| Names: | Päivilä  Päivälä  Päivölä |
|---|
Päivölä, Päivälä or Päivilä roughly translates to "sun-place". It means the heavens. Tradition suggests that the ruler, Lady, of this "land", is Päivätär. When connected to Proto-Uralic religion, by all logic, the Lord of Päivölä would be Ilmarinen or Ukko, but this is never stated or implied in runosongs. So while that makes sense, it is not ever actually stated.
Päivölä is connected to Saari, the island at the center of the world, via the world pillar or the world tree. Nature goddesses, luonnottaret, live on the island, but some, such as a Moon Maiden, have also been described as living on the higher end of the pillar.
Karelian runosongs present Osmotar, who brewed the first beer on Saari, as a "girl of the Sun", maybe a daughter of Päivätär even (as she is brewing it under Päivätär's command). However, this does not appear in Finnish runosongs but instead, it is the goddess of the Big Dipper, Otavatar, who is called the "girl of the Sun". Elsewhere on this website, in many places, I have presented my theory that Lemminkäinen is the Son of the Sun, a son of Päivätär. Finnish runosongs also mention the "daughter-in-law of Päivölä", but the account is unclear on if an Underworld goddess or a forest goddess is being intended. In my opinion, as Lemminkäinen went to propose to a maiden in the Underworld, this daughter-in-law epithet belongs to an Underworld goddess.
Runosongs present complicated takes on a banquet, which is described as having been held in Päivölä, Pohjola or Saari depending on the version. If held in Päivölä, it makes little sense to claim that Lemminkäinen was not invited. Finnish runosongs mostly speak of Pohjola, although more vague references to Saari also exist. According to a Central Finnish runosong, it was the "house of a harlot" that someone was not invited from, which could imply a version where it was the son of the Underworld who was not invited (thus opposite to Lemminkäinen). In the end, it's difficult to say for certain.
The mentions to Päivölä or the heavens are relatively rare in Finnish tradition. People were focused on the detities on earth and in the Underworld, and the heavens were less important (even though there are important deities there of course, some of the most important). Sites that were used to worship deities on this layer of the world were also considered suitable for the deities in the heavens, while Underworld deities required something different. There was never any concept of a human being able to "get into" the heavens or anything of the sort (the Underworld was the same for everyone) so it seems that Finns did not focus much on the heavens.
| Päivölä, variants | From päivä "the Sun". |
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| -la, -lä | Denotes a place. |
Only in Finnish, sorry. This is the source material.