Huija as Ilmatar (Goddess of the Air) / Huija as Ilmatar / 《以大气女神伊尔玛塔尔为题的 Huija》
Huija as Ilmatar (Goddess of the Air) / Huija as Ilmatar / 《以大气女神伊尔玛塔尔为题的 Huija》
Huija as Ilmatar (Goddess of the Air)
Huija as Ilmatar
《以大气女神伊尔玛塔尔为题的 Huija》
ink and foil on rice paper on canvas, 30x40cm
油画框纸本水墨, 2025
Ilmatar (literally “Daughter of the Air,” also known as Luonnotar, the spirit of nature) is the supreme cosmic mother in the Kalevala and the central figure of the Finnish creation myth. Her story is one of the most majestic, ethereal, and beautifully lonely narratives in global mythology.
The Ethereal Solitude and Descent
Before the world existed, there was only Ilmatar and a vast, empty void. For ages, she lived a solitary existence as a virgin spirit, floating alone in the endless expanses of the air.
Eventually, growing weary of her eternal loneliness and the monotony of the empty sky, she chose to descend. She let herself fall from the high heavens down into the primordial, boundless ocean beneath her. The moment she touched the water, she became the Water-Mother (Veen emo). For seven hundred years, she floated on the waves, carried by the currents, waiting for creation to begin.
The Nesting on Her Knee: Cosmic Genesis
As Ilmatar drifted, a beautiful goldeneye duck (sotka) flew across the vast waters, desperately searching for a place to rest and build a nest. Seeing the bird’s distress, Ilmatar gently raised her knee out of the primeval sea, offering it as a solitary piece of dry land.
The duck landed on her knee and laid seven eggs: six of pure gold, and one of dark iron. The bird brooded upon Ilmatar’s knee until the intense heat of the eggs began to burn her skin. Stricken by the sudden pain, Ilmatar twitched her leg. The eggs rolled off into the deep waves and shattered.
But from those broken shells, the cosmos was born:
The upper part of the shells rose to become the vault of heaven.
The lower part became the solid earth.
The yolks transformed into the radiant sun.
The whites became the glowing moon.
The scattered fragments became the stars and clouds.
3. The Shaping of the World and Mother of Time
After the cosmic architecture was set, Ilmatar swam through the new world for decades, actively sculpting it with her body. Wherever she pointed her hand, she created bays and fjords; where her feet touched, she hollowed out the deep sea trenches; where her side brushed the earth, she smoothed out the gentle coastlines.
While floating in these waters, she carried the long-gestating child within her—Väinämöinen, the eternal bard. She is the literal vessel through which both the physical universe and the first human hero entered existence.
©2021 Hong Liu-Sertti