Robert Wilhelm Ekman - Ilmatar - A II 1256 - Finnish National Gallery

Ilmatar () is a virgin spirit and goddess of the air in the Finnish national

epic Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film defined by the spectacular presentation of human drama on a grandiose scale Epic(s) ...

Kalevala The ''Kalevala'' () is a 19th-century compilation of epic poetry, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology, telling a story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and retaliatory ...

''.

Origins

The name Ilmatar is derived from the Finnish word ''ilma'', meaning "air," and the female suffix ''-tar'', corresponding to the English "-ess". Thus, her name means ''Airess''. In the Kalevala she was also occasionally called Luonnotar (), which means "Naturess," "female spirit of nature" (Finnish ''luonto'', "nature"). She was impregnated by the sea and wind and thus became the mother of

Väinämöinen () is a deity, demigod, hero and the central character in Finnish folklore and the main character in the national epic ''Kalevala'' by Elias Lönnrot. Väinämöinen was described as an old and wise man, and he possessed a potent, magical sing ...

. Ilmatar does not appear connected to the creation of the world in

Finnish mythology Finnish mythology commonly refers of the folklore of Finnish paganism, of which a Finnish Neopaganism, modern revival is practiced by a small percentage of the Finnish people. It has many shared features with Estonian mythology, Estonian and othe ...

. In

runic song Runic song, also referred to as ''Rune'' song, ''Runo'' song, or ''Kalevala'' song, is a form of oral poetry and national epic historically practiced among the Baltic Finnic peoples. It includes the Finnish epic poems ''Kalevala'' and '' Kantele ...

s, the name only appears in one collected

White Karelia White Karelia (; North Karelian and or simply ''Viena''; ) is a historical region in Northern Europe, comprising the northernmost part of Karelia, and of the Republic of Karelia in Russia. It is bordered by the White Sea to the east, Murmansk O ...

n poem in reference to the oldest of women. In a rare Ostrobothnian runic song, it is said that the one who gave birth to Väinämöinen was the Maiden of North (''Pohjan neito''). This is the runic song basis for Lönnrot's Ilmatar as the feminine birther of the world. In

Ladoga Karelia Ladoga Karelia (, , , Карельское Приладожье, ''Karelskoje Priladožje'' or Северное Приладожье, ''Severnoje Priladožje'') is a historical region of Karelia, currently largely in Russia. Today, the term refers ...

, the one who gives birth to Väinämöinen is either Iro (Saint Irene) or Maaria (

Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

Sibelius’s ''Luonnotar''

Jean Sibelius Jean Sibelius (; ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 186520 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic music, Romantic and 20th-century classical music, early modern periods. He is widely regarded as his countr ...

composed the Finnish epic

tone poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement (music), movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. T ...

Luonnotar Luonnotar may refer to: * Kave (Finnish mythology), a goddess in Finnish mythology * Ilmatar, a goddess in the ''Kalevala'' epic *Luonnotar (Sibelius) (), Opus number, Op. 70, is a single-movement (music), movement tone poem for soprano and ...

'', for soprano and orchestra in 1913. In this work, the mythical origin of the land and sky (recounted in verses from the ''

)'' becomes an intense Sibelian metaphor for the inexorable force of terror of all creation. Considered to be one of the composer's most compelling works, it alternates between two musical themes. As heard at the outset, these are the shimmering stirrings of ever-growing possibility; and, underpinned with dissonant, static, harp strokes, the even more incantatory, distressed cries of the "nature spirit" (''Luonnotar'') herself, heavy with child.

Homage

* ''

Ilmatar Ilmatar () is a virgin spirit and goddess of the air in the Finnish national Epic poetry, epic ''Kalevala''. Origins The name Ilmatar is derived from the Finnish word ''ilma'', meaning "air," and the female suffix ''-tar'', corresponding to the ...

'' is an album by the Finnish band

Värttinä Värttinä (, meaning " spindle") is a Finnish folk music band that started as a project by Sari and Mari Kaasinen in 1983 in the village of Rääkkylä, in Karelia, the southeastern region of Finland. Many transformations have taken place in t ...

, released in 2000. Its theme was inspired by the goddess's origin-story in the ''Kalevala'' and similar Finnish folk-lore and magic. * The

Main Belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids ...

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

385 Ilmatar 385 Ilmatar is a large Asteroid belt, main belt asteroid. It was discovered by Max Wolf on March 1, 1894, in Heidelberg. It was named after Ilmatar, virgin spirit of the air from the Finnish epic ''Kalevala''. Its mass has been estimated as (1. ...

is named after the goddess. * In the book ''

The Quantum Thief ''The Quantum Thief'' is the debut science fiction novel by Finnish writer Hannu Rajaniemi and the first novel in a trilogy featuring the character of Jean le Flambeur; the sequels are '' The Fractal Prince'' (2012) and '' The Causal Angel'' (201 ...

'', members of a humanoid race living in the

Oort cloud The Oort cloud (pronounced or ), sometimes called the Öpik–Oort cloud, is scientific theory, theorized to be a cloud of billions of Volatile (astrogeology), icy planetesimals surrounding the Sun at distances ranging from 2,000 to 200,000 A ...

sometimes pray to Kuutar and Ilmatar.
Tales Eldelórne trilogy by Karleigh Bon, book one
introduces Ilmatar as the "womb of their gods, where immortal elves are reborn". 2014-2019 * One of the protagonists of the

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

Strike Witches is a Japanese media mix franchise originally created by Fumikane Shimada via a series of magazine illustration columns. The illustrations have since inspired several official light novel, manga, and anime series and v ...

'', Finnish aviator Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen, shares part of her name with that of the goddess. * Two

passenger liner A passenger ship is a merchant ship whose primary function is to carry passengers on the sea. The category does not include cargo vessels which have accommodations for limited numbers of passengers, such as the ubiquitous twelve-passenger freig ...

s of the now-defunct

Finland Steamship Company Finland Steamship Company (, abbreviated ''FÅA'', , abbreviated ''SHO'') was a Finland, Finnish shipping company founded in 1883 by Captain Lars Krogius. In Finnish and Swedish, the company was usually referred to simply as FÅA. In 1976, the ...

were named after the goddess: the of 1929 and the of 1964.

References

{{Kalevala Finnish goddesses Sky and weather goddesses Characters in the Kalevala