This statue is carrying the jawbone of a pike, which is significant in Finnish mythology. A great sage made the zither from the jawbone of a pike that was hundreds of kilometers long and fed half the country.
This led to a discussion of singing. “In Finnish,” our guide says, “it does not matter if you sing badly so long as you sing loud.”
I may have been separated from this country at birth.
Moved on to a discussion of reindeer. Reindeer is expensive, so usually eaten once or twice a year. There is apparently a saying among the Sami, reindeer are sold, the reindeer hybrids are eaten. (I’m not clear on what they hybridize with. Wild deer, which I think means what we call caribou?)
It’s raining heavily. I asked one of my guides what the equivalent of “raining cats and dogs.” She coughed, looked around for children, and said, “It’s raining like it’s coming from Esteri’s…behind.”
Esteri, I am told, is just a name, possibly like Bob in “Bob’s your uncle.”
I watched a puppet theatre (?) show of the Moomins on TV when I was a little kid, and I was so scared of the Sad Platypus (forgot her actual name, she's on this cover in the background).
Yes. They're also unsurpassed at cleaning up after public holidays. And the trams in Helsinki are always on time, even when the whole city is buried under snow.
Bob isn't just a name, tho! It's from a nepotism political assignment where British PM Robert SomebodyOrOther sent his nephew to Ireland to be Overlord SomethingOrOther that he wasn't qualified for & now things are as easy as "Bob's your uncle." O.O
(I'm full of annoying info for you this morning.)
