Staalo, The Giant From Lapland

In the Sami folklore, Staalo is the dangerous winter giant, but that is not all he is. Staalo was believed to be the embodiment of darkness and winter. All kinds of things that people found frightening or wear scared of. This made Staalo even more scary and otherworldly because he represented the fears that lived deep inside people's unconscious. I hope you this story from the far north.

Transcript

It is Nina you're watching fairy chamber channel continuing my series on the Sami mythology and folklore those of you who are new to my channel and don't know but I'm talking about the Sami people are native people of Lapland,

Finland,

Sweden,

Norway and Russia I'm a Finn myself with Sami ancestry and this creature that I'm going to talk to you about today is connected to Christmas and winter and December and this creature is Stalo or Stalo and the stories about Stalo they are really ancient and in the beginning he did not have a name this creature was nameless it was seen as a dark threat it was seen as the darkness and evil that lurks in the darkness and when the mythology has like developed later on he got a name and he got different personifications and Stalo according to one of the legends is the son of the moon Manu and he is a giant or a troll and usually Stalo is described to be or this giant that has very small brains not very intelligent creature but he is still very evil very maleficent and very greedy creature and not always he is a troll or a giant sometimes he is just a large man to understand Stalo and the different mythologies and legends that are around this creature you need to understand the lifestyle of the Sami people especially the Sami people of the past and the conditions where they were living because in the winter time in Lapland it gets really dark it is dark about seven months in a year and in the past it possibly has been even darker so when people didn't have electric lights and very like early not extremely comfortable places to live and Sami lifestyle is very much based around nature and reindeer herding so people would travel together with the reindeer according to the reindeer cycle and the natural cycle of the reindeer and people their lifestyle was really intertwined with the reindeer herding and lifestyle in that sense was extremely nature oriented it was living together with nature and in a way you are always surrounded by nature and your life is dependable on nature but then in modern days not that many Sami people live this kind of lifestyle anymore but it is more like lifestyle for modern people we have our comfortable homes with heating and electric lights if it gets too dark and so on but Sami people they did not have these luxuries in the past and Stalu in that sense was the personification of the dark thread that night time had you know if you would go outside the snow desert if you did not have light or fire you very likely might lose your life if you didn't know where to go or if you would get to get caught into a snowstorm or something so Stalu was in a way presentation of these nightmares that people created about the darkness and there's lots of different variations about this character and creature and in southern Lapland they are very different than in northern Lapland and in southern Lapland Stalu had his whole own family he had children that were like little little Stalus and his wife was called Nanya and Nanya was a vampire or vampire spirit that could suck the blood and life essence out of humans and Stalu he was also described to be a vampire character but not really like romanticized Bram Stoker vampire but more zombie vampire someone who would be a cannibal and bloodsucker and all that and Stalu people believed that a powerful witch and a shaman if they were evil they actually might create Stalu themselves so in a way it works like a voodoo doll or like you know witch's doll evil witch's doll they create a man like creature from clay and maybe some fabric and in this sense Stalu would be a creature that would rise and would be a corpse that would get flesh around it when the shaman would do the chanting and there's one name for Stalu that is Lihatonta which actually means a flesh spirit and this is like a folk horror from southern Lapland so Stalu could be this kind of zombie like spirit that is it has like stitched flesh skin around him and then Stalu the shaman could order the Stalu to revenge on their enemy but raising the Stalu from the underworld that would really take some life essence from the witch as well so you had to be very skillful very evil and greedy witch to do this and very powerful because it wouldn't take part of your life essence if you would want to create a Stalu to revenge for you so it would very much work like a zombie the shaman would order the Stalu to kill someone but if Stalu would not manage to do this within a year they would come and kill the witch and then the Stalu would pass away vanish and the witch would also pass away so it really had to be very greedy nasty person to rise up Stalu from the underworld to kill the enemy but this was the stories of the zombie Stalu and many of the stories about Stalu from southern Lapland there can be quite sadistic and very evil and very cruel like Stalu raping people raping women or killing children or eating children and so on so they can be very cruel and then when we go to northern Lapland it was more a creature that people use to scare children not that more as a fairy tale character when in southern Lapland it was more seen more real zombie like character that people were actually afraid of but then in northern Lapland it was more mythical you could say that mythical character and many times in these fairy tales in northern Lapland Stalu was this giant or massive man who just had these fights with small and clever zombie people and usually the small and clever zombie people would win it's like Jack and the giant you know the story so it would have similar pattern and many times Stalu he also had a dog and if you know the stories from the gold rush from the 19th century many people had their dogs when they went to look for gold and with their slikes so in that way Stalu also has elements from that historical period and then he also has elements from the tax money collectors from the 18th century and 19th century so he gets like these features from these people that the Sami thought were using them you know Sami thought that taxpayers were evil sometimes the Stalu might have like Christian elements they might look like a priest who were like forcing Sami people to Christianity or the gold miners who were taking advantage of the Sami land and the gold and other minerals there so Stalu actually might be a combination of several different nasty things that Sami people disliked in different historical time periods etc.

Was very interesting and Stalu he is often described with the dog and this dog could be invisible or turn itself invisible and to kill Stalu completely people also had to kill the dog as well and in a way the spirit of Stalu it was both in the dog and it was also in the giant so the boat had this shared life essence and in a way Stalu it's a personification of the wild nature the free nature and there's lots of Christian elements later on added to these stories especially about Stalu being like demonized as a very evil creature and Satanistic almost there's also a connection with the father Christmas and Santa Claus of course in Stalu and there is a special Stalu called Jull Stalu which is the Christmas Stalu and a Christmas Stalu was a Stalu who was simply a Stalu the giant when he had a big sleigh that was put by the forest animals and when people said to children that well the Santa Claus brings you coal or twigs if you are naughty and presents if you are good then in La Plante might say that Santa Claus brings you gifts if you are good but then if you are bad or if you don't behave well the youth Stalu comes and eats you so there is also element of father Christmas in Stalu so this was the story of Stalu I hope you find it entertaining.