Ilmatar

Oil painting by Robert Wilhem Ekman, 1860. The beautiful masterpiece has also an interesting story behind. It relates to the story how the world is created.

Ilmatar was a virgin spirit of the air in the Kalevala, which is a great Finnish national epic. So Ilmatar is something like a female air spirit in that reality of the story. The name Ilmatar is derived from the Finnish word ilma, meaning air in English.

Ilmatar was a special and was impregnated by the sea and wind and thus became the mother of Väinämöinen, who is the main character in Kalevala.