Looking further back in Finnish history. From the 5th century AD onwards, trading connections started developing between Finns and other European groups. During the Roman Empire, for example, traders brought goods from all corners of Europe – wine glasses and gold bracelets from Italy, and luxury weapons from France and Germany. Early Scandinavian and German traders in Finland sold goods, tools and weapons for the country’s most precious resource – soft animal furs. Raha, the word for pelt in Finnish, came to mean money, and Finnish slang can still refer to cash as ‘oravannahka’, meaning squirrel skins. The Black Death, which hit Europe in the middle of the 14th century, killed a third of the Finnish population, and hit the town of Espoo particularly hard. According to an eerie folktale, only a girl and a monk survived. When the monk died, the girl climbed the church tower and tolled its bell in his memory, signalling her presence to the only other survivor in the vicinity: her future husband. Together, they repopulated Espoo, although hopefully with a few more additions to the gene pool. More death & Finnish saga.... The Heimskringla [the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas, written c1230] includes the story of Skjalv, daughter of the Finnish King Froste. After defeating her father, King Agne dragged Skjalv back to Sweden to serve as a concubine. Skjalv, however, waited until the drunken Ingemar was asleep, and then strangled him with his golden chain, Jabba the Hutt-style. His corpse was found hoisted into a tree. Today's #GlobeFacts #FinlandFacts thanks to ''An Armchair Traveller's History of Finland', by Jonathan Clements (Haus Publishing, October 2014). Globe : 127cm Churchill in Glacial Blue : www.bellerbyandco.com
Bellerby & Co Globemakers | Photo by Jade Fenster