| Names: | Ajonen 
Andera Vipuinen 
Andero Vipuinen
Anterias Vipunen 
Anterma Vipunen
Antero Vipuinen
Antero Vipunen 
Anterus Vipunen
Untelo Vipuinen
Vapunen
Viponen
Vipunen
|
|---|
What to even say about this guy. He's like three different people.
Lemminkäinen is called the son of Vipunen. According to Matti Kuusi, the original version was that Lemminkäinen visited his dead father, Vipunen, in the Underworld. At least later, both came to be seen as shamans.
According to E.N. Setälä, Vipunen's name is connected to the word vironvipu "the world pillar", which would be synonymous with Virankannos. He believed his original first name to have been similar to the Karelian Kanderva, creating the phrase kantava vipunen "carrying pillar". Important is also that there are Karelian versions which call him Viroinen and Virunen.
Kaarle Krohn believed Vipunen's original first name began with U, just like the Savonian Untelo. He pointed out the Estonian name in runosongs, Udres, once replaced with Virelemas virsitarka "Virelemas, wise in songs". According to Ingrian runosongs, he (though mistakenly called Ville lammas "Ville the Sheep") "knew the Moon, knew the Sun, knew the stars in the sky, the grains of the bottom of the sea".
Anna-Leena Siikala focused on another Karelian form of the name, Angervo, which also means a Filipendula plant. She considered Vipunen the same as Virankannos, a fertility deity. The term virankanto has also been used for some plants. She pointed out the Estonian myth of Lemming's father Osmi dying and herbs growing on his grave, and the Germanic tales of Freyr being buried in a mount where snow always melted. Agricola called Virankannos a protector of oats, and both wild oats and dropwort (Filipendula vulgaris) were used as food in the Iron Age. Based on this, she saw the original roles of Vipunen and Lemminkäinen as fertility deities, any ideas of shamanism having been added in later.
I would personally like to point out fire is called a son of Vipunen, wasps are called sparks of fire, and the feminine Angervotar is called the creator of wasps.
Regardless of what the original role of Vipunen was, in runosongs, he is a shaman or tietäjä with great knowledge. He is also sometimes described as a giant. Väinämöinen wants to get runo words from him to finish building his boat, but Joukahainen informs him that Vipunen is long since dead. Väinämöinen proceeds to travel to the Underworld to get the knowledge out of him. This Underworld journey is described as Vipunen "swallowing" Väinämöinen, which is not a rare description for an Underworld journey at all. Inside the stomach of Vipunen, Väinämöinen starts forging and manages to get out with the words he needs.
Interestingly, in the oldest written down version of the myth, the protagonist looking for words is Ilmarinen. In some Karelian runosongs, Ilmarinen still gets swallowed into the Underworld when an Underworld maiden does just that for him, and he too gets out by forging.
According to one more theory, the story of Antero Vipunen was inspired by Sámi shamans, and especially one named Akmeeli from Sodankylä, whose "Christian name" seems to have been Antereeus. There are no historical records of him, but both Samuli Paulaharju and Jaakko Fellman believed he had been the father of Johan Musta who lived in Sodankylä in the 17th century.
Akmeeli is well known in folklore. He is said to have been a war chief who rallied together the Sámi of his home region to defeat Russian guerrilla fighters. As a shaman he could transform into various animals and in a trance, his soul travelled as a whale. He is said to have died when going into a trance, but his wife forgot the words to wake him up with, and Akmeeli's soul couldn't return into his body. Thirty years later she remembered them, and Akmeeli's now rotten body stood up from his grave and immediately fell back down, dead.
Due to this, it has been theorized that the way that Vipunen died was the same: being stuck in a trance. Indeed, this tale was not unknown to runosingers: In some Karelian versions of the Death of Lemminkäinen, his mother fails to resurrect him as Lemminkäinen's body simply says "this rotten one can't become a living man". In that version Lemminkäinen, too, is described like a shaman who got stuck in a trance and died.
I already explained like all of this in the article itself.
Only in Finnish, sorry. This is the source material.