Finland: Land of Frozen Giants, Epic Tales, and Warm Saunas
I like to write about many things, so why not Finland? Should I start with my first impressions, or my latest thoughts, or a combination of all those things? Yes.
Linguistically, this country is a pickle. The language is unlike most any other on the planet. I do not think that it falls under the Indo-European language group, like the grand majority of the European nations, which went on to colonize and populate the known world. Russian and Slavic languages are Indo-European, as are Germanic and Romance languages, which are spoken all over the globe. Estonian is close to Finnish they say, which is in the language group of: Finno-Ugric, which falls under the Uralic family, which has a few more languages in the family in parts of Russia. Like, Bjarmian, Ingrian, Karelian, Kukkuzi, Livonian, Livvi, Ludic, Veps, and Votic.
However, as Wikipedia notes:
The smaller languages are endangered. The last native speaker of Livonian died in 2013, and only about a dozen native speakers of Votic remain. Regardless, even for these languages, the shaping of a standard language and education in it continues.
Finnish is the big one of the Uralic tongues, after Hungarian (Magyar), which is in the Ugric family of Uralic. The people, by most reports, are some of the happiest on earth? Why? How come the people of this northern, isolated nation are the happiest?
Happiness
I have a few ideas, as do many social scientists, economists, and some other so-called experts of why Finnish people are happy, what makes them happy. They have what they want: jobs, health, vacations, travel, peace, security. More than perhaps any other country in the world, the Finns are enjoying these things.
Not bad, huh?
In college I talked to people who were Finnish or those who lived there, and saunas play a big part of the lifestyle. These are intimate areas where apparently the folks do not wear much apparel, and they dip into freezing cold water or snow in between the hot, steamy airs. This sounds titillating or embarrassing to many of us Americans, but I guess part of the Finnish culture is to accept these periods of nudity. Missionaries from our church, as I have heard, keep the sessions between the same sex, as to avoid improprieties of protocol and modesty.
Each country and culture with its mores and values, their images and self-awareness, sensitivities and concerns. Reminds me of Japan. Strong and independent in their own ways. A boon to the human race in so many senses.
Strength and Power, Grace
Some of my earliest impressions of Finland were in the Winter Olympics, where their male hockey teams were very competitive, going toe to toe with the giants like the Soviet Union or Canada. Finns were from a small, far flung country, but they were tough and strong! They were free, independent, and fearless, it seemed. They did not need the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for decades, not too worried about the vaunted Soviets across their multi-hundred kilometer shared border. Hammer and Sickle? Intercontinental ballistic missiles? Nukes? Whatever, these Finns implied in their fierce solidarity among themselves and the Swedes in contra to the massive and foreboding U.S.S.R.
Only in the current climate of Putin in Ukraine since 2022 has Finland and Sweden seen the light of the North Atlantic alliance with their neighbors and the U.S. and Canada. We welcome the folks of both Scandinavian countries wholeheartedly. Putin cannot last forever. Russia will become what it is, while the rest of the democratic and sensible world. Russia, alas... But this is about their smaller neighbor!
I saw pictures of the Finns fighting the Germans in World War II. They were stalwart and intrepid, looking like the biathletes on skis with the rifles slung on their backs.
Finns were pretty cool. Fighting off the Nazis, then later the Communist comrades. They spoke funny words, but they seemed to be programmed right!
I met some Finns and became acquainted with their character while working overseas. They were military men. One seemed more laconic and subdued, which seemed to be a national reputation or attribute of these folks, while the other one, who was taller and more slender, was more jovial and garrulous. I thought it was nice to have the contrast of styles between them. The shorter, stockier Finn could leave you guessing by his lack of words or emotions. A bit like Spock from Star Trek.
I met a Finnish Latter-Day Saint young woman in 1998 in the San Francisco area. She had come to the United States to be an au pair, and she happened to come close to where my friend Jorge was living and studying. Jorge had gone to Scandinavia to travel and find a wife. He met her by asking for a suitable mate from a Church of Jesus Christ General Authority at the Swedish Temple in Stockholm. He indicated the Finnish sister was a good reference. Apparently so: I watched Jorge propose on bended knew to her at the Oakland Temple visitor center. Mexican-American Finns, I suppose they would end up having. I should look them up!
Logos and Mythos
This summer I checked out some books about the relationship between some of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. The reading and notes have been supremely insightful. Both of them have had great imaginative impacts on the world, and certainly me. While I read the more child palatable Narnia series more and more repetitively than Tolkien, who put some serious spookiness in my soul with the sequel to The Hobbit, both series of fiction have had big influences on me, even in the last five years, with the Rings of Power being drawn from Tolkien's original stories from the Silmarillion.
These have been well cast, scripted, and crafted television streaming epics. The Peter Jackson films were done wonderfully as well early in the century.
Well, it turns out there is a Finland connection! Yes, truly.
Tolkien was a keen study of languages, and myths, was interested in northern tales and lore, and came upon the Finnish epic which I did not hear much about in my life compared to Norse mythology. Tolkien and his friends and colleagues were erudite polyglots, with amazing powers of creation, or imagination. For him, this Finnish work of fiction and lore had a great impact and place, infusing his mind and soul with ideas and content that he would eventually manifest in his new myths of Middle Earth. He studied and analyzed the story, or stories of the ancient Finns, which inspired him to get more into "faerie", which is the imaginative and fictitious realm of old and new fables and stories, from which people find pleasure, delight, escape, freedom, hope, and many good things, despite the claims or accusations of many that the worlds of make-believe have little or no pertinent purpose in the world of reality.
Real or not, these stories affect many of us and drive into our consciousness or sub-consciousness, taking up space in the real minds and feelings of millions of us. Individually or collectively, therefore, ancient lore and art of the Finns had their profound effect on J.R.R. Tolkien, who with his Inkling friends like Lewis, Williams, Barfield, and host of keen and prodigious others, co-inspired and directed each others' works and developments to become and produce what they did. None are bigger in their total effect and influence than Tolkien, one could reasonably argue. I will and do.
The history and tales of the Finns have had large and small psychological and nuanced impressions on us all! The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion evinced in the Rings of Power. Galadriel and Sauron from the ancient depths of northern, Finnish lore.
Finns and Finnish. I have done some mind searching, across the decades. They have had their place in music, sport, science I am sure. Politics. The Helsinki Accords, the fuse lifter to the awful, ominous, Cold War of the late 20th century. Finns are part and parcel of the peace process of the earth, naturally? Why? Because they are smart, and happy, and with it.
Is this not true? Did Tolkien have any idea of their presence on the world stage, then in millennia past or how they would figure into the future? Little hyper-active Finland? Among the last two nations to join NATO, the Swedes and they bolstering efforts to ensure no further Russian aggression would push into sovereign lands?
Do the stories of Middle Earth verisimulate (I guess I made that word up) or parallel events in today's world? Drone and missile attacks in Ukraine? Devastation and starvation in Gaza Strip? Internecine warfare and gang and terrorist violence across Africa? Drug and illegal production and marketing in Latin America?
Ahh, what the Finnish might teach us! Should we learn from them? Tolkien did.
Other Linguistic Musings
I was in a cafeteria overseas with over a dozen different nationalities, 13 years ago. I would see my Finnish buddies mentioned above, and a few others from their homeland, wearing their flag. In this very multilingual and international milieu, I approached a Finnish man and asked him how to wish someone "bon appetit" or "enjoy your meal", a phrase many of the Europeans thought was the traditional way for us to express good health to each other, like the French term, a courteous way to let other people know that we care about their well being and how they engage the sustenance of life.
The Finn told me a string of syllables and pronounced sounds that were a mouthful and long, complicated enough to struggle to repeat it. I tried, maybe got a little of it right, but realized, as the reputation of Finnish is, that this language is another type of beast.
Not all languages are built the same.
And perhaps when it comes to the strangeness and difficulty of Finnish, as Tolkien intuited a hundred years ago, conjuring up his Elven faerie languages and cultures, histories and mythologies, synthesized and culminated in his fictions now ubiquitous and everlasting.
What more tales and epics will be written and spoken and played out in the world of the 21st century, between the Finns of the north and the rest of us? The intrepid souls of the biathlon and the sports courts and tracks, libraries and science centers and hospital, political diplomatic lecterns and daises, cyber classes or codes and digital wisdom of our modern age?
Who else will derive wisdom and Godly joy from these lands, these lakes, these icy wastes and warm spas, the seas of the Baltic all the way up to the Arctic, from these stoic and at times laconic yet kind and courageous people? From north to south, we respect and honor the good Finnish people. We respect and honor the fact that a land can be free and prosperous, strong and inspiring, and that they through economic and intellectual prowess and ingenuity are who they are for us, a jewel sitting upon our earth, a light to others, that with God and us His children, all of the children of the earth, along with flora and fauna, God's vast creations, may live up to its eternal destiny.
Life and love. Long live Finland and God's peoples everywhere!
