f7. Syntysanat ja syntyloitsut - and the “wind-knot” sorcery etc, publ. on the 15/08/2026

Written and published by Linden Alexander Pentecost on the 15/08/2026. Note that this article contains both in-text, and numbered citations. This article is different from any of my other publications about these topics, and contains different content and mainly different examples. This article is mainly in English, but below is an introduction in Finnish. No AI was used in this publication and this publication was published in the UK, and is unrelated to and separate from any and all of my other publications. I the author am also fro the UK and live in the UK. This article contains 3 main sections, not including the title, this paragraph and the paragraph in Finnish below; the main sections also have sub-titles. This article contains a total of 2580 words.

Kirjoitin tämän artikkelin englannin kielellä, mutta toivottavasti se kiinnostaa myös suomalaisia, saamelaisia ja kveeniläisiä. Olen myös tavannut suomalaisia, jotka ovat sanoneet minulle heidän tykkäävänsä Skotlannista, ja tässä artikkelissa minä kirjoitan näiden maiden välisistä yhteyksistä, ja paljon muusta. En usko, että nämä aiheet ovat kovin ymmärrettyjä sekä Suomessa että Skotlannissa, siksi luulen olevan tärkeää kertoa taas vähän näistä aiheista. 

More on Sacred Language in Finnish tradition

Languages occupy an important place within spirituality and religion. How this is expressed and elaborated upon does vary from culture to culture, but there are many commonalities across cultures. The Finnic-speaking peoples historically seem to have emphasised certain aspects of this relationship between language and spirituality, one of which is the concept of synty, a word connected to the Finnish verb syntyä - “to be born”. 

There is a whole Wikipedia page about synty which elaborates on the concept in detail. But in essence, synty means not just “birth”, but also encompasses “origin” in a mystical, and linguistic sense. The idea is that by knowing the mystical story of a thing, and by being able to (linguistically) name its origin story, one is able to have influence over said thing. The spoken form of this knowledge is described in Finnish as syntysanat ja syntyloitsut - “origin-words and origin-spells”, one such example being the painajaisen synty - “nightmare origin”, used to cure nightmares. This example is attested among the Suomen kansan vanhat runot - “The Ancient Runes/Songs/Poems of the Finnish people/nation”, rune in this context referring to the ancient Finnish runot, magical songs, upon which the Kalevala was based.

Note that the term syntyloitsu - “origin-spell” is from my experience not that common in modern Finnish sources, whilst syntysana or syntysanat in the plural seems more widely used in present times, and a definition (in Finnish) of syntysanat akin to that I give here, can be found on the Kielitoimiston sanakirja website. There are innumerable other examples in Finnish tradition of language being implied as something deeply sacred, and connected to the animistic forces of our world, with this idea of syntysanat ja syntyloitsut being very prevalent in the Kalevala, even if not explicitly described in these terms. At one point in the Kalevala, Väinämöinen uses this kind of magic to physically manifest a ship made out of copper, for example, which is expressed in the following lines from the Kalevalan Viideskymmenes runo/ in the 55th rune of the Kalevala. I have also discussed this example elsewhere:

tuossa loihe laulamahan
lauloi kerran viimeisensä
lauloi vaskisen venehen
kuparisen umpipurren

I have translated it, whilst trying to preserve nuanced meanings. Note that in my translation “singing” is not used to mean the present participle of the verb, but “singing” in the sense of the noun, does convey the meaning in this context, I think:

“There (he) created singing/made singing
sung (for) his last time
sung a copper/bronze boat
a copper, enclosed sailboat"

Note that vaskisen, the genitive form of vaskinen comes from vaski, a more archaic, poetic Finnish word for “bronze” or “copper”, whereas in the next line a more specific word related to copper is used, kuparisen being the genitive of kuparinen - “coppery/of copper”, from kupari - “copper”. Note also how venehen and umpipurren are the genitive forms of vene and umpipursi, with the former being the general Finnish word for “boat” and the second word being a poetic way of describing a vessel, with the prefix umpi-meaning “closed” or in this context, and pursi being another Finnish word for a boat, more generally a sailboat. 

More on “Finns”, “Fin-men”, and wind-knot magic associated with “Finns” and with witches in Celtic-speaking areas (and Shetland)

As well as syntysanat and syntyloitsut, there are many other associations between the “Finns” and magic in folklore, although it is often not clear if it is speakers of Finnic or Sámic languages that are being referred to. There are also references to “Finns” or “Fin-men” in the Shetland Isles, who are attributed to having magical abilities. Furthermore there are some similarities in the kind of magic associated with “Finns”, and that found in other parts of the British Isles, some of which I will discuss soon. 

First I wish to briefly discuss how the Shetland Isles, north of Scotland, possess a mythology about “Fin-Men”, whilst the Orkney Isles have stories about “Finfolk”. I have written a lot more along these lines elsewhere, but for an original source with information about the “Fin-men” in Shetland, see: SHETLAND FOLK-LORE, written by John Spence. F.F.I.S., published in 1899. This book can be read online, and within it is an entire section on the Fin-men, or Finns as they are referred to in that source. Another interesting thing given in the section about Finns, is a charm, partially in the Shaetlan language, and partially incomprehensible. I have discussed this charm in multiple places elsewhere, including in an entirely unrelated article recently, but will include it here as it is an example of language, associated with the Finns, and associated with the “sea magic” that I will go on to discuss.

The following are from the chapter "The Picts and their Brochs" from the book by John Spence. F.F.I.S. mentioned in the previous paragraph. And I quote from the sections about Finns (from the aforementioned book):

Persons who were possessed of the Finnish art could perform feats by sea or water quite impossible to ordinary mortals. They could raise the wind like furies in order to wreck the crafts of their enemies, and change the storm into a calm. The following are the words of an ancient spell for laying the wind at sea: 

"Robin cam ow’r da vaana wi’ da sköna
Twaabie, toobie, keelikim, koolikim
Pattrik alanks da Robin
Gude runk da gro.”

Whilst I have previously discussed this rhyme and the potential similarities to Finnish words in detail elsewhere, the author of the original source does not state how, specifically, the rhyme relates to the Finns. Nevertheless, it is an example of linguistic “sea magic”, and generally speaking, the “magic” associated with these Fin-men seems to connect to that of the sea, and this leads us onto another fascinating topic - that of “wind-knots”. 

In a way not specific to Shetland and Orkney, the idea that Finnish sailors could control the wind, is something that seems to have made its way into relatively recent maritime tradition. A specific form of sea-magic associated with Finns was that of creating wind-knots, which involved tying three knots into a piece of string, a process which I think is also reminiscent of a spell in the linguistic sense, and we can presume that certain words and charms were associated with this process. 

Whilst it is not clear if it is Finnic or Sámic speakers specifically, which are implied in this folklore, it could perhaps be speakers of both language families.. The “Finns” being associated with these wind-knots, is described for example in: Sixpence for the Wind: A Knot of Nautical Folklore by Malcolm Archibald.

Interestingly, this form of “wind-knot” magic was also found in the Hebrides, and was associated with the witches there. This is described for example in source (1) on pages 180 and 181. The following are two quotes from this source:

“It is part of the regular traffic of Finland witches to sell wind to mariners - as is the case of their Celtic sisters, tied in knots upon a thread.”

I will then quote a part of the story that follows:

“A boatman from one of the southern islands was long detailed in Lewis by adverse winds. He was courting a witch’s daughter, and applied to her mother for a favourable wind. He gave her a pound of tobacco, and (assisted by neighbouring witches) after three days’ excursion she produced a string with three knots upon it. The first knot was called Thig gu fòill (‘Come gently’), and when he loosened it as he left the shore, a gentle breeze sprang up. The second knot was called Teann nas fheàrr (‘Come better’), and on its being untied the breeze came stiffer. As he neared the harbour he out of curiosity loosened the last knot, the name of which was Cruaidh-chàs (‘Hardship’). A wind came to ‘blow the hillocks (séideadh nan cnoc) out of their places’ and sent the thatch of the houses into the furrows of the plough-land, and the boatman was drowned. In Harris they say that the boat was drawn up on land and secured before the last knot was untied.”

Another source on these stories of three wind-knots in Scotland is: The story of the three knots, number 207 in The Quern-Dust Calendar publications, by Raghnall MacilleDhuibh (see note at end of this article). Within the aforementioned article, the author implies that this practice was also found in Shetland, Stonehaven (in Aberdeenshire) and on the Isle of Man. I do not know the original sources of this, but the author of this article is extremely knowledgeable. Heather Pagano in her online article Cornish Magic How magic emerges from a landscape, also writes that the witches of Boscastle (in Cornwall) used three "magic rope knots". I do not doubt this, but again I do not know the original source.

The concept of “knot magic” is found, in different forms, in many parts of the world, but this specific practice involving three knots to bring the wind, seems particularly associated with “Finns”, and with the witches and wizards of parts of the British Isles. This is fascinating to me, and I do wonder if in some way Uralic-speaking cultures might connect to the stories of Fin-men, and to the wind-knots, in ways that have so far been lost to history. Just as these knots are given names in Gaelic, it is likely that spells, or certain words would have been spoken when making them, and to me the idea of knot magic in the creation of sequences of knots, bears some similarity to language-related processes, such as saying certain words in sequence.

Other comments about the Finns, witchcraft, and external Uralic language relationships