| Names: | Raahkus-äijä 
Rahko  
Rahkoinen
Rahkonen 
Rahkoo-Masa
Rahkoo-Matti
Rahkos-äijä
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Rahkonen or Rahko (old language Rahkoi) is typically described as a thief who was bothered by moonlight and climbed up to the Moon in order to paint it black with tar. However, he got stuck on the Moon and can still be seen on its surface with a brush and a bucket of tar in hand.
Sometimes, it is said that he is carrying the sticks he stole, which is a common belief around Europe (a man stuck on the Moon was punished for gathering sticks on the Sabbath). Most of the time Rahkonen is a thief, but at least in one story the reason he wants to tar the Moon is that he is going to go to propose to someone unwilling.
This tale of Rahko is used to explain the shape of a man, or the face which can be seen on the Moon's surface: it's Rahkoo-Masa, about to paint with tar again. In Southwestern Finland, it was said that a man and a woman duo of thieves are on the Moon, trying to paint it in tar, but that the Moon always washes itself. It seems then that this "Rahko" has taken the name of the initially unnamed, internationally known "Man in the Moon".
It is also said that kapeet, wild animals, "eat the Moon". Forest Finnish myth turns this concepts in an unique way, stating that kapeet ate the Moon and Rahko was the one who forged a new one from cow's hooves and fat. In this context, Rahko is someone who has committed suicide, and eventually they'd become a kave with a new Rahko taking their place. In Kittilä, around the border of Finnish and Sámi lands, the Moon itself was called Rahko until the fields were cut.
But what do the runosongs say? That Rahko has boots of iron and he is climbing up the rocky hill, the hill of the Underworld, the world mountain which the world pillar is attached to. Rahko could then be a creature, maybe an evil one, who tries to climb up to the Moon. Or maybe the one climbing is the Moon itself.
In Eastern Finland, rahko means a wooden shingle holder. The Veps people consider päčinrahkoi an evil oven haltija. Janne Saarikivi wondered if the origin in the idea of Rahko turning the Moon black is in that he would've originally been a haltija in the fireplace, a haltija of coals, as coals could be used to paint with black and were held with these wooden shingle holders.
In either case, the term has remained negative in runosongs: it has come to have the additional meaning of a nightmare. In addition to Rahko painting the Moon or kapeet eating it, there is also a myth of the Moon Maiden throwing her hair in front of it.
Only in Finnish, sorry. This is the source material.