| Names: | Laatikainen
Laurikainen Laurukainen I can't list all of the variants because they're in SKS KRA archive (Z. Vainoajat ja sodat section) which isn't available for me online. And I can't just go there and physically check because it is in Helsinki and I am in the north. I'm lowkey kind of pissed off at this fact. |
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Laurukainen, with many other variants of his name, is a white-haired folk hero of Finnish and Sámi stories. He outsmarts raiding enemies, usually Russians, leading them to their deaths. The enemies could also in a minority of instances be Karelians for Finns, and "Chudes" (Baltic Finnics) for the Sámi.
There are two versions of the tale for Finns. In the more common one, Laurukainen is captured by enemies and forced to work as a guide. He tricks them to spend the night on an island and when they wake up, their boats are gone and they starve to death. In the second version, mostly recorded from North Ostrobothnia and Kainuu, he guides the enemies into sailing down a rapid into their deaths. Sámi versions also include him tricking the enemies to fall to their deaths into a ravine.
A storyteller considered him to have been a "Lapp", or a Sámi-speaking individual in Finland before mixing with farmers and language switching to Finnish (the background of most inland Finns).
As said, Laurukainen was captured and forced to be a guide to the enemies. After guilding them to go to an island, in some versions, he is buried under rocks but his villagers find and free him. In other versions, he goes to the island with the attackers. At night, he ties their boats together and takes them away from the island (or alternatively, his fellow villagers help him). The enemies wake up, seeing that he's rowing away with all their boats, and yell at him:
 Tuoo tuo veneet takaisin! Huttupuuro keitetäh Kurri sulle annetah |
Bring back the boats! Porridge will be boiled to you Skimmed milk given to you |
But Laurukainen did not bring them back. For this, the enemies got mad and threatened him:
Laurukainen lierokainen Tuopas mulle venettä: Kuuma tina kurkkuus valetaan Suoles hongan oksalle lapetaan! |
Laurukainen, you snake Bring me a boat: Hot tin will be poured down your throat Your entrails will be hanged on a pine branch! |
In the end, the enemies starved to death on the island. Which island this was and in which lake, this always depends on who's telling the story.
A variant in which someone asks him for a boat goes:
Anna, veikkoseni, venettä Laatikainen laivoasi Jolla souvan Soivioa Rikin suuta riipasen |
Give me a boat, my brother Your vessel, Laatikainen With which I can row in Soivio Scratch the mouth of Rikki |
Soiviojärvi and Rikkijärvi are lakes in Kuusamo and Kemijärvi.
In a version of the tale from Central Finland, the protagonist is an unnamed woman instead.
Laurukainen is sometimes said to have also been able to steal the treasure of the attackers, which he then hid somewhere behind a magic lock (the location, again, varies by the storyteller). But in 1903, in Saviranta, Paltamo, Kainuu, during one winter night, a woman was alone in a cabin, taking care of her sick child. Into the room came a boy dressed in rags who said that his name was Laurukainen. He proposed that the woman give him her child and in exchange, she'd get "enough items for a lifetime". As the boy looked so poor, the woman asked what he'd do with her child, and where he would get such items from. Laurukainen pointed towards a fire near rocks seen from the window, and there was a boat full of all kinds of money. Laurukainen told her that he got the treasure from the boat of the Russians he rowed away with. However, the woman did not give her child, and the ghost of Laurukainen left.
| Laurukainen | I don't know where that comes from. But Lauri Lappalainen "Lauri the Lapp" is a common name in runosongs. |
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Only in Finnish, sorry. This is the source material.