eight years Väinämöinen drifted, carried by currents through a world that was complete but empty. When he finally hauled himself onto land, his first act was to summon the spirit Pellervo to sow the bare earth with seeds. Birch and pine took root, and the forests of Finland rose from the ground Ilmatar had shaped.