Christianity is a relatively new power in the north and the struggle between it and the ancient gods was a long one. Still in the 19th century the old gods were worshipped in some places. In the Finnish language they are still alive even today -and perhaps alive also deep in the minds of the modern Finns who occupy the beautiful but wild land of vast forests and numerous cold lakes.

The severe living conditions are reflected in the characters of the gods. Their functions are usually connected to survival; food, weather, health and illness etc. Every field of life had its own god; one for hunting, one for fishing, one for weather and so on.

Above all the other gods there was the supreme god, Ukko. He had a wife called Rauni. Ahti was the god of fishermen and seal hunters. A very ancient weather god was Ilmarinen who also was the god of travellers. Tapio was the god to be worshipped when the men gathered their dogs and left for hunting.

The nature and everyday life was in those days penetrated by magic. And to control it you needed a magician, a sorcerer. Also shamanism was a very powerful institution. A shaman could bring information from the Underworld. To control an element a shaman had to know its origin. In the Finnish epic there are the so called origin poems: the origin of the bear, rock, fire, snake, wolf, frost etc. Also to control the animals you had to contact the primeval mother of the species. Especially the bear myth was avery strong one.

The cosmology of the ancient Finns was very much dualistic. There were the world of the living and the world of the Dead. The demiurge of the ancient Finns was Väinämöinen. In a cosmogonic myth Väinämöinen enters the primeval sea and while floating in the waters involuntarily creates the universe. The Finnish national epic, Kalevala tells about this and also about many other cultural heroes.