Ilmarinen

Ilmarinen, the Eternal Hammerer, blacksmith and inventor in the Kalevala, is a god and an archetypal artificer from Finnish mythology. He is immortal and capable of creating practically anything, but is portrayed as being unlucky in love. He is described as working the known metals of the time, including brass, copper, iron, gold and silver. The great works of Ilmarinen include the crafting of the dome of the sky and the forging of the Sampo. His usual epithet in the Kalevala is seppo, a poetic word for "smith" and the source of the given name Seppo.

Other names for Ilmarinen that are found in rune variants include Ilmorinen and Ilmollini. The name Ilmarinen is also close to that of the Udmurt deity Inmar. Originally a sky god credited with creating the sky (ilma means air in Finnish), he is believed to have taken on the qualities of a smith through the Proto-Finnic contact with the Indo-European Balts. He is also directly appealed to for aid in several incantation runes. Insofar as Elias Lönnrot heavily redacted the original runes collected by him and others, it's valuable to differentiate between the Kalevala and the original poems sung by rune singers.

Ilmarinen (disambiguation)

Ilmarinen most commonly refers to Seppo Ilmarinen, an archetypal artificer from Finnish mythology (Kalevala). Other uses of Ilmarinen include:

See also

Ilmarinen (icebreaker)

Ilmarinen was a small steam-powered icebreaker that was part of the Finnish state-owned icebreaker fleet in 1918–1922. Built as Silatch for Russia, she was given back her original name when the ship was returned to the Soviet Union in 1922.

History

The ship was built in 1910 by W. Crichton shipyard in Saint Petersburg, Russia, as Silatch. She was taken over by the Bolsheviks in 1917 during the October Revolution, but retained her original name.

On 4 May 1918, in the aftermath of the Finnish Civil War, Silatch arrived secretly in Kotka, Finland, to evacuate remaining members of the Finnish Red Guard. However, she was confiscated by the Finns and joined the Finnish icebreaker fleet as Ilmarinen, after the legendary hero from Kalevala. In December 1919 she was sent to Koivisto to assist three Finnish torpedo boats, C1, C2 and C3 that had been surrounded by ice some 15 centimetres (5.9 in) thick. The 150-ton torpedo boats had participated in the British campaign in the Baltic, and Admiral Walter Cowan had demanded that the Finnish squadron patrolling the area had to stay until the British forces had withdrawn. Despite the efforts of Ilmarinen, the weak-hulled torpedo boats were crushed by the ice, and the newly founded Finnish Navy lost 20% of its ships. After the winter of 1919 Ilmarinen was laid up until she was returned to the Soviet Union according to the Treaty of Tartu. In turn the Soviets gave back the Finnish icebreaker Avance.