Päivätär (; ) is the goddess of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

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 ...

. She owns the silver of the Sun, spins silver yarns, and weaves clothes out of them. Professor

Anna-Leena Siikala Arja Anna-Leena Siikala (formerly Kuusi, née Aarnisalo, born Helsinki, 1 January 1943, died Espoo, 27 February 2016) was a professor emeritus at the University of Helsinki, specialising in folk-belief, mythology, and shamanism, along with oral stor ...

finds it possible that Päivätär was a goddess who ruled over life and light. During

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

period, she was replaced by

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 ...

. According to her, Kuutar and Päivätär belong to a tradition that was influenced by

Baltic mythology Baltic mythology is the body of mythology of the Baltic peoples stemming from Baltic paganism and continuing after Christianization and into Baltic folklore. History Baltic mythology ultimately stems from Proto-Indo-European mythology. The Bal ...

In runic songs

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, Päivätär is known as a

mother A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of ges ...

of wasps. Another name which appears in runic songs is Auringotar, which has the same meaning as Päivätär. Auringotar is mentioned as the creator of fire. A runic song collected by Christfried Ganander in the 1700s mentions Kavet as the one who allowed the Sun and the Moon to shine, and Päivätär as the one who "freed the Son of the Sun".

Sun worship among Finns

Matthias Castrén Matthias Alexander Castrén (2 December 1813 – 7 May 1852) was a Finnish Swedish ethnologist and philologist who was a pioneer in the study of the Uralic languages. He was an educator, author and linguist at the University of Helsinki. Castrén ...

thought Finns had, once upon a time, worshipped the Sun in its visible, material form. However, there is very little information of Finnish Sun worship. People in Finland, as well as

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

, did draw

sun cross A sun cross, solar cross, or wheel cross is a solar symbol consisting of an equilateral cross inside a circle. The design is frequently found in the symbolism of prehistoric cultures, particularly during the Neolithic to Bronze Age periods of ...

es next to doors and windows, and on other objects in order to drive away evil spirits, especially around the winter solstice. According to Jean Baptiste Holzmayer, these were images of the Sun, at least in Estonia. It is not certain to which degree these symbols were influenced by old sun worship, and to which degree they have come from

cultural influence and cross imagery. When the Dutch Andries van Wouw had to travel across Finland in 1616, he wrote about long poles with an encircled cross at the top and a wide altar-like podium at the bottom. These, called ''ristinkanta'', were considered sacred, and people sacrificed goats, calves and sheep, mixed their blood and spread it on the ''ristinkanta''. These were not for Sun worship.

Epithets

In the ''Kalevala''

According to the ''

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 ...

'', the daughter of the air Ilmatar allowed a teal to lay its egg on her knee as she floated in the abyss. The egg fell and its parts formed the universe: the white of the egg became the Moon, and the yolk the Sun. In ''Kalevala'', young maidens ask Päivätär to give them some of her silver jewellery and clothes. She is described as a great beauty.''Kalevala'', Rune IV, XXV, XLI. the Sun's sweet maidens

References

Finnish goddesses Solar goddesses {{deity-stub

In runic songs

Sun worship among Finns

Epithets

In the ''Kalevala''

See also

References