The Swan of Tuonela


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May 5th 2012
Published: May 5th 2012
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Wanderer


Jean Sibelius (1865–1957): Tuonela, the land of death, the hell of Finnish mythology, is surrounded by a large river with black waters and a rapid current on which the Swan of Tuonela floats majestically, singing.

Finnish and Karelian mythology is beautiful and terrible. One of the most original characters there is the Swan of Tuonela / Tuonelan joutseno. It is rarely directly involved in stories, and serves more as a symbolic figure. It is a holy totem animal and the bird of the soul to Karelians. Swan is marked with a special meaning and role of duality, as a part of the kingdom of Death. Black swan glides along the Dead River Tuoni waters, sad singing its eternal and never-ending song. The world knows that tune as a voice of the English horn (cor anglais) in the tone poem by Jean Sibelius Swan of Tuonela (1895). There are the grief and longing, sadness and lonelity, obedience to its own fate and mission. Destinity. Swan image fostered many, many artists try to capture it with their arts and their abilities, means. But at first let us look just at not mythical, but real beautiful birds on a daily basis, in the real life, as sign of the Nordic Nature.

One of the most beautiful and dark in legend cluster around the myth is a story of Lemminkäinen – reckless, swirling in force man, who, however, not everything can get by that force . He can’t fulfill his task to kill the swan of Tuonela and he is himself torn in pieces and thrown into the Dead River. Lemminkäinen’s Mother collects son’s remains and unites them together. But to breathe life into this newly created body, to her – endowed with a secret knowledges and spells might – is beyond her powers . It is this desperate moment stunningly grasped by Axel Gallen Kallela (1865–1931) in his painting Lemminkäinen’s Mother (Lemminkäisen äiti): the black river’s stiffness and indifference, the mother’s mute despair at the son’s lifeless body and the view up with referral to the highest forces – all this concisely, precisely and expressively. But in the background is visible the swan of Tuoenela – without any emotional translation, just as a fact, as a reminder, as a sign of fate.Axel Gallen Kallela

However, such symbolic signs have been made and seen much, much earlier, in ancient times as stone forgings, carvings, drawings (petroglyphs). A number of them occurr in a beautiful shore of the nordic lake. Finnish it is called Ääninen / Äänisjärvi, Karelian Oniegu / Oniegu-järve, Veps Anin / Änižjärv, but Russian Onega / Onego, Onežskoe Ozero (Lake Onega / Onego, Onezhskoe lake, nowadays that lake belongs to Russia). These ancient signs are visible on lake’s shore rocks and islands. But to the lake itself we will turn sometime or other in the future. This time some of many other versions of this motif on or around this story – different levels, different styles and manners of 'writing', different artworks – paintings, sculptures, years ago and today.Gabriel de Jongh
Carole Estrop
Joyce Koskenmaki
Ben Garisson

So till next series – the enchanting lake.

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