Who invented the celebration of st urho s day?”
Finnish mythology is the mythology that went with Finnish paganism which was practised by the Finnish people prior to Christianisation. It has many features shared with fellow Finnic Estonian mythology and its non-Finnic neighbours, the Balts and the Scandinavians. Some of their myths are also distantly related to the myths of other Finno-Ugric speakers like the Samis. Finnish mythology survived within an oral tradition of mythical poem-singing and folklore well into the 19th century. Although the gradual influence of surrounding cultures raised the significance of the sky-god in a monolatristic (“Many in one”, see MIP Mapping) manner, the father god “Ukko” (Old Man) was originally just a nature spirit like all the others. Of the animals, the most sacred was the bear, whose real name was never uttered out loud, lest his kind be unfavorable to the hunting. The bear (“karhu” in Finnish) was seen as the embodiment of the forefathers, and for this reason it was called by many euphemisms: “
Saint Urho The legend of St. Urho was the invention of a Finnish-American named Richard Mattson, who worked at Ketola’s Department Store in Virginia, Minnesota in spring of 1956. Mattson later recounted that he invented St. Urho when he was questioned by coworker Gene McCavic about the Finns’ lack of a saint like the Irish St. Patrick, whose feat of casting the snakes out of Ireland is remembered on St. Patrick’s Day.[8] In fact, the patron saint of Finland is Henry (Bishop of Finland). According to the original “Ode to St. Urho” written by Gene McCavic and Richard Mattson, St.
