Firefox Stories – Aurora Borealis in Folklore

Throughout the ages, people have been fascinated by the magnificent celestial light play of the aurora borealis, and they have always sought explanations for it. First, mythical beliefs were created. Later, theories based on accurate observations and measurements, i.e. scientific explanations, were developed. Even the Finnish word revontuli has its roots in the firefox stories of folklore.

People who lived in northern settlements near the Arctic Circle were well aware of the northern lights phenomenon, and there are various ideas and beliefs about it in their folklore. The northern lights and their burning are known by several names in Finland. In South Ostrobothnia, they are rutja or Ruija valke. In Pohjois-Häme, the blaze of the northern lights is called völyt palaa or pohnen völyää. The saying ¤pohjonen seilaa¤ describes the slow rise of the aurora arc up into the sky: it seems to be approaching like a large sailing ship from behind the horizon. The Finns of Lapland use the aurora borealis name ¤sky white¤ In Northern Sami, the northern lights are (according to Pekka Sammallahti, professor of the Sami language at the University of Oulu) guovssahasat, which also means ¤rooster¤ The bird's variegated plumage resembles the many-coloured northern lights, and its wispy and whimsical movements bring to mind the random fluctuations of the northern lights in the sky. All the inhabitants of the northern polar region and the subarctic nations bordering it have their own names for the northern lights. In Swedish they are norrsken, in Norwegian nordlys, in Icelandic nordurljós, in Estonian Põhja valgus, in Inuit language keoeeit, etc. All dominant European languages have a word describing the northern lights: e.g. das Nordlicht in German, the northern lights or polar lights in English. In most cases, the phrase associated with northern lights describes the visual form of the phenomenon: the night light that shimmers in the northern sky.

In the folklore of eastern and northern Finland, Tulikettu, or tulikko, is a mythical animal that was the object of every hunter's secret wishes. To have one was to fulfil a kind of purpose in life: the feller of the firefox would become rich and famous. The mysterious Tulikettu, skulking in the deep forest and glowing in its home cave, is also described in Veikko Huovinen's novel Havukka-aho Thinker.

According to folklore, fox fur causes a heatless light phenomenon when it touches an object. The notion is not entirely unreasonable, because furs, as accumulators of static electricity, spark when they are touched in dry air. Accordingly, the aurora borealis was said to be caused by firefoxes running around in Lapland when the fox's flanks hit the trees or the tail touched the snow. A similar explanation for the northern lights is known from the First Nations Indians of Canada, where the sparks of the firefox are the equivalent of the sparks that come out of the fur of the caribou (Edth).

Folk poetry researcher Martti Haavio concluded in his study ¤Folk Conceptions of the Aurora Borealis¤ (1944) that the firefly as the cause of the aurora borealis goes back to Leviathan, the sea monster that throws fire into the sky in the Book of Job, or to the mythological beast that spits sparks, Behmuth, which in the people's mouth was twisted into the form Peemutti. According to a folk tradition (Inger, Estonia, Karjalankannas, Southern Savo), the aurora borealis is caused by Leviathan frolicking in the Arctic Ocean, where its hairy fur scales reflect sunlight into the sky as blazing aurora borealis. In the explanation for the northern lights, the whale was replaced by the firefox, which is more familiar to Finnish hunters. The Finnish name revontuli apparently spread in the Christian era according to explanation obtained from the Bible, but flares of fire erupting from Leviathan's mouth turned into sparks dropping off from the firefox's fur. This is how the people have seen the equivalent of their most valuable fur animal in the king of the beasts of the Bible, who rages like a fiery fox.

The Kalevala, which was created with poetic material dating back to the transition from pagan to Christian times in the 13th and 14th centuries, also knows the northern lights. There are references to them, but revontuli as a word does not appear in the epic. They are referred to using, for example, the name Pohjolan portit, which reflects the aurora borealis arch shining in the northern sky, the basic form of aurora borealis. In the Tverin-Karelian dialect, the aurora borealis is still used as an expression referring to gateposts, tuliset patsaats (tulizet pattsahat).

The two typical colours of the northern lights, yellowish green and blood red, have excited the imagination of people in the northern regions. A pale green glow is associated with the dead. According to an old East Greenlandic belief, the northern lights are the souls of dead children who compete with each other in the sky. Elsewhere in Greenland, they are said to be spirits playing a football-like game with a walrus skull, or the spirits of walruses playing with a human skull. In Greenland, the northern lights are called aksarnirq, which means ¤ball player¤.

In Scotland, the aurora borealis are known as the Merry Dancers, which is even jollier than the Greenland term. In northern Russia, the corresponding expression is saluny, ¤the butchers¤. The red glow reflects, in the minds of some, the struggle of the spirits of soldiers who had died in battle against giants. Different variations of this theme are known among Arctic peoples.

In central and southern Europe, where aurora borealis are very rare, their appearance was seen as heavenly foreshadowing of future horrors, wars and other upheavals. At southern latitudes, the aurora borealis almost always appear as a strong red, so connecting them to blood fields reflected from battlefields seemed quite obvious. Even as late as the end of the 19th century, mention of the great red aurora borealis of 1870–71 was made in Prussia, and they were glowing images of blood rising from the fronts of the German-French war. A similar parable is known from Finland from the period of Russian occupation in Finland. It may be related to the sensational northern lights of March 1716, which were observed all over Europe as far as Rome and Athens. According to the custom of the time, numerous manuscripts were published on the subject, in which the aurora borealis phenomenon was considered a sign of the afterlife, the purpose of which was to lead people to spiritual repentance.

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(Translated from the original source: https://www.ilmatieteenlaitos.fi/tulikettutarinoita)