#puhuri

PAKKANEN

Category:  Finnish mythology

Pakkanen, also called Pakko or Pokkanen, is considered to be the Finnish equivalent of the English Jack Frost. And yet, you won’t find much about Pakkanen when searching.

There isn’t much info going around him on the Internet. You’ll find that the name Pakkanen means “cold” or “frost”. That Pakkanen himself is the spirit of winter, or the embodiment of the cold, or the personification of the “cold winter weather”. You will find that he is the son of Puhuri, the North Wind, which usually takes the shape of a giant eagle; and maybe you’ll find that his mother is “Louhi the witch”. And you’ll find mentions of how traditional Finnish poems ask Puhuri and his son Pakkanen to be gentle, and to not inflict humans chills or frostbites.

But not much more…

To learn about Pakkanen you actually have to look at The Kalevala, THE epic of Finnish culture, because Pakkanen is actually a character in this poetic reconstruction of Finnish myths.

For more information about the Kalevala, I invite you to look at my previous post about the Finnish sorcerer-hero Väinämöinen, in my “Magical Summer” series. Now, Pakkanen appears on the 30th canto/section of the Kalevala.

In this section, Lemminkäinen (another one of the sorcerer-heroes of the Kalevala) decides to take revenge on Louhi, the wicked witch-queen, who attacked his people and nation. So he sails on a boat towards Louhi’s realm, Pohjola, in an attempt to vanquish or punish the dark sorceress. Louhi, noticing this, summons Pakkanen and orders him to go freeze the ocean on which Lemminkäinen sails.

Now, Pakkanen is described Louhi’s beloved son, who was taught and instructed by her, and he is described as both a “son of evil parents” and the hero/champion of evil. If you look at an English translation of the Kalevala, you might not see the name “Pakkanen” appearing due to how this word literally means “frost”. It is a similar way to how Nyx or Ouranos from Greek mythology can be literally translated as “Night” or “Sky”. As a result, to make clear we are talking about the mythological character, translators we don’t settle with a “Frost” with a cap can mention things such as “Great Frost”, “Dark Frost” or “Frost-Fiend”.

On his way to the ocean, Pakkanen is described as taking all the leaves off the forest, robbing the flowers of their colors, stripping the meadows of their verdure. Arriving at the sea-shore, Pakkanen takes several nights to do his work. The first night he freezes the lakes and rivers, as well as the ocean-shore, but he can’t touch the sea itself ; we have to wait for the second night for him to “grow important” enough and turning into a “fierce intruder” – the “fearless invader” then starts to freeze everything, using the cold of the north to petrify the waves, filling the sea with thick ice, covering all fields and forests with snow… With his ultimate goal being the order of his mother: freeze the boat of the hero, and petrify Lemminkäinen himself into a block of ice.

However the warrior-sorcerer becomes quite angry at seeing Pakkanen’s attack, and so decides to fight back. He seizes the “black frost”, and hurls him at the “fire-god”, throwing him in a “fiery furnace” and holding him into a “forge of iron” (I think it might refer to the sun ; as to defeat the spirit of frost the sorcerer literally throws him into the sun). But physical feat on its own is not enough to stop such a force of nature, and so Lemminkäinen has to use his magic. If you followed my Magical Summer series, you’ll know that Finnish magic takes the shape of poem recital and sacred singing: by describing things you can affect them, and by narrating the story of their birth or creation you can gain power over them. And so this is precisely what Lemminkäinen does to the frost spirit.

At first he lists to Pakkanen all the things he CAN and is allowed to do: freezing swamps, lakes and rivers, making birch lose their bark and pines explode, turning even the hottest stones cold, freezing iron mountains and the flames themselves, petrifying boiling waters and sacred streams. But Lemminkäinen immediately describes what Pakkanen is NOT allowed to do: freeze him, remove the blood from his extremities, hurt, petrify or kill him in any way – the frost spirit has to let the sorcerer pass unharmed. To assert his power, then Lemminkäinen describes the genealogy and the story of the birth of Pakkanen, which would give him all powers over him: he describes Pakkanen as the evil son of the north, and as the “dire and only son of winter”: he was conceived over willows on the borders of Pohjola (Louhi’s realm) from a sinful father (the North Wind as described previously) and a dishonored mother (Louhi). Pakkanen was not fed by his own mother, but rather fed and nursed by adders, as well as foul and slimy serpents – while the North Wind rocked his cradle to put him to sleep. And so “evil-born and evil-nurtured”, Pakkanen grew up in willow-marshes and forever-flowing spring as an “evil genius”, until he was named “Frost”.

And once he was named, the “young lad” started to live in hedges, weeds and willows. In summer he hid in springs and the borders of marshes, but when winter came he “stormed among the glens and forests”, freezing all trees and plants, “raging and rattling” among the “sacred birch-trees and alder-branches”, eating all the leaves of the woodlands, peeling the bark off willows and destroying stalks and blossoms.

Once this whole description is over, Lemminkäinen looks at the spirit he holds in his hands, and he notes that since those times Pakkanen has grown “much larger”, becoming “too tall and mighty”. And in a magical “back-at-you”, Lemminkäinen gives orders to Pakkanen to return from the land he came from, to return to his mother’s castle, and there to freeze cauldrons and coal, freeze babies and dough, freeze the hearth and the colt. To have his order obeyed he threatens to use on him all sorts of fiery magical weapons, and he also says that if Pakkanen’s doesn’t follow his exact words he’ll banish him into the forge of Lempo (a fiery smith-god) who will crush him into tiny pieces among his chimneys and burning coals ; or, he might also as another punishment imprison him into a land of perpetual summer.

And “Wicked Frost, son of Winter”, seeing the “magic bird of evil hovering over his spirit” (aka feeling the threat of Lemminkäinen’s magic), agrees to a solemn oath according to which none of the two parties shall harm each other as long as “the moonlight glimmers on the snow-capped hills of Northland”.

Once this frost-fiend is vanquished, then Lemminkäinen keeps on with his journey, by walking over the frozen waves to the land of the witch-queen.

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This photo reminds me of Pakkanen puhurin poika  (Jack Frost, son of the icy, howling North Wind)