Pohjola

Pohjola is a location in Finnish mythology, meaning North, as a point of the compass, the Northland, the whole polar region, and in the world of the Kalevala, the land of the Sami.

In the mythology, the Mistress of Pohjola is Louhi, an evil witch of great power. The Sampo is made at her behest and brought to her in payment for the hand of her daughter in marriage. (Pohjola's Daughter is the subject of a symphonic tone poem by Jean Sibelius.) The Sampo is a magic mill of plenty which churns out abundance for the people of Pohjola, but its churning lid is a symbol of the celestial vault of the heavens, embedded with stars, revolving about a central axis or pillar of the world.

The foundation of this pillar, the root of this "world tree", was located, from the Finnish mythological perspective, somewhere just over the northern horizon, in Pohjola. The forging of the Sampo by the smith hero Ilmarinen; the hording of the Sampo and its abundance by the witch Louhi inside a great mountain in the dark reaches of Pohjola; the struggle and war by the people of the south to free the Sampo and capture it for their own needs and the subsequent smashing of the Sampo and the loss of its all-important lid (which implies the breaking of the world tree at the north pole) together constitute the bulk of the Kalevala material.