Northern Lights In Lapland (Myths And Legends)

In Sami myths, the northern lights include several stories and legends. According to one belief spirits of those who have gone, live in the northern lights. In another legend northern lights are created by a magical giant fox, the firefox. This fox runs in the snowy hills and when its fur catches the snow, magical sparkles are born and those turn into northern lights.

Transcript

Hello YouTube,

It is Nina here,

You are watching Fairy Chamber Channel continuing my series on Sami mythology and this myth that I am going to talk to you today is one of my favorite topics in the world,

It's about Northern Lights the Aurora Borealis or Revanturid like we call them in Finland so for those of you who are new to my channel and don't know what I'm talking about the Sami people are the native people of Lapland Lapland in Sweden,

Finland,

Norway and Russia and I'm myself Finn and I have Sami ancestry and majority of the Finns are descendants of the Sami people I am very fortunate person because I was born in Northern Finland,

I lived there most of my life,

Currently I live in the UK and even here you can see Northern Lights some days I heard that in Scotland and here in Northern Wales and Northern England you can see Northern Lights I haven't seen them yet here but I have seen Northern Lights several times in Finland,

I'm from Northern Ostrobotnia it's like middle of North Finland I don't know how to describe it and I'm quite near from the sea so Northern Lights that I see they are mostly green and I heard it has something to do with the sea and the climate near the sea but the more North you go to the inner land you can see Northern Lights in every colors you can imagine so when I spent time in way North near Lapland and in Lapland there Northern Lights are just in red,

Yellow,

Green and blue and it's just beautiful so no wonder when in Lapland you can see Northern Lights quite often in winter time and sometimes also in late autumn.

The time I saw Northern Lights was in October when I was back at my mom's in Northern Finland.

It is always extremely magical to see them and really makes you feel small and part of the universe and also the Sami lifestyle when it has been really about having this extremely important nature connection and really nomadic lifestyle where you go from one place to another and see Northern Lights every day basis basically it makes sense that there is really lots of stories about Northern Lights and Northern Lights in Sami mythology I also have a video about Northern Lights in many other mythologies like in Catic mythology and Scottish mythology and and Bodic mythology if you want to see that video just check it out there.

But this one is going to be more specific about Northern Lights in Sami mythology also about different star formation and the star sky and importance of the stars and astrology in Sami mythology.

Let's say it's Northern Lights so in many cases in Sami mythology different nature phenomenons and different things in nature they are seen as deities and Holy Spirits and they are not many times humanized like in many other pagan paths.

Some thought it's more pantheist and animist so there is like spirits belief for spirits is essential and it's more nature centric than it is deity centric but in a way the nature and different phenomenons in nature they are seen as deities so they aren't that humanized so some people did believe that there was some kind of spirit that created the Northern Lights or spirits living in Northern Lights but they weren't like worshipping them as gods.

There are many different stories about Northern Lights and sometimes people people didn't see them as like evil or good they were just something that was happening in the skies and like lots of fairy tales and fables and stories were made about Northern Lights but what is interesting is the way people were taught not to tease Northern Lights because it was believed that distinct things or spirits that lived in Northern Lights they would come and get you if you would tease them like many people believed that their ancestors would live in the Northern Lights or that children they would go to live in Northern Lights and they might attack you if you would tease them like it was forbidden to whistle or to sing or laugh for the Northern Lights or to yoik do the traditional Sami chanting the Northern Lights might come back come down from the skies and burn your hair or something if you would do that but this would lead to that many people would tease them just to try their powers but of course Northern Lights they didn't,

There isn't any record that Northern Lights would come back come down from the skies and do this.

One of my favorite Sami and Northern Finnish fairy tales for their myths is the stories of the Tulekokkok or Tuleketu it means Firefox in English,

It's Tuleketu in Finnish and Revantulet means Northern Lights in Finnish and it comes from the old Finnish word Rebo meaning fox and so in Finnish Northern Lights there are foxes fires Revantulet and this is a myth from Northern Finland and Lapland or the Sami tribes living in Lapland of Finland I don't know how it is in other parts so this is a story I heard when I was a child and I have always really enjoyed it so there was this magical creature called Firefox Tuleketu or sometimes known as Tulekokkok a huge fox like Phoenix of all the foxes and there could be only one Tuleketu at that time and the hunters the fur hunters if they would catch the Tuleketu they would become extremely worthy men for the rest of their lives and there would be only abundance and good luck for them and it would be really good omen to see Tuleketu running in the winter hill wintery hills,

Snowy hills or if you would catch it you would really get lucky and it was this kind of hunter's legend to get this Tuleketu when it would run in the hills its fur would touch the snow and its tail would touch the snow and when it would touch the snow it would create these magical sparkles and sparkles would go to the skies and you would see them as Northern Lights and that would be the Tuleketu running in the hills and that would create the Northern Lights that I wanted,

Foxes fires.

That is one version how Northern Lights were born and I always really enjoyed this story and it's based on reality because when you are in very dry air in winter landscape and it's really cold maybe months 40 months 30 hair and fur gets very electrical and dust creates sparkles so this myth is based on reality Sami,

Cosmo,

Shiti,

Northern Star has always had big important meaning and the Cosmoji is very similar to the Cosmoji of the Finnish mythology where there is earth is flat there is under word underneath it and then there is cover of the sky and the star sky is the cover and then behind that is something maybe a place where the highest of the gods live or place where people go after they pass away or part of their spirits goes but anyway in this cosmoji where there is flat earth and cover of the sky it was believed that there was this big tree or this pole going straight to the Northern Star or the Polar Star like some people call it and in Northern Sami the Northern Star is called Pojni and then the nail of the sky it's believed that it's nailed to there to the top of the cover and the nail is called Pojnawli and in Finnish it's called Pojnawla so you can hear the similarity between Finnish and different Sami languages these names that I'm using here they are Northern Sami but there are different Sami languages what is Pojni was believed to be invisible and holding the world together the Sami people they were really masters of inter-separating the stars and the movement of the stars and really very good with astrology and could tell the time from the movements of the stars and different positions of the Sun and the Moon and all that and what kind of weather it would be and when spring would start when sun would go away when it would turn and all this they could inter-separate from the movements of the stars the Sami people they knew all the stars they had their own names for Venus,

Orion Big Bear and the Small Bear one of very interesting myths about the stars is the stories of Kala Kala's sons,

The Kolaputnit in Northern Sami and Kala's sons were two hunters,

Sons of Kala these two hunters were the inventors of the skis so in the star sky they were hunting this kind of magical deer magical moose that's the better word,

Magical moose or reindeer something with their antlers Kala is the star of Ceres next to the star formation of twins so Kala is the father and the twins are the hunters and they are the Quokkahetayit,

I don't know if I pronounced that right that is the Kala's sons in Sami and they are hunting the great deer and great deer is called Sarvis in Sami and the deer is formation from Cassiopeia,

Perseus Capel and Pleiades those are the English names of the stars so there is the hunters hunting this deer or moose or reindeer this is one of the also shaman quest not just shaman quest but the human quest and there comes this story that when the hunters they hunt this deer the day when the hunters get to hunt this deer it is the end of the world so that is a very common Sami myth and also quite common myth in also in Finnish mythology and also among different Finno-Huan and Uralian tribes and the thing is this is not that kind of story like there is in Germanic mythology that the world ends because of actions of gods or in Christianity that world ends because of actions of devil or whatever this is a story that world ends when nature is not in balance when the hunters are hunting the reindeer on the sky each night when you see them they never get the the reindeer formation the moose it always goes away from the hunter so they can never catch it but the time when they do catch it there are no people anymore and there isn't any star sky anymore so that is literally the end of the world so this is the story how each time people would look at the sky and see the star formation where the sons of Kala are hunting the magical moose or deer but they can never catch it but they hunt it every night it is also a metaphor for human looking for knowledge the summon quest and how we can stop the earth from ending so don't think this as very negative or very depressing meat because it's not about god or god starting the end of the world nature not being in balance well maybe it's bit depressing because nature is not in balance because of human actions but this is a very good way to understand the cosmology of the Sami people and the shamanistic cosmology where nature is the entity

Reviews

Loved learning about this. I've never seen them and hope sometime it works out. The Samis are so wonderful.