Ernest Young has well described the character of the Finnish people when he says: “Nature, fate, and tradition have stamped a common mark on the Finnish type of character, which, indeed, varies considerably in the country, but is easily recognized by the foreigner. The general traits of character are hardened, patient, passive strength; resignation; perseverance, allied to a certain obstinacy; a slow, contemplative way of thinking; an unwillingness to become angry and a tendency, when anger has been aroused, to indulge in unmeasured wrath; coolness in deadly peril, but caution afterwards; … adherence to the old and well known; attention to duty; a law-abiding habit of mind; love of liberty, hospitality, honesty; a predilection for religious meditation, revealing itself in true piety, which, however, is apt to have too much respect for the mere letter.”
My own briefer acquaintance with the Finns has confirmed Mr. Young’s study of their traits of character, and I could imagine that even in the market place, as I walked back and forth, I could discover in the faces many of these admirable traits.
When one meets the upper, I will not say better classes, one is sure to be charmed with his Finnish friends. Their abundant hospitality, which always presses upon us two cups of coffee (delicious coffee at that) when you really only want one; their deferential courtesy, shown not only in words, but in a multitude of kind and thoughtful actions; their intelligence; their intimate knowledge of the great world outside their own boundaries; their pleasing vivacity (for in this respect they differ from the quiet stolidness of the less educated peasantry) all these qualities combine to make them the most charming of hosts and companions.
The cathedral of Åbo stands not far from the market place, across the little river that runs through the town, and on a sightly eminence of its own. It was begun in 1229, and was not finished until the year 1400. How patient these old builders were! They did not run up their jerry-built houses and churches in a month, but when they were built they stood for centuries.
This cathedral is of purely Gothic architecture, much like the cathedral in Upsala, and it dates from about the same period. It has not been renovated out of all resemblance to its original self, however, like the Upsala dome, and on that account is more interesting, in my opinion. The lofty brick walls are scarred by the storms of the centuries and eaten out here and there by the tooth of time, but the church is well preserved in spite of its nearly seven hundred years, and is filled, Sunday after Sunday, with a throng of honest worshipers.
The mural paintings about the altar, though of modern date, are well worth studying, one of them, especially, which represents the first baptism in Finland at a spot very near to Åbo by Bishop Henrik, an English missionary, who in 1157 undertook the perilous task of converting the heathen Finns. The good bishop died in Finland, and was buried in this old church, where his bones rested in peace until 1720, when the Russians, for some unexplained reason, dug them up and carried them off. No man in these days knows his sepulchre. In some of the side chapels are buried heroes of the Thirty Years’ War, famous generals—whose suits of armor, scarred and dented by the enemy’s bullets, still stand beside their tombs.
The most famous tomb of all in the old Dom Church is that of Queen Katherine of Sweden, wife of Eric XIV, the oldest son of Gustavus Vasa. Eric had a checkered career, both politically and matrimonially. He was finally deposed from the throne, but while he occupied it his hand had been refused by Queen Elizabeth, by Mary Queen of Scots, and by two German princesses. He seems to have been very cosmopolitan in his love affairs, wooing Protestant and Catholic, Anglo-Saxon and Teuton with equal avidity. At length, having apparently no luck in court circles, he turned to a beautiful girl among his own people, and married a peasant’s daughter named Karin (or Katherine) Månsdotter. The following is the story which one often hears in Finland:
“One day King Eric was strolling through the market place at Stockholm, when his attention was attracted by a singularly fair and graceful child, the daughter of a common soldier, who was selling nuts. He sent her to his palace to be educated, and when she was old enough he asked her to marry him. All kinds of objections were raised by his nobles and his relatives, and accusations of witchcraft were made against Karin, but the wild and passionate monarch took his way and married the little nut-seller. Then a brother prince, who felt deeply the disgrace that had been brought upon the royal order by this unseemly match, sent Eric a present of a handsome cloak in the back of which was sewed a patch of rough, homespun cloth. Eric accepted the gift, had the patch of homespun embroidered with gold and studded with jewels until it was the most brilliant and valuable part of the garment, and then returned it to the donor.”[5]
The peasant queen well repaid his love and devotion. She was buried in Åbo Cathedral, where her great black marble sarcophagus reminds every visitor of the little nut-seller who became a queen and who showed her queenly qualities in adversity and exile. A stained-glass window in the cathedral shows her dressed in white robes, with a crown upon her head, stepping down from her throne on the arm of a Finnish page.