Music Meri Meet,
It is Niime,
You are watching Fairy Shepherd Channel.
Time to continue with Finnish Pagan holidays and today's topic is Hela.
So Hela is a Finnish pagan festival that you could see as very similar to Beltane.
And if you were pagan in pre-christian times and you lived in northern hemisphere,
Pretty much all these pagan festivals they clash around the same time in different countries because of the lunar and solar cycle and most of the cultures were farming cultures so it makes perfect sense.
So if you want to learn more about this you can check my other Finnish pagan holidays videos and the playlist that I made.
So Hela will be Finnish counterpart for Beltane.
And Hela that included singing and dancing,
Lots of food and drinking meat and drinking beer and also it was seen as a big fertility festival and just a joyous festival to celebrate the fact that summer is arriving soon.
And it was well in the summer party.
There's lots of beliefs and pagan customs that were related to Hela.
One of the most common ones was Hela Valke which is like a spring bonfire.
Well this is not only a Finnish custom,
You can find this all around Europe.
It was believed that those bonfires,
Hela Valke,
They would prevent evil spirits not to enter the area where the bonfires were lit.
So it was like a protective magic.
One other one very common belief was to keep lots of noise and that would also prevent evil spirits entering.
And those one custom that children they would wear little tiny bells in their wrists and also in their feet.
Those jingling of the tiny bells that would protect the cattle not being attacked and also that would make cows to produce more milk.
That's very interesting.
So it was really a joyous festival to celebrate nature and fertility of the land and Finnapu has a farming right to Finland about 7,
000 years ago.
It was really other pagan festivals were really around farming and nature and the seasons change as you know in Finland we have all the four seasons.
Unlike here in the UK where it sometimes feels it's only three unfortunately.
So then when the Christianity arrived to Finland in the early middle ages the church,
The Catholic Church they changed the name to Walpuri after an English Saint,
Saint Walpurka and if you know the German name for this same festival it is Walpuri Snacht and Walpuri Stag.
So day of Walpuri and the night of Walpuri and Walpurka and then there is the fun song Walpuri Snacht and so it's the same origins.
So the name of the celebration was changed to after Catholic Saint to be Walpuri and even though the name was changed for a long time people continued with the same old pagan customs and then the more Christian influences people started to get now we are in the 16th,
17th century and then the Walpuri becomes that kind of celebration where it becomes more and more about projecting yourself from evil.
So it was believed that the night between the last of April and the first of May was really witches night.
So it was believed that then witches would go all crazy and fly around,
They would snatch children and they would hurt the cattle and you know all crazy things.
So people they protect themselves so that they would take broomsticks and hang them to their doors and some aspen branches,
Branches from aspen tree they were hanged around the home so outside the home so the witches could not enter so it becomes like from a witch festival to more an anti witch festival.
It's quite sad.
And then when we come to more closer to modern days you need to know that Finland as a society nowadays it's quite more atheistic,
Agnostic,
Spiritual,
It's all about individual religious freedom I think I will call it that way.
The way religions are seen in Finland they are very individual like if someone comes to you and says you are a Christian,
Okay or you are a pagan or an atheist you know you don't really share that with other people it's very individual.
So it's something you need to know when you try to understand Finnish spirituality it's quite individual and quite open minded and many people are very eclectic.
So nowadays Valburi is not celebrated and Hela is celebrated by Finnish pagans but most Finns celebrate Valburi which is word derived from Valburi but Valburi is not a religious holiday.
It is official holiday of the workers.
So when we come to the 19th century both in Finland and in Sweden in the 13th of May that was known as the day of the flowers or the day of lora if you want to go with the Greek goddess is she Greek or Roman goddess I don't know.
The day of the flowers 13th of May that was traditionally a day when different guilds gathered together like student guilds,
Different professional craftsmen's guilds and they all gathered together on the day of the flower on 13th of May.
Then in the end of the 19th century day of the flower was not anymore very popular so this student labor workers party meeting day was switched into the 1st of May maybe to get rid of the rich religious concept I don't know I would like to get rid of that.
So that's where the day was moved so the day became Bapu instead of Valburi and Bapu was official day of the workers or day of the students or both.
This is really a very common holiday all around in many many countries in Europe and I think many other countries as well and it's really you know workers day it's officially free day I think even here in the UK it's just one of the bank holidays but anyway it's something you can find from many countries.
In Finland Bapu I think it has still many pagan elements left it's all about having lots of balloons having lots of confettis there's lots of carnivals around towns and cities and villages people still drink lots of meat around Bapu many people drink champagne instead of beer and there's lots of outdoor food markets around Bapu and kids have lots of masquerades and well adults can have masquerades as well but mostly kids have masquerades around Bapu and in Finland the symbol for the Bapu is eryakdaslaki which is a hat that we get when we graduate from high school many people wear that but that symbol originates from this custom from 19th century when groups of students and different guilds used to meet in the day of the flower.
Bapu celebration itself the way it is now in Finland that originates from Sweden from 19th century and 20th century because in Sweden it officially became this kind of workers day and then Finns adopted the same tradition so that's where it comes from.
I personally celebrate when I am in Finland then I personally celebrate this kind of combination of Hela and Bapu because I like the both celebrations and they're both for me very colorful celebrations.
Well I am now here in the UK so on Monday I'm going to do coin tour belt-in ritual so it's a bit different here but yeah in Finland I would probably do the same having some kind of Hela ritual for me it's pretty much one and the same holiday,
Well the vegan version because they are both about summer arriving and spring and renewable of life and all that jazz.
So these were the origins of Hela and Valburi and Bapu.
I hope you enjoyed this video if you celebrate belt-in I wish you have a very nice belt-in.
