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Pirttilahti

Pirttilahti
What to see
Panorama
Audio sample

Pirttilahti is one of the villages visited in 1825 by A.J. Sjögren, the first poetry collector to come to Viena. His work was not available to Lönnrot until the latter was working on the second edition of the Kalevala. Lönnrot himself visited Pirttilahti in 1833 on his fourth field trip on his way from Vuonninen to Vuokkiniemi by boat, but he did not succeed in recording any poems.

Rowing Lönnrot on this part of the journey were the wife, daughter-in-law, and daughter of Ontrei Malinen, the great bard of Vuonninen. Originally, they were only to row Lönnrot as far as Mölkkö, but asked if they could take him to Vuokkiniemi in order to earn more money for their service. Lönnrot agreed, but they soon met a boat at Pirttilahti that was going to the mill at Köynäskoski via Vuokkiniemi, and Lönnrot asked if he could continue his journey on that craft:

But as it was evening and we had 5 km left to Vuokkiniemi, we decided to spend the night in a house in Pirttilahti. The mistress of the house had the habit of swearing after every three words she said, but otherwise she was very good-natured; it was just that swearing had become a habit.
I had been told that the master of the house was an excellent singer but he completely refused to sing anything for me.

Early the following morning, Lönnrot continued his journey and had no time to try to collect poetry in the other households in the village.

Unfortunately, I.K. Inha, who photographed Viena in 1894, took no pictures of Pirttilahti. However, he did stop to photograph Ristiniemi Point on his way home. Among the photographs he took there was the only one from his entire trip that includes him. Inha also photographed a cross erected near the water's edge on the point so that later generations would know what this significant monument was. He describes the place as follows:

The point extends its pure sandy shores out into the middle of the lake and is covered with murmuring pines. People often stop there on their way to Vuokkiniemi to wait for fair weather if the wind is strong out on the open water. On the point, there is a cross under a little shelter in the shade of some rough-barked pines and people pray there for a safe trip, making the sign of the Cross and bowing. At the same time, they remember their old, pagan spirits by gathering rocks at the base of the cross or by hanging a strip of cloth on the cross to blow in the wind. Behind the enclosure there is, as one can imagine, quite a pile of wave-smoothed rocks taken from the lake shore.

Ristiniemi is thus Viena's "Cape of Good Hope." For travellers, reaching Ristiniemi meant that the rest of the journey to Vuokkiniemi would be safe, for the perils of the rough, open waters were behind them. Those coming from Vuokkiniemi, on the other hand, could tell when they got to Ristiniemi whether there was any sense in venturing further onto the open expanse of the lake.  

Pirttilahti
What to see
Panorama
Audio sample