Folklore

Where the songs come from

Some rotwurm songs are built on old Finnish charms and on things that really happened. These pages quote the sources, with the original Finnish next to our English.

• She Grinds

  Kiputyttö, the pain maiden of Tuonela, grinding the pain stone where three rivers run. A pain charm recorded in Hiitola, 1880.

• Into the Hollow of a Stone

  "The stone does not weep for pains." The same charm, and the children's rhyme that still remembers it.

• Great Hunger

  The Finnish famine of 1866–1868, bark bread and the coldest May on record.