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| Names: | Jumala      Jumi Pajainen Pajas Palmunen Palvanen Pitkämöinen Rauni (no region known) Ryönikkä Röönikkä Ukko   Ukkoinen Virankannos (no region known) Virokannas Visakanta Äijä  ? |
|---|---|
| Colour: | Gold; he is a "golden king" with a "golden mallet" |
| Spouse: | Yes He increases fertility when copulating with his wife. Who this wife is, is not known. One suggestion is Maatar, but this is by no means certain. |
| Children: | From a certain perspective, Lemminkäinen |
| Location: | Sky |
| Festival: | Vakat |
| Animal: | Eagle, ox (later also pig) |
Now that I've got that out of the way, let's make a normal page for the god who I believe is Ukko, Virankannos, Jumi, and in many places also Jumala.
I was quite surprised to see how little Ukko is known in runosongs from Western Finland: not at all in Southwestern Finland, and only one possible mention in Häme. The reason for this is no doubt that Jesus and Yahweh have replaced him in western runosongs. In Finnish, Yahweh is typically known as Jumala, originally referring to Ukko and possibly also Ilmarinen. The influence has also gone the other way around: for example, in North Ostrobothnian runosongs Ukko has the power to influence court results, no doubt getting features of a "god of everything" from Yahweh.
In the end, all of the "names" of Ukko are titles. The only possible non-title is Rauni/Ryönikkä/Röönikkä, but even this is uncertain: it could simply be a title loaned from Germanic languages.
His primary role is increasing fertility, which he can do by controlling the weather. If he copulates with his wife, it guarantees good weather and harvest. He is called Virankannos, the one who holds up the world, symbolically the world pillar but also a phallus. His phallus is also called a mallet, and people made stone piles called Jumi's mallet in centers of fields in order to increase fertility. In addition to the world Jumala, Jumi can also be connected to jumissa "to be stuck", also possibly connected to sexual intercourse. According to an Ostrobothnian pastor in the 18th century, Jumi is a god of marriage. Incidentally, he is also a common helper in childbirth.
Perhaps connected to feritility is also his feat for the harvest festival Kekri, where he slays down a giant ox (or at least tries to, depending on the version). A more western variation of this is him slaying a giant pig instead, which to me looks like a Joulu (Yule) variation of the giant ox. After all, Scandinavians ate Odin's boar or Freyr's Gullinbursti on Yule, and modern Finns eat ham on Christmas.
Ukko's own festival is Vakat at the beginning of sowing. This included the ritual awakening of the vegetation haltija Sämpsä Pellervoinen in a runosong that's still called Ukko's song. Disapproving Christian descriptions tell how in these festivities, everyone got drunk and did "shameful" things. It was, no doubt, a beer festival, with beer being a sacred drink and related to agriculture, of course. People also splashed or sprinkled each other with water from a lake. Researchers have wondered if these festivities included hieros gamos, ritual sexual intercourse for increasing fertility, but there is no historical proof of it.
It's also been said that before Christianity, Midsummer was Ukko's celebration. Thunder before Midsummer was bad, and good after it.
Majority of modern Finns erroneously see Ukko as a thunder god only. This is an Indo-European confusion. Balts held beer festivities for their thunder god Perkunas, and Ukko is described having a hammer, which reminds Germanics of Thor. Ukko as Jumala does slay demons when lightning is striking, and his sword of fire is possibly also connected to lightning. This is still only one of his many abilities as the controller of weather and is by no means the root of his importance. Still, Ukko's "name" is best preserved in modern Finnish in the word ukkonen "thunder".
Before the one causing thunder had a human form, it was thought that the fire eagle kokko causes lightning. Kokko ("eagle") is, incidentally, a word very similar to Ukko ("Lord"). Indeed, there are also mentions where Ukko's hammer is called Ukko's claw instead. Later, it was explained that kokko was Ukko's "helper". I wouldn't be surprised if this thunder bird is a later merge into the origin of fertility and the world pillar.
There is a theory according to which Virankannos would originally be Vipunen and therefore the father of Lemminkäinen, a shaman hero connected to fire, the Sun, and fertility. Lemminkäinen also descends to the Underworld, dies, and is resurrected.
| Ukko, Ukkoinen | "Lord". -nen is a diminutive. |
|---|---|
| Jumala, Jumi | Theorized to be connected to Indo-Iranian *dyuman "celestial", but this is not certain. |
| Pajainen, Pajas | From Sámi pad'd'i "above". |
| Palvanen, Palmunen | Uncertain, possibly from palvoa "to worship". Palmunen is a rare morph. |
| Pitkämöinen | A morph from pitkä ("long", also connected to lightning) and Väinämöinen. |
| Rauni, Ryönikkä, Röönikkä | Unknown. Theories include origin in *Frauja "Freyr, Lord" or keraunios "of the thunderbolt". |
| Virankannos, variants | "The one who holds up the world", from vira or viro "world" (loan from Germanic) and kanta "base" (kantaa "to carry"). |
| Äijä | According to folklore, used when referring to thunder in Uusimaa. Does not appear in runosongs. Synonymous with Ukko. |
Only in Finnish, sorry. This is the source material.
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