Introduction

Once upon a time, when the night seemed to be long as the whole winter, in far northern lands singers used to gather all around large fireplaces in order to drive the darkness away by telling their stories. Old women used to sew while they were saying how magical life was in the times of their ancestors. Healers and shamans, having their fingers spotted by juices of powerful herbs used for mysterious potions, were telling about great achievements and tremendous sufferings which had marked their race since the dawnings. While swapping a cup of beer, the bards started singing or telling an old story. Their memory was prodigious: they remembered all events from their people, all laboriously conquered talents or the lessons they had learned at the cost of great sacrifices. Words were joined all together in a sort of chain, saved in a dense plot of rhythm and rimes in order not to lose them.

In this way, in the quietness of the night the bards shared their wisdom with other guests. While resin-soaked logs were crackling in the fire, and the immense black lake slab was creaking and moaning, somebody inevitably proposed to tell a story which would start all the others. By the way he used to whisper something like: Tell how everything had a beginning.

That question got many answers and none of them were easy. Some tales came from far places and strange peoples, or they had been carried in luggage by migrating tribes or hidden in hawkers’ bags or, still, in sacks from predacious troops. Some others descended from the same places where they were told, therefore they were as old as the Land. According to some tales, the World would descend from a celestial acorn on a huge oak-tree with a lot of branches. The strong roots supported the Earth whereas the green leafage gave a safe shelter to all creatures.

Somebody else used to say that the World had been made by a craftsman, a smith as tall as the sky who earned the vastness of horizon. He stood sweating in front of an ancient forge fed by primordial fire. By his mysterious abilities, he turned melted chaos into a solid creation, using a stick, bellows and tongs.

Some other bards told about the history of a big mysterious egg which would contain Earth and all living beings. Furthermore, in a place where mountains were iced and its inhabitants were trembleing because of cold, people believed in a different version of the world beginning: its origins had a starting point in far back times, when everything was covered by ice and Earth was made up by a big icy giant’s body.

The Bards, whose memory was even older, told about the Big Mother of Life with thundering echoes. She was an obscure figure, a queen with many names, as remote as the stars or as close as the generous land we live in. She was a lovely source of life and a dispenser of death at the same time. She revealed her tremendous rage by storms, plagues and catastrophes. She was capricious and almighty, fast in punishing and noble in forgiving. The same Earth could be her body, the mountains her breast. And her feeding milk flew by means of streams and filled the sea. Spring and summer were fertile seasons in her opinion whereas autumn and winter were resting ones so that she could sleep tight, winding round impenetrable dreams and being unconcerned about the sufferings her sons were subjected to.

But sometimes she was awaken by invocations and allurements from the heat, the sweet scent of blood sacrifice, or by the adoration of sacred stones, squared statues with no face and sacred fires.

The Big Mother showed herself in many ways. Sometimes she was like an old and wrinkled sage, or she was like a sow, as white as the snow, or still like a silver mare.

The finnish Mother of Waters
An old finnish singer mentioned her as a young goddess who lived in the times before the time. She had two names, as two were the faces of her obscure existence: Virgin of Air was the first, Mother of Waters the second.
Her origins were unknown. Somebody said she was King of Air’s daughter. People didn’t know anything about her father and his reign but the fact that he earned a huge Palace. Hovered into the Empyreans, high above the infinite water expanse, it was hidden behind the shade of northern lights. It was made up by foggy walls and rainbow ceilings. Echoes from its eight thousands rooms resounded into different types of emptiness. Bright windows faced the Cipher and the corridors went on their way to infinite, crossing and dividing each other, extending and contracting. Their extremities were further than Cipher. This was Virgin of Air’s house. The way she used to live, what she usually ate and the language she spoke are all mere suppositions. Nevertheless, people knew that she couldn’t ever feel at ease, as well as the wind swept the rooms of the palace. Though, one day she fell into a huge door opened above the Cipher (or she was pushed in by an invisible force).
She fell into neverending caves of clouds . If she screamed, the echo from her shout would be heard in the whole universe: she was a giantess of unbelievable dimensions, but winds could catch her like she was as light as a twig and they carried her gently to the Ocean who was waiting for her. While she was going down kindly, the high waves rippled down to welcome her. For a little while the two elements competed for her : the sea lifted her to the caress of wind and then it dragged her away all over again.
Soon the game between wind and water became terribly serious. The ocean rose into enraged billows, the wind wallowed into a furious storm and it caught the waves in its whirl. The two opposite forces were fighting savagely just for her and they looked indifferent to her shouts.
Eventually the whirl stopped and gusts finally abated. There was nothing else but silence. The giantess floated, not a virgin anymore. A new life was arising and growing deeply into her body, sown by the violent and competing courtship of both storm and sea. Now it was time for gestation. While she was waiting for the mysterious fruit to ripen, she swam through the waters and from this moment the bards started calling her Mother of waters. She swam for long time and she found nothing but ocean. Sometimes she swam on her back to mitigate her weigh, trying to see her house from the Reign of Air . Unfortunately, in her infinite diving, she went as away as she couldn’t see her palace anymore. Nobody has ever known if her father, the elusive King of Air, got knowledge of her fate. By the way, he made no sign about it.

The Mother of Waters was an immortal goddess therefore she didn’t need to measure time. Nevertheless, somebody has calculated that she floated on ocean’s surface for quite 700 years, with waters supporting her fecund abdomen. Year by year, century by century, she floated towards East first, then to West, to North and to South after all. Sometimes she swam restless and in a bad mood. Often she let the waters carry her body and, being in a deep state of trance, she fed the baby in her abdomen with blood of life and its divine powers.
For all those years, totally concentrated on what was going to happen to her, she directed all energies and attentions inside by admiring the magnificent growing mystery of life. Then, a strange day she didn’t feel alone anymore. A winged messenger mysteriously came to visit her. It came from Cipher or from a different and crowded dimension where gods used to dance and make everything magic. That creature was a gigantic sea bird (precisely, a goldeneye, sotka in ancient finnish) who ostentatiously revealed its striped and speckled plumage. The bird went down towards the water then it rose and descended all over again, desperately finding a landing place.
The Mother of Waters looked at its tired fluttering. Goldeneye’s bright and vivid eyes finally met up with those of the Mother and a sudden flash of attraction went off among them, with no addition of words : a silent communication between two gods.
The giantess replied by lifting a knee outside the waters. The bird swung and uttered just one cry of recall before landing easily on a wide and soft surface. Although the bird was really huge - its wing span, too - it was nothing compared to the vastness of Mother’s knee. The creature stood for a while until it finally settled down and started building a nest with his soft plums. The goldeneye was happy as it had found its right place after long time.
The Mother of Waters was floating and staring. At first the bird produced a smooth and shining egg, then a second, golden as the first and as round as Mother’s belly. Then, the third came out and then the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, all alike. At the end, the goldeneye produced another egg, the seventh, different from the others. It was a dark egg, heavy as iron and as much dull as the others were bright.
The bird shook its wings and squatted down meditating on Mother’s knee and keeping the eggs warm, far from water frost. Nobody has ever known what the giantess and the bird told each other. Undoubtedly they kept each other company during that period of quietness.
Then, that peaceful time slowly ended. Eggs, which were really cold like the metal they were made of , became warmer and warmer as the bird remained sat on them. In short time they turned into a shining red, then into a scorching white and they burned the soft skin of Mother’s knee. In spite of being a goddess, yet the Mother wasn’t completely indifferent to pain, therefore she screamed and she violently fell into a big torment. She made the waters rise by kicking frenetically, and all the seven red-hot eggs slid down the nest upon her knee. As they hit the oceanic surface, they broke into fragments.
Very impressed, Mother of Waters looked about herself to find the goldeneye. However the mysterious bird had flown away.
Thus, something marvellous happened: no piece of egg got lost. Each fragment of shell and inner part was still there. From the first half of opalescent and golden envelopes Earth was generated; from the rest the Celestial Bend originated, majestic upon the Earth. The yellow yolk shone like the Sun and the albumen shaped the Moon. Every other little part or fragment grew and became a star or a cloud. Dark and grey fragments formed the storms which darkened the sky.
Once again the Mother floated away, mighty and pregnant. But now the sun warmed her up and the moon enlightened her nights. Joyful and calm, she started dreaming again. She saw the sun rising and the moon replacing it as many times.
The baby, not yet born, remained in her body as always. Warmed up by the sun circle, driven by tides, Mother of Waters heard that Time was closer.
During her travel she made hills, mountains, dunes and water streams with her big and lovely fingers. By enlarging her arms she made sandy beaches and large fissures by painting mountain sides.
As she finished that work, she turned round and she immerged her body into the waters forming ocean abysses and underwater caves to protect new living beings, such as small fishes and big predators. She planted islands on the surface. Some were big and some others as small as rocks, which would be a misfortune for future sailors. At the end, she collected some stones and she forged four big pillars which would support the sky above the Land for ever. Then, she started smiling as she saw her creation completed.

Vainamöinen’s birth
Suddenly she felt violent pushes in her abdomen. The baby in her body was getting impatient. Now his mom’s world was ready to welcome him. Mother started screaming as he kicked and pushed deeply, fighting with her bones as they would be bars of a prison. The Mother finally lifted her body and the baby could find his way towards freedom and shining light.
Blood and fog were everywhere and the waters were boiling. Then, there was nothing but darkness. Mother of Waters looked into the sea and she saw her new-born baby: Vainamöinen. He had been in her body for long time therefore he had grown and reached his perfect shape and maturity already. From his birth he had a great wisdom, a well-painted forehead and a venerable, long white beard.
Nobody knows what Mother told her son to welcome him, but it’s sure that he came to the world with no need of swaddling, no cures and no teachings.
Mother of Waters created the world but now Vainamöinen had to clothe and cover it.
Thus the goddess floated upon the sea and rested while looking at her son. He was hardening his muscles, testing his wit and analysing his powers. She saw him creating seeds and herbs, hay-fields, fruits and flowering trees. He filled the sea with lots of creatures, he populated the land, he put pine-trees on slopes, heather on rocks, cherry-trees where the land was wet, junipers full of berries on stony surfaces, wild sorbs in sacred places, willow-trees into marshes, high oak-trees along the rivers and all green and living beings which would be a combustible and a shelter for future inhabitants. And Vainamöinen, Mother of Waters’ son, would be the first man among them: the first peasant, the first human being taking care of forests, the first gardener. Above all, he would be the first poet, the first singer who would keep the memory of the world in all future times.