Mielikki
Also known as: Metsän emäntä (Mistress of the Forest)
Mythological Narrative
The mistress of the forest and wife of Tapio, who holds the keys to the forest's storehouse of game and whom hunters and herders, and Lemminkäinen in the Kalevala, entreat for luck and protection.
Scholarly Commentary & Evolution
## Mistress of the forest
In Finnish runo-songs and charms, Mielikki is the forest's mistress (*metsän emäntä*) and the wife of Tapio, the forest's king. Hunters ask her to open the forest's storehouse and send them game; herders ask her to keep their cattle safe from bears and wolves when the animals graze in the woods. She was often imagined as more generous than her husband, and prayers flatter her beauty and ornaments.
## In the Kalevala
When Lemminkäinen hunts the elk of Hiisi, he addresses her directly: 'Mistress of the woods, Mielikki, / Forest-mother, formed in beauty', asking her for her silver keys, and she drives the elk to him. Later cattle charms in the epic ask Mielikki and other forest powers to protect the herd.
## Evidence
Mielikki is not in Agricola's list, but she is well attested in charms and songs recorded from the eighteenth century onward and appears in Ganander's *Mythologia Fennica* (1789).
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding Mielikki.
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Tapio
The god of the forest and giver of game, named by Agricola in 1551, whom hunters in the runo-songs and the Kalevala address with his wife Mielikki to open the forest's storehouse to them.
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