Talk:Estonian mythology

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 January 2021 and 7 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Afratoballa.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:52, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Cleanup needed
I realy doubt that Tülihänd is an elf. And let the Vanatühi be "old empty one". Berhaps a little explenation of Ahjualune, it was in "Kalevipoeg" and some other fairy tales. And why are the names of Vanatühi, Kurat, Vanapagan scatterd arround, it st the same character. And Näärivana isnt from Estonian original mythology, it is later gotten from the cristianity or some thing.


 * Original Estonian new year began at Jüripäev or around it(that is in april). It was time of change in nature when the winter was finaly broken and the wields could be plowed up and new vegetables and crop planted.

But what chains do you see at the hearth of winter, it was cold before and will be cold after 1 of january.


 * Vanatühi - currently translated as "old empty one". Shouldn't it be "old nothing" or something similar? --Ninhursa9 08:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)


 * "Näärivana; The father of New Year, loved by many generations of children but deported in 1991 as illegal alien"


 * ...huh?? --Tydaj 18:55, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I would have said it was a vandal, but it was there in the first version! Delete? Bobbis 20:05, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Tharapita or Tarapitha - please can someone who knows verify which spelling is correct/most used. Bobbis 20:05, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * When Estonia regained independence, then poor Näärivana, until then celebrated in every Estonian family, was totally discarded because of its association with Soviet occupation and "illegal alien" is kind of local joke about it. No vandalism intended. Somebody anonymous who obviously hates new (false) tradition deleted it anyway, along with Õku. Warbola 07:50, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * About vanatühi, it is old emty one, tühi means emty in estonian and vana is old. O and its Tarapita in estonian


 * Õppige ingliskeel ära, otse ei saa tõlkida.


 * Why would anyone want to transalte something directly, when meaning is important, stop the pointless discussion about using empty emty or nothing


 * Use signatures people! How is anyone suppose to be able to tell who said what? And as for "näärivana", it's the estonian word for the russian version of Santa Claus. The Santa Claus myth is religious and religion was banned in the soviet union for a while, resulting in soviet parents substituting it with the appearance of an obviously identical "näärivana" who was based on some similar russian fairytale. This made it technically legal. The "näärivana" has nothing to do with estonian mythology. GMRE (talk) 16:15, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

The Cooking of Languages
There is Latvian variation of this tale, but it tells only about Latvian and German so I was wondering if there were other languages and if there is english translation in web for this tale

Seto vs Setonian
Does anyone but on of the authors of this and some neighbouring pages use the ethnonym "Setonian"? I have received the impression that Seto is good enough (I think ethnic Seto tend to use this when writing in English). The Wikipedia article on the Setos is entitled "Setos", not "Setonians". Besides: Google reveals that The Setonian is a tri-weekly newspaper published by the students of Seton Hill. Similar confusions with things referring to people or places called Seton may occur. I have so far tolerated "Setonia" as a Latinisation of "Setomaa". (It has also been used as a name of a student firm founded by students of Verska High School.) But still, I think it is best avoided in the future (again some confusions with the same Seton Hall University are predictable). Ohpuu 11:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Seto is correct. Also, I think it's the same when it's singular and plural. GMRE (talk) 15:46, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

White Ship
Does the White Ship really belong into Estonian mythology, if that has been talked only in 19th and 20th century, is not mentioned in any myth and is no related to Estonian ancient religion? DJ Sturm (talk) 17:48, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. This is pseudomythology. Kustutage see Valge Laev siit ära!


 * It's well documented tale that the "'white ship' [a mythological bringer of good fortune equivalent to a magic wand] that would come and help" in Fact there is an entire book written on the subject thats been translated into English The White Ship Estonian tales By Aino Kallas . So there shouldn't be any reason to remove it.--Termer (talk) 03:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I can remember being told at school that at some point (I can't remember when, but centuries ago, probably during a german occupation) the occupation forces noticed a lot of estonians at some beach. When asked about the gathering, they had said that they heard about the white ship having come. They were disappointed to see that it had not and went back home. GMRE (talk) 22:38, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

The Herring
How is this not here? The Herring is a mythical being in Estonia.

A rough retelling of the legend: ''In the ancient time the herring used to have legs and live on dry land. It used to destroy Vermin, like Rats and it was kept like a cat. One time a two masted Sailing ship was transporting a large load of Salt. Back then salt was expensive. Some unit of it called "saam" (or something like that) cost 100 of something in gold. There was a herring aboard the ship. The specific herring liked to eat salt, so it started to tunnel its way around the salt sacks. Eventually it accidentally chewed its way through the ships wooden hull, causing it to sink. This angered Neptune (the god of sea), who said to the herring: "Hey herring, because you chewed a hole into the ship and sunk the new ship, you will now have to live in seawater as punishment." The salt from the ship was released into the sea, resulting in the seas now having a salt composition.''

This is common knowledge in Estonia. GMRE (talk) 22:30, 11 October 2014 (UTC)


 * You need to identify a book (title, author and publisher) that describes this, then it can be included. --Nug (talk) 04:22, 12 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Trouble is that I don't think there is a book about this. It's a well known old folk song. This means that it's not possible to find an author either, because folk songs are generally "recorded" "from mouth to ear" so to speak. It's called "Heeringas elas kuival maal" ("(The) herring lived on dry land"). GMRE (talk) 19:21, 12 October 2014 (UTC)


 * If you can find the story in here, then it can be included in this article citing folklore.ee as a reliable source. --Nug (talk) 20:41, 12 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Didn't find it there, but I found a few other places:


 * This one mentiones that there's multiple slight variations available for the wording, but the most commonly known version (that my translated retelling above is based on) became famous in 1969 when it was featured in a cartoon. I've seen it on TV, but it doesn't appear to be on youtube.
 * This shows that the song fragment "when the herring lived on dry land" was used in 2011 as the name of some culture event at a school in Valjala.
 * The "Korp! Sakala" academic fraternal organization has it in a list of songs titled only "Heeringas" (Herring).
 * The publishing house "Kentaur" (Centaur) keeps the song in the same list as the national anthem and other famous (in Estonia) 19'th century songs.
 * The Tallinn University keeps it on a list mostly consisting of old and culturally relevant songs.
 * The ensemble "Sailor" keeps it on their list of songs.
 * There's countless more similarly obscure sites, but I'm not gonna list them all. It doesn't look like I can prove a link to mythology as such, but I think I've proven that it's relevant to estonian culture. GMRE (talk) 18:31, 13 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it could be added to Music_of_Estonia as a notable example of an old Estonian folk song? --Nug (talk) 08:55, 14 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I'll add it to that talk page first. GMRE (talk) 15:21, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Ilmatütar
Ilmatütar is redirected to here, but maybe better solution is to mention+redirect it at Ilmatar--Estopedist1 (talk) 21:09, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Student Changes
Hello all,

I have made some minor edits. I have added a citation to the first sentence of Literary Mythology. I have also added an additional detail to the sentence following Giant's as Germanic influence. I have also added a brief block quote from Faehlmann noting how difficult is becoming to study Estonian Mythology. Afratoballa (talk) 17:13, 22 March 2021 (UTC)