THE GREAT OAK: AN ANNUAL CALENDRIC AND AGRICULTURAL FERTILITY MYTH OF THE BALTIC FINNS

Abstract

‘The Great Oak’ is one of the most important myths presented in the poetry of the Baltic Finns. The contents of the myth have been formed and reformed in various cultural environments during many different historical periods. In this paper, the myth is analysed and its historical development is reconstructed by investigating its details and by comparing it to other similar myths and the known history of the Finnic peoples. It is shown that ‘The Great Oak’ is mainly a calendric and agricultural fertility myth related to the annual solar and vegetation cycle. Certain mythemes encountered in many variants of the poem reveal that it was related to slash-and-burn cultivation and the success of the annual agricultural yield, the measure of which was the production of beer for festival and ritual use. It turns out that the poem was sung on the fields of Ritvala in Tavastia in the rites held between the start of the sowing season in May and the midsummer. It is thus shown that the concrete use of the poem was connected to the annual rituals performed to ensure agricultural fertility.