ILMARINEN
Ilmarinen, forger of the sky and ground, master of the winds
be with us as we set sail on this perilous journey
You can raise the wind, you can calm the storm
Give us good wind, spare us from your tempest
Ilmarinen, eternal blacksmith in the sky
You made the copper sky with stars so bright
Now, with your wind and by your stars
take us safely beyond this sea
There was born the Blacksmith Ilmarinen
Brought forth in the dark of night
raised in the same darkness.
They knew not how to call him
Father called him Ilmori, mother Armo and sisters Sotijalko.
With the morning light to the smithy he went
From his mighty shirt the smithy was made
and with his arms was the iron bent.
Ilmarinen is a very ancient deity of the Fenno-Ugric peoples and also the primeval god of the Finns.
Ilmarinen had many functions. He was the ruler of the winds and thence the god of travellers. In Finnish the word ilma still means weather.
Ilmarinen was also the creator, the mighty forger of the universe.
As such he is also known in the epic Kalevala. Ilmarinen was worshipped among various Fenno-Ugric peoples who gave him slightly different names. The Votyaks called him Inmar and gave him titles like: Heavenly, the Supremacistme God, the Creator. The Lapps also had a similar god called Ilmaris who was the god of storm. He was often depicted on the drums of the shamans.
Later in the Kalevala Ilmarinen had more the character of an ancient cultural hero than a god.
He was the divine forger of the Sampo, a mythical cornucopia over which wars were waged.
He was also the deity in ancient myth-poems like the Origin of Fire and the Origin of Iron.
In these myths and also in the Kalevala, Ilmarinen's primary role is that of the divine black-smith, eternal forger in the sky.