Devil's nest

This geological phenomenon is called a Giant's Kettle or Hiidenkirnu in Finnish. The deepest one in Europe is just a few kilometres from where we are staying, so we thought we may as well check it out. It's a fascinating geological concept of which the locals are all very proud. It is a big hole in the ground, 23 metres deep to be precise.

The are legends that the hole was the devil's nest. No one can quite explain these stories though. This echoes my frustration with Finnish history. There is no recorded history dating back before Swedish times. So Finnish history is a bit of a tale of a second class people until they began to assert their independence during Russian rule in the 19th century.

It is known that 50 000 to 80 000 people lived in the area that is now Finland in 1000 AD. Just who these people were can only be guessed but not proven. There were three groups of people- one in the east, probably the Karelians, one in the west, probably a European, although possibly a Uralic people, and the Saami further north in the forests. The Finnish are likely a mixture of a European people and a Uralic people, who adopted a Finno-Ugric language. It is probably accurate to describe them as an ethnically European people who speak a non European language. This did cause them a disadvantage in Europe and is probably the reason that the Swedish treated them as inferior.