Sampo

Sampo or Sammas is a mystery machine or object. It has a different role and purpose in different stories, but generally it is something that creates wealth, such as grinding salt and grain.

According to one story, Väinämöinen and Joukahainen went to get the sammas from the Northlands or Ostrobothnia. They caught it and went to the sea. Joukahainen tells Väinämöinen to start singing. He won't because the Northlands are too close as they can still feel the heat of its cottages. The sammas flies into the clouds, so Joukahainen strikes off two of its toes with his sword. One of them dropped into the sea, causing seawaters to be salty. The other landed on earth, causing hay to grow. The story also mentions that if one more toe had been cut and landed on the ground, crops would grow on their own without needing to be cultivated. This is the oldest recorded story of the sammas.

The most famous version of the sampo is in the Kalevala. This sampo is made by Ilmarinen as a gift in exchange of getting the Maiden of Pohjola as his wife. Louhi takes the gift but doesn't give him her daughter, and the sampo remains in Pohjola to give it riches. Therefore, the heroes from Kalevala decide to steal the sampo back. After a fight with Louhi, the sampo is destroyed but parts of it drift to Kalevala, creating riches to the land.

The sammas is believed to have originally been the pillar that holds up the sky. This pillar was connected to the North star and was believed to rotate (hence the grinding). This is also how sammas was described by the healer and bloodstopper Kaisa Vilhunen, who belonged to Forest Finns, a population of Savonians who had moved to central Sweden. She said that at one end, the sammas divided into three branches like a candlelabra. At the bottom, it had roots like a tree, and there was a gold mine protected by three guardians: Tuokko, Pajas (possibly Pajainen, one of Ukko's names in Savonia) and Ruoskakup ("whip guy"). At the top, there sat the maiden Jenuveeva (apparently the Christian figure known as Genoveva). There is a theory that the word sammas originates from Indo-Aryan *sambhas. The pillar myth has many similarities with other tales, such as Scandinavian Grotti mill.