Can Finnish gnomes and elves be used for serious design? Answer: Not for serious, but for design yes! We Finns don't really know how to appreciate our traditions. Our current Santa Claus habitus is also a red-haired kind uncle created by Coca Cola's advertising department. And the edges of the elves are also rounded with the washing water.
I boldly set out to design a series of figures based on our folklore. A real connoisseur of elves, the writer Heikki Saure, helped me delve into the topic. He is now a guest blogger and opens up more about the topic here.
- Tapio
Gnomes and elves take us to the heart of Finnishness and ancient things. They may be the oldest deities, spirit beings and supernatural figures known to Finns - so old that no one knows when they appeared in Finns' lives.
Gnomes and elves have been owners and protectors of natural places and buildings. When people sensed that they are everywhere, they also began to respect the places, things and phenomena that possessed them. Gnomes and elves taught people to understand that everything must be taken care of: nature, buildings, objects, people and animals.
"People's lives have been influenced much more by those who are not, than by those who are."
At best, the elf is benevolent and helps with everyday chores. But there is another side to the elf. That's why you should be on good terms with it. If you don't respect the elf and don't listen to its advice, it's life-threatening at worst. There are several cases in the folklore archive where a misbehaving host or hostess has been found dead in a sauna. In this case, it has been suspected that the culprit is an elf.
Even though my book Tonttu – tarua ja totta was already published in 2019, elves and many other characters from our folklore are still strongly present in my life. The latest proof of this is Tapio Anttila, who asked me to write the text for the brochure of Tapio's creatures.
In Tapio's creature figurines, I am fascinated by the meeting of ancient folklore and modern design. Each character is a subtle apparition, from which you can't immediately tell what it really is. Is it a gnome, an elf, or someone else? Our folklore contains detailed descriptions of what the gnome or elf looked like. On the other hand, it has been said that they were not actually seen, but somehow just sensed.
Tapio Anttila suggested that I also make the instructions for use of the figures in the brochure. The task fell to me as if by nature, as I have experience working with gnomes and elves.
I made my Tonttu – tarua ja totta book alone in the middle of the wilderness in Ilomantsi at the residence of the Kalevala society. Every time I went to the sauna, I politely greeted the sauna elf. When I left the sauna, I left it with tasty baths and wished it a good evening, bowed and said goodbye. Next time, it was safe to step into the sauna, knowing that Saunatonttu is in a good mood.
Making the user manuals for the Tapio creatures was also made easier by the fact that I have been behaving the way I wrote in the user manual for a long time. When I'm leaving my house, I give a polite nod to the owner of the house. I feel that I get strength and confidence from it.
After my Tonttu book was published, I was often asked, and still am, whether I believe that elves really exist. This may seem strange, but I came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter whether they actually exist or not. Whether it is or not, they have had a huge impact on our lives.
"Gnomes and elves take us to the heart of Finnishness and ancient things."
When I was finishing the book, I felt that I still needed to conjure up a motto or a proverbial insight at the beginning of the book. Almost immediately it popped into my head. At first I was proud that I had invented it. Then I began to doubt whether I had really invented it myself.
When I was writing the book, I often felt that the elves had a friendly attitude towards my work and helped me find the information I needed from the caches of huge stacks of books and archives as if by magic. It might have been just some elf that dropped the statement in my head that ended up at the beginning of my book: "People's lives have been influenced much more by those who are not, than by those who are".
- Heikki Saure
