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Truly they lie, they
Talk utter nonsense
Who say that music
Reckon that the kantele
was carved by Väinämöinen…
out of  a great pike’s shoulders…
no, music was made from grief
molded from sorrow…
so my kantele will not
play, will not rejoice at all…
for it was fashioned from cares
moulded from sorrow.                                               

My Kantele, Kanteletar 1:1

One of the least well known of modern reconstructions of folk magic must certainly be the realm of Baltic magic found in the ancient texts of Finland, but it has found a perhaps surprising popular resurgence in  recent years. The reprinting of Kati Koppana’s Snakefat and Knotted Threads has brought a handbook of folk magic to a new generation of reconstructionists, but the nineteenth-century collections The Kalevala and The Kanteletar continue to provide a rich supply of magical practices.  While originally the outgrowth of a rising sense of nationalism in nineteenth-century Finland, the two collections of myth and folklore also record a number of magical charms that give some insight into the ancient practices of the Finns, since lost in the (relatively) late conversion to Christianity and the long-practiced denigration of the indigenous tongues particularly by Swedish and then Russian political control.
           
The rebirth or rediscovery of Finnish magic has resulted in a popular magic tradition, much like similar recoveries in British, Norse and Mediterranean traditions, but it has also had an artistic effect that surpasses these more well-known traditions, particularly in the field of music.  At the heart of this musical renaissance is the kantele, the traditional Finnish lap harp which Väinämöinen, the eternal sage of the Kalevala, creates, loses and then recreates to the joy of not only the people, but all the woodland animals as well (despite the rather somber tone of the poem with which I began). Just as the original kantele mesmerized all who heard it, the reborn instrument (both acoustic and electric) has exerted an irresistible hold over the musicians who have led the new folk movement across Scandinavia since the 1990s, including groups like Värttinä, Garmarna and Hedningarna who explicitly use the magical traditions of the north in their music, calling on goddesses and gods as well as singing charms and curses.

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