Pikkarainen- Finnish SpiritSpirit"The Little Man"
Also known as: Mies and Miehi pikkarainen
Description
No taller than a thumb when he emerged from the sea, the little man grew to cosmic size and felled the world-darkening oak with three strokes of a copper axe, restoring sun and moon to the sky and scattering the tree's fragments across the earth as gifts of healing and good fortune.
Mythology & Lore
The World-Darkening Oak
After the world was formed, a great oak grew from the newly made earth. Its roots gripped deep and its crown pressed against the vault of the sky. Its branches spread until they blotted out the sun and moon. No light reached the ground, and the world lay in cold darkness. Väinämöinen, who had shaped the landscape and sown the first forests, could not bring it down.
From the sea came a tiny man, no larger than a thumb, carrying a copper axe and striding ashore with the confidence of something much larger. Folk poetry calls him pikkarainen, the little one, or simply mies, man. Before the watching world, he began to grow. First to the height of a man's knee, then to his shoulder, then higher than the tallest pine, his copper axe swelling with him until both he and his weapon matched the oak itself.
Felling the Oak
He set to work. His copper axe bit into the enormous trunk, and with each stroke light bled back into the world. On the third blow the oak toppled, its branches crashing across land and sea, and the sun and moon shone upon the earth for the first time since the tree had grown.
The fallen oak's fragments scattered far. Branches floating on the sea brought wealth to those who gathered them. Leaves carried by the wind bore healing wherever they landed. From one tree's ruin came gifts enough for the world, and the little man who had felled it vanished as quietly as he had arrived, his work done.