Vappu - May Day in Finland

The name Vappu (evening 30.4.-1.5.) comes from the celebration of the day of the German saint Valburg or Valpurgis, but the fact that the feast of a relatively unsignificant saint (at least elsewhere than in Germany) gives a hint that there has been an important heathen tradition behind the christian one (same as with Christmas).

Germanic people celebrated a heathen spring feast around that time of the year already before Christianity, but little is know of a spring feast of the heathen Finns ( not a Germanic people). We know that there was much cultural interchange between the old Swedes and Finns (borrowed words, deity names etc.) so elements of the feast of the heathen Swedes may well have been imported by the Finns. Maybe the Finns also had their own heathen spring feast (but not necessary at the same date or in honour of the same god/gods), eventhough no direkt knowledge of that feast has survived to our days.

From the 17th Century forward the tradition with a spring carneval has been revived by the university students and from student circles moved back to more or less everyone. This video shows Finnish students (of the Swedish speaking minority) celebrating Vappu. The songs are 17th Century, but the texts (with some English subtitles) seem almost heathen in their praising of the spring. Spring, it seams, makes everyone happy, even modern secularized people.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• vappu
• valborg
• ylioppilaslaulu
• May
• Day
• spring
• feast
• första
• maj
• valborgsmässoafton
• studentsång
• beltain
• beltane
• Walpurgisnacht
• vår
• Truku
• Åbo

[werewolfchewtoy]

thanks for the vid lady!