Lounnotar

Other Names: Ilmatar.
Description: Virgin daughter of Air, Sky Mother, Water Mother, Creatress Goddess, Daughter of Nature, Mother of the Waters. Rules over immense powers. “Daughter of nature.” One day a duck nested on her knee while she was resting. When she moved the three eggs fell into the primeval slime. There the eggs were transformed into the universe.

The bird’s eggs hatch and are used to form the sky and the earth, the yolk forms the sun, the white forms the moon. After this she formed the islands and peninsulas on earth.

Lounnotar also gives birth to Väinämöinen. She was pregnant for 700 years. In casting a circle, Lounnotar could represent the West, since she is known as Water Mother and is the creator of the world. She is also known as Air-Daughter and could represent the East.

Luonnotar (Ilnatar) In Finnish mythology, creator goddess, daughter of air or the heavens in the epic poem The Kalevala, who brought about creation. The opening of The Kalevala tells how Luonnotar had spent her life “all alone in the vast emptiness of space.” She descended from the heavens, and the waves carried her for 700 years. “The breath of the wind caressed her bosom and the sea made her fertile” as she was tossed by the waves. Then a gull, teal, eagle, or duck (the animal is not exactly identified) came “flying from the horizon,” and Luonnotar “lifted her knees from the waves, and on it the bird made her nest and began to hatch her eggs.” The girl became excited and felt heat “till she thought her knee was burning” and her “veins were melting.” She jerked her knees, and the eggs rolled into the water and were shattered. From the lower fragments of the eggs the solid earth was fashioned, and the cracked eggs’ upper fragments became the “lofty arch of heaven.” The egg yolks became the sun; the whites, the gleaming moon. The spotted fragments became the stars and the black fragments were the clouds. Luonnotar went on to create capes, bays, seashores, and the depths and shallows of the oceans. Now the water mother, she gave birth to Vainamoinen, the culture hero and demigod in the epic poem. Sibelius set part of The Kalevala text of the creation to music for female soloist and orchestra, calling the work Luonnotar.

SOURCE:

Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, Third Edition – Written by Anthony S. Mercatante & James R. Dow– Copyright © 2009 by Anthony S. Mercatante