and scarified by the boys who covet its bark, and the deer that love
its leaves, and the winter frosts that make its gaunt boughs shiver in
the cold winds, what can be prettier than the “Birch Tree’s Lament,” as
described in this ancient poem:
“Often unto me defenceless,
Oft to me unhappy creature,
In the short spring come the children,
Quickly to the spot they hurry,
And with sharpened knives they score me,
Draw my sap from out my body,
Strip from me my white bark-girdle,
Cups and plates therefrom constructing,
Baskets too for holding berries.”
…
“And the wind brought ills upon me,
And the frost brought bitter sorrows,
Tore the wind the green cloak from me,
Frost my pretty dress tore off me,
Thus am I of all the poorest,
And a most unhappy birch-tree,
Standing stripped of all my clothing,
As a naked trunk I stand here,
And in cold I shake and tremble,
And in frost I stand lamenting.”
In the course of our lake journey we pass countless farmhouses, all of
which have common characteristics. Many are painted red and make vivid
spots of color on the landscape, either in the midst of the green of
summer or the white of winter. One large corner of the living room is
devoted to a huge fireplace, in which great logs glow and cheerily
crackle throughout the long, cold winter. On the rafters overhead dried
vegetables are strung in festoons, or hoes, rakes, and fishing tackle
adorn the ceiling.
The one piece of furniture of distinction and honor is the long sofa
which graces one side of the room. What the throne is to the king’s
palace, the sofa is to the peasant’s home. Says Paul Wainemann in his
_Summer Tour in Finland_: “The right-hand corner of the sofa is the Holy
of Holies and is always reserved for the governor’s wife, if she graces
an assembly with her presence. Beside her would sit the wife of the
official next highest in rank. An unmarried lady under no provocation
would be tempted to seat herself on the sofa, it being considered the
height of indecorum to do so, as well as being a sure and certain sign
that she would remain a spinster to the end of her days. Needless to
say, a mere man would be hounded out of the room if he even attempted to
commit such an appalling breach of etiquette.”
I must say that in the last respect, though a mere man myself, my
experience has been different from that of Mr. Wainemann, for I have
frequently been urged and sometimes almost compelled by my Finnish
hostesses to take the honored seat on the sofa, a seat which I could not
refuse without an undue struggle to show humility and politeness.
An interesting and admirable addition to almost every Finnish home in
the country is the bathhouse, which is usually built separate from the
dwelling house. The Finns and the Japanese are the only two peoples whom
I know who realize the virtue of a hot bath and almost daily indulge in
it. The Englishman enjoys his cold tub, and carries his absurd bathtub
with him, whether he is going to Timbuctoo or to the next town in his own
country. The modern American can hardly exist in a house that does not
contain one or more set bathtubs with hot and cold water, but the Finn
and the Jap are the only peoples who believe in the hottest kind of a hot
bath, though the Russians and Turks indulge in them occasionally.
In the country bathhouse unhewn pine logs often form the walls. A big,
inclosed fireplace or stove of rough stones is built in the middle or
on one side. When the stones are sizzling hot, an abundance of water is
poured upon them, and in the steam, which seems almost scalding, the Finn
lies down and enjoys the moist relaxation to his heart’s content. When he
has enjoyed this sufficiently, he beats himself or his next neighbor with
bunches of fragrant birch twigs, while his neighbor returns the favor.
When he has been sufficiently soaped and rubbed and flogged with twigs,
he jumps into the cold lake, if it be summertime, or rolls in the snow
in winter. I have never seen it myself, but I am told on good authority
that in the evening it is no uncommon sight in the country to see a row
of naked men sitting outside the house, having just completed their cold
plunge.
That this Finnish bath is an immemorial custom is shown by the fact that
in one of the folk songs of the _Kalevala_, Anniki, the little sister of
Ilmarinen, “the great primeval craftsman,” says to him:
“Now the bath-room’s filled with vapor,
And the vapor-bath I’ve heated,
And have steeped the bath-whisks nicely,
Choosing out the best among them.
Bathe, O Brother, at your pleasure,
Pouring water as you need it,
Wash your head to flaxen color,
Till your eyes shine out like snow-flakes.”
In these pleasant farmhouses by which we glide so rapidly in our little
steamer how many human comedies and tragedies must have been enacted; how
many joys and sorrows have found place beneath these roofs? Births and
betrothals, weddings and funerals, each has brought as much ecstasy or
grief as the same events bring to the noble chateau or lordly palace.
You remember, Judicia, how we have sometimes been amused at the profound
melancholy which occasionally invests a wedding at home. Do you remember
how we have seen the weeping mother of the bride or groom sobbing out
her congratulations, and how sometimes the whole assembly was almost
dissolved in tears.
Well, in the olden times the Finns carried the mournful wedding to
the nth degree of melancholy. As late as 1899 a writer in a popular
magazine, speaking of a Russian wedding just across the Finnish border,
says: “Such a thing as a radiant bride is unknown in those regions, and
the chief idea seems to be to make as great a show of grief as possible,
and to make the function as dismal as a funeral.”
A weeping wedding is not now known in Finland except in the remotest
districts, but I am told that not long ago a company of professional
wedding weepers were brought to Helsingfors from the far north to show
how they could enliven marriage festivities and to remind a modern bride
of the customs of long ago.
The _Kalevala_, that thesaurus of rhythmical information concerning
ancient customs, tells us what was said to the bride before she left for
her new home, to make her thoroughly appreciate the old homstead, and
also the way in which she replied to the jeremiad. I will quote for you a
few more lines:
“Hast thou never, youthful maiden,
On both sides surveyed the question,
Looked beyond the present moment,
When the bargain was concluded?
All thy life must thou be weeping,
And for many years lamenting,
How thou left’st thy father’s household,
And thy native land abandoned,
From beside thy tender mother,
From the home of her who bore thee.”
And the lugubrious maiden replies,
“Blackest trouble rests upon me,
Black as coal my heart within me,
Coal-black trouble weighs upon me.”
[Illustration: In Eastern Finland.]
A funeral could hardly by any possibility have been more solemn in the
ancient times than a wedding. Indeed often it must have been a more
joyous occasion, for I am told that in some sections, even to this day,
after the relatives have kissed the corpse, all the guests present shake
him by the hand, and that the friends usually speak of him not as dead,
but as one “whom it hath pleased God to take.”
You can see what a delightful experience a voyage through lakeland must
be, in the midst of such charming and ever-changing scenery, the human
interest constantly kept alive, not only by the abundant life along the
shore, but by the unforgotten customs of the past which the _Kalevala_
has so beautifully preserved for us.
There are other and more thrilling voyages through the “Land of a
Thousand Lakes” than the one I have taken you upon to-day. The trip, for
instance, down the rapids of Uleå, which is made every day of the tourist
season in long, narrow rowboats, under the care of skillful licensed
pilots. The canoe trip from Moosehead Lake in Maine to the St. John River
in New Brunswick through the Allegash waters is not unlike this journey
down the Uleå River, though the passage of the many rapids is usually
less thrilling. But in Finland, as in Maine, it takes a cool and skillful
hand to pilot the frail craft down these ripping, roaring rapids. Now
it looks as though the way was blocked up by a jutting headland; again
it seems as if our craft would be dashed to pieces against a gigantic
boulder in mid-stream, but always in the Uleå, as in the Allegash, the
turn of a paddle avoids the threatened danger, and our boat floats out
into smooth waters to the peaceful thoroughfare below the rapids.
But it is hopeless to attempt to describe all the interesting matters
that cluster around country life in Finland. Here is a country as big as
all Great Britain, with the Low Countries across the Channel thrown in.
Who would have the nerve to attempt to describe country life in Belgium,
Holland, Ireland, Scotland, and England in one letter? The very magnitude
of the task must be my excuse for the fragmentary incompleteness of my
attempt.
Faithfully yours,
PHILLIPS.
FIFTEENTH LETTER
Which has to do with Tammerfors, the “Manchester” of Finland,
and the railway which takes one thither; its remarkable church;
the Wounded Angel and the Garden of Death; also something about
the church boats of the country districts, and the strange
notice given from the pulpit.
TAMMERFORS, FINLAND, July 15.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
Tammerfors is an inland city on the edge of the great lake region of
which I wrote you in my last letter. I had to come here by rail, and
perhaps you will be interested to know something about the railways of
Finland. I must confess that as means of communication they cannot rival
the steamers on the lakes and canals, but, as in most other countries,
they are a very necessary evil, and, since in Finland they run on
well-ballasted roads for the most part and burn fragrant wood instead of
ill-smelling coal, their nuisance as smoke and dust producers is reduced
to a minimum.
They are practically all owned by the State, and as the State is in no
hurry to get its inhabitants from one place to another, or to get them
out of the country, should they be bound to emigrate, the average rate
of speed is not more than fifteen miles an hour. Even the express trains
between Helsingfors and St. Petersburg are no cannon balls or “Flying
Yankees,” for a mile in three minutes and ten seconds is the best they
attempt to do for the whole journey.
Still if you have time enough at your disposal you can travel a
surprisingly long distance in Finland for a surprisingly small amount of
money. The third-class fares (and the third class is patronized by the
great majority of people) costs less than a cent a mile, and you can go
clear around the east coast of the Gulf of Bothnia to its northern tip,
if you are so disposed, and at Haparanda can almost shake hands with our
Swedish friends, whom I visited in Luleå a few months ago.
I would not advise you to take a third-class car if you intend to take a
long journey in Finland, for the hard, yellow, wooden seats get decidedly
tiresome before you have jolted over a hundred miles of Finnish scenery.
The second-class cars are entirely comfortable and even luxurious on the
principal lines, and you can settle down happily in your plush, springy
comfort, usually having a whole seat to yourself.
The first-class accommodations, as in Sweden, are only distinguished from
the second by the placard on the door or the window and by your own inner
consciousness that you have paid considerably more than your neighbors
for the same accommodations. Most of the cars are more like our American
cars than the ordinary European coaches, with an aisle down the middle
and seats on either side, though the same car may be divided into two or
three compartments with doors between.
The stations are modest, wooden buildings, and, except for the numerous
signs of margarine, beer, and other comestibles with which they are
decorated, I could readily mistake them for railway stations in northern
New Hampshire or western Dakota.
One could never, however, mistake a Finnish railway restaurant for a
similar institution in America. Here one sees no quick-lunch counter, no
aged sandwiches made the day before yesterday, no greasy doughnuts or
any impossible concoction misnamed “coffee.” Here everything is neat,
nice, and orderly. The coffee is sure to be delicious, for in the meanest
Finnish hut, even in far Lapland, the proprietor would be ashamed to give
you anything but a steaming and fragrant cup of their national beverage.
With the coffee, and for the same price, you get an unlimited supply of
little cakes or sweetbread, while if you want a full dinner of three or
four courses, superbly cooked and elegantly served, it will cost you
only two and a half Finnish _marks_, or about fifty cents, for a Finnish
_mark_ differs from a German _mark_ in being of the same value as a
_franc_.
Outside the station, in rows along the platform, I often see old women
with baskets of apples or plates of fried meat or cakes, or loaves of
coarse bread and bottles of milk, just as we saw them in that long
journey across Siberia in the early days of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
You remember how eagerly we used to race for the bread and milk stalls
to get our supply before the little tables were swept bare by the hungry
travelers? In Finland one does not have to be a sprinter in order to get
his share of the food, for there is always an abundant supply at the
restaurants. The old women on the outside, because of the cheapness of
their wares, are largely patronized by the poorer people.
The notices in the stations and in the cars about smoking, spitting,
putting your head out of the window, standing on the platform, and so on,
are printed in six languages: Finnish, Swedish, Russian, German, French,
and English, and the maps and diagrams and time-tables are so full of
helpful information that no wayfaring man need go astray.
In one respect the Finnish railways differ from the Swedish, though they
are such near neighbors. The Swedish trains glide away like the Arab
when he has folded his tents, without making any fuss about it. No bell
is rung, no whistle blown, no word of command given. The station master
simply waves his hand when the exact second for departure has come, and
unless you keep your eyes wide open, and your watch exactly with railway
time, you are likely to see the rear car of the train vanishing in the
distance while you make frantic but unavailing attempts to catch it. In
Finland, on the contrary, there is no danger of your being left, for
first the station bell rings, then it rings again, then the conductor
blows his whistle, then the engineer answers him with the locomotive
whistle, and by that time, everything being good and ready, the train
will slowly get under way.
Tammerfors might well be called “Grand Rapids,” a name indeed which is
not far from its Finnish significance, for through the center of the
city rushes a tremendous stream of water, over rapids that make it swirl
and eddy and shoot its spray high in the air. This river Tam affords a
splendid water power for the principal manufacturing city in Finland, and
is lined with great cotton and woolen mills and paper factories, which
rightly give the city the nickname, even among its own inhabitants, of
the “Manchester” of Finland.
In size, however, the Finnish Manchester is nearer the New Hampshire than
the English Manchester, and its river rushes and tumbles through the city
much as the Merrimac throws itself with mighty force against the water
wheels of the New England city.
But neither Manchester, New Hampshire, nor Manchester, England, can boast
such a remarkable church as the “Manchester” of Finland. Indeed, I doubt
if such a church can be found in any one of the five continents. It is a
very expensive church, built of solid granite, with enormous pillars that
would not be put to the blush by the ruins of Baalbec, or the ancient
temple of Sardis. In this church a great Christian Endeavor meeting was
held which completely filled the audience room, as has been the case
in the other cathedral churches of Finland, and I must say that it was
rather a unique experience as I spoke to the living audience to see also
a painted audience of naked men and half-clothed women coming out of
their graves forming the great altar piece, representing the Resurrection
morning.
Around the huge gallery, supported by enormous stone pillars, is a row
of naked boys carrying a large garland which completely surrounds the
gallery. This garland is supposed to signify the “Burden of Life,”
and is composed of roses and thorns. Some of the boys are carrying it
lightly, and others are staggering under its weight.
In other parts of the church are two remarkable frescoes, one
representing two boys carrying a wounded angel on a kind of litter
between them. The angel’s drooping wings, spotted with blood, and her
sweet, patient expression contrast strangely with the rugged little
Finnish boys who are carrying her. One of them has a resentful expression
on his face, as though he were deadly tired of his burden. Did the artist
mean to tell us that every boy carries an angel with him, though he often
resents her presence and would be glad to get rid of her?
The other mural painting represents the “Garden of Death,” and shows us
three grinning skeletons with watering-pots in their hands, sprinkling
flowers of various kinds as they wander through their garden. One writer
calls this a “perfectly hideous piece of symbolism,” but it did not so
strike me. Though unpleasant in some of its features, it is not nearly so
hideous as the pictures of the Last Judgment depicted by many of the old
masters, and it teaches the worth-while lesson that “life evermore is fed
by death.”
This church is characteristic of the new and audacious architecture of
Finland. Ernest Young well describes it when he says: “Without a mass
of photographs it is difficult to convey to the reader any idea of the
curious character of this modern work. One man calls it “hideous”;
another “lovely.” The choice of the epithet probably depends on your
education, your prejudices, and your ability to seek sympathetically for
the meaning of the builder. It falls into no category of known style;
hence if you be but of the schools it will probably appal you.”
“To me,” he continues, “it is an intense joy, even when it is ugliest
and least effective, for it is _daring_. It is only a man of courage
who dares to do the things that these men do. It is full of the spirit
of youth, and though it be not Gothic, nor Moorish, nor anything but
Finnish, I could wander all day amongst the houses and streets where it
is prevalent, feeling as though I were once more in the presence of an
age when men dared to be original in defiance of all accepted traditions.”
I ought to tell you, perhaps, before I get through with this remarkable
church that there was strong opposition, especially on the part of the
clergy, to the extreme nudity of the decorations, but the persistence of
the artists, and the pride of the people in their original productions,
prevailed over all objections, and the paintings remain there, naked and
unashamed.
Tammerfors, or the Rapids of the Tam, affords a good point of departure
for the more remote interior of Finland, and here we should find churches
and churchgoers of a different type from those which the large cities
afford. The churches, like the houses of the people, are of wood, and
some of them are enormous buildings in which the peasants from many miles
around gather to worship and to be instructed by their honored pastors.
With some families, as with our Puritan ancestors, Sunday begins on
Saturday afternoon. This is perhaps a matter of necessity rather than of
conscience, because not a few live at such a distance that they have to
start on Saturday afternoon in order to get to church in season for the
Sunday service. No sight in Finland is more unique than the great “church
boats” that leave the remote villages on Saturday evenings for a journey
through the long summer twilight to the distant church. These boats
sometimes contain twenty or thirty worshipers, and the rhythm of the
splashing oars is accentuated by the sweet voices of the maidens as they
sing the psalms and hymns of ancient Finland. Practically all the people
are Lutherans, though there are Free Church Lutherans and State Church
Lutherans, and you may be sure that Luther’s famous hymn, “A Mighty
Stronghold is our God,” often resounds along the peaceful waterways and
is echoed from the pine-clad hills as the “church boat” makes its way
to the sanctuary. In these days the “church boat” is often a steamer of
considerable size, which starts early Sunday morning and collects three
or four hundred worshipers from the different hamlets and farms within
its circuit.
If we should attend church in one of these remote districts in the winter
we would very likely hear the minister give out a singular notice from
the pulpit. It would not be concerning a “Ladies’ Sewing-circle,” or a
“Men’s Club,” or a “Turkey Supper,” or a “Strawberry Festival,” but,
strangest of all strange pulpit “intimations,” as our Scotch friends
would call it, it would relate to a _bear hunt_.
To be more specific, the minister would announce that a certain farmer
had found a “ring,” and that no one must trespass upon his “ring.” This
would mean that a certain member of the church had been lucky enough
to track a bear to its lair, and that, without disturbing him, he had
drawn a wide circle around him in the snow. Henceforward that bear is
his property, either to kill or to sell to some sportsman who wants the
excitement of a bear hunt.
Bruin himself, it seems, is not very particular about his winter
quarters. When he is ready for his winter’s nap he lies down and lets
the snow cover him up as it will. It often makes a large heap over his
improvised bedroom, and his breath, escaping like steam from a hole in
the snow which it has melted, often reveals his hiding place to the
sharp-eyed farmer, who is always on the lookout for it.
The discoverer rarely disturbs Bruin himself, but he sends word to the
Tourist Association of Helsingfors that he has a “ring” for sale, and
there are many keen hunters, some of whom come from Russia and some from
England, who are glad to pay from seventy-five to eighty dollars for the
ring. When the huntsman reaches the bear’s winter quarters, the dogs and
the beaters rout out the bear, who usually puts up a very stiff fight,
and not altogether a one-sided one before he is dispatched by the hunter.
I must say it seems to me something like burglary, if not highway robbery
and murder, to drive inoffensive Bruin in the dead of his long winter
night out of his cozy sleeping apartment. Especially I am sorry for
the mother bear, who always keeps her cubs with her during the long
night, while the father bear keeps a bedroom of his own. As a result of
these bear hunts, it is said that “in Viborg and other towns it is not
uncommon to see young bears which have been caught in this manner acting
as playmates for the children, and running at large in the gardens and on
the hills.”
I suppose that Aylmer told you all about skiing when he wrote you of his
winter in Norway, and I will simply remind you, and Aylmer, too, if you
will communicate the fact to him, that the “ski is a _Finnish_ invention,
and was known here many years before it was introduced into Norway.” So
that fact counts at least one point for my side of Scandinavia.
Faithfully yours,
PHILLIPS.
SIXTEENTH LETTER
Deals with Helsingfors, the capital of the Grand Duchy, and
its strongly fortified islands; with Woman’s Suffrage in
progressive Finland; with universal education; with the folk
schools and the extreme attention given to them; with the
university and its degrees; with the literature of the Finns
and the more interesting Finn himself.
HELSINGFORS, FINLAND, July 20.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,