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PathWalkers.Net Interactive :: Helping you along your path
Some ladies used cows (or even a pig) to ride to "Bl=E5kulla" (the Sabbath), but those animals were
usually "borrowed" for some neighbour and they were not acting like a helper - they were forced to do
so.
Lapplanders who had long shaman traditions used to use "animal spirit helpers" to do things, but they
were not accused of forcing real animals to do any harm, as far as I know.
There is one big difference between using a "Para" and a bear. "Para" was supernatural familiar, but
bears were really acting animals whom could be seen. Damage made by para was a loss of butter or milk
lucky, but a damage made by bear was real. Anyone could see the damage.
In some cases there was so called "tonttu" (tomptegubben or rgubbe in swedish). They were not used as
helpers, but You should give them some presents for getting rid of harms they could do. People believed,
that "tonttu" was living in particular place and people living in same area were disturbing the tonttu. So
You had to do something to keep tonttu in good mood. Tonttu was spiritual, because no one had never
catch one. Tonttu was not an animal, but small human kind of creature.
Then there was "Nekki" or "Nacken". It was a creature living in lakes and killing people by taking them
under the water. Nekki was not a real animal and it did not acted like a helper for anyone, it did what it
wanted to do.
First little more about "para". The belief of "para" helping to steal cows must be very old, because in one
finnish church there is a painting of para. The painting is older than the belief that a Witch have a pact
with the devil, the devil then giving a "spiritum" to a helper for the witch (This belief was not known in
Finland until 1660s.)
Secondly, I think too, that a witch-hare (para)is common in Sweden. Probably Finnish speaking people
have borrowed in from Sweden, because there are no witch-hares in our oldest mythology as far as I
know. The witch-hare (para) was mentioned in trials some times in the Swedish speaking area of Finland
(west coast), but not in Finnish speaking Karelia, suggesting it is borrowed.
Thirdly, I have to check my papers to find out is there any "pet connection" in finnish witch trials, but
without doing so I can't remember any cases where pet animals had some part of being helpers and
neither did PhD Marko Nenonen as we discussed today.
But I could find at least one case where a man was killed by his own dog. The victim, Antti Yrjonpoika
Paivikainen, was a customer of famous witch Antti Lieroinen who did all kinds of maleficium for salary.
After their contact Paivikainen was found dead and the cause for that was his own dog. So Lieroinen was
thought to cause the death by using victim's own dog to kill him. This was not proved, but Lieroinen was
executed for other witchcraft he had done. This happend in 1643.
Fourthly, 27.3.1641 witch Erkki Juhonpoika Puujumala ("Treegod") was convicted in Turku Supreme
Court. He was sentenced to death for many reasons - for killing people with witchcraft etc. He has had an
arguement with other people and he had said that he was going change those people into wolves with his
maleficium. This was not proved to happen, but it was one prosecution among many. By the way,
Treegod said that he was 120 years old.
Fifthly, we have some cases where a witch has used a snake to do some crime. One witch argued with his
wife and then separated. Later that ex-wife get pregnant from a snake, and later gave birth to some
snakes. In one another case the snake had gone inside of a woman(and they used a lappish healer to try to
get it out).
Snakes had also a strong part of shamanism, but I don't know what really was the function of shamans
snake-shape belongings(??instruments??). Finnish folkloristics seem to believe that the snake was for the
shamans protection.
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