The Sampo raid and Pohjola

In the Kalevala, the far north country of Pohjola is the dark mirror of Finland: ruled by the sorceress Louhi, mistress of the North, who set the hero Ilmarinen to forge the Sampo and then hid it in a mountain of copper behind nine locks. The raid to steal it back, and Louhi’s pursuit as a giant bird, is the climax of the epic. Pohjola is mythic country, but the Lapland it describes, the aurora, the endless night, the sheer emptiness, is entirely real and you can stand in it.