Ukko is the Finnish god of thunder. He carries an axe (and many other weapons) that was considered a symbol of protection among the Finns. It was similar to Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, which was a symbol of protection among the Norsemen.
But while Ukko has many similarities with Thor, the Norse god of thunder, he is perhaps more similar to the Greco-Roman sky gods Zeus and Jupiter. Ukko was also the supreme god of heaven who ruled over the lesser spirits of the Finnish pantheon.
Origins of Ukko
While Ukko shares many similarities with Thor, Zeus, and Jupiter, he is not from the same Indo-European roots and so was probably not closely related to these gods. Instead, Ukko was linked with the Estonian deity Uku and the Sami god Aijeke in a distinctive Finno-Urgic tradition. The Finno-Urgic people migrated from the Ural Mountains in western Russia between 5,000 and 4,000 BCE before settling in the Baltic region from around 1,500 BCE.
However, this does not necessarily mean that the parallels between Ukko and these other European gods were accidents. The information we have about Ukko comes from late, Christian sources. The people who recorded his stories were probably influenced by what they knew of these other deities.
Finnish Mythology
The ancient Finns, who were not ethnically, culturally, or linguistically related to the neighboring Norse Vikings, left no written records about their religion.
The oldest surviving text about ancient Finnish religion was written by the Christian Bishop Mikael Agricola in 1551, around 500 years after most Finns had converted to Christianity. In addition to translating the New Testament into Finnish at a time when there was no standard written form of the language, he also put together a list of ancient Finnish deities and their supposed function. He described the role of each deity in verse.
We know that Ukko was an extremely important deity because Agricola dedicates nine lines to him, rather than the two lines he gives to other deities. His few lines confirm that Ukko was a weather deity linked to fertility.
And when the spring-sowing was done, then the old man’s toast was drunk. For this was Ukko’s wooden vessel fetched, and the girl and the wife got drunk. Then were shameful things done there, as was both heard and seen. When Rauni Ukko’s woman huffed greatly puffed Ukko from the depths. Thus, it gave weather and the new crop.
The lines may also allude to the “holy union” between Ukko and his wife Akka, a manifestation of the Earth, which draws parallels with Thor’s giantess mother Jordr, a personification of the Earth. Folklore suggests that it is their marriage that ensures the fertility of the land.
All other evidence we have for Ukko comes from comparison with the little evidence we have for other Urgo-Finnish sky deities, oral folk stories, told in verse for centuries, and collected and written down by a group of ethnographers in the 19th century.
God of Thunder
Ukko is principally a sky god connected to the weather. He makes it rain and controls the winds. He is associated with thunder, which is called Ukkonen, the diminutive of his name in Finnish. Thunder was usually represented by the image of a snake with a serrated back.
According to an old Finnish poem known as the Kalevala, Ukko makes lightning and thunder with the axe that he carries. But other sources suggest other causes for these natural phenomena. Another says that thunder was caused by his chariot traveling across the sky.
Other stories suggest that thunder was caused by the sound of Ukko making love to his wife Akka. She is the mother earth that gave all men their physical form and also the goddess of women and children. She also has a shadow self, Jabme-Akka, who is the goddess of the underworld and comforts babies who find themselves in her realm. The underworld is believed to mirror the world of the living, which is why in Finland, people were buried with things that they used in life.
Warrior God
Ukko was also clearly considered a warrior god capable of providing martial protection. Many weapons were associated with Ukko. He carried a bow and arrow, a nail, and a sword, while wearing a blue cloak and a “storm hat”.
Ukko had a hammer called Ukonvasara (Ukko’s hammer) and an axe called Ukonkirves (Ukon’s axe). The hammer seems to have been more common as examples of boat-shaped hammer pendants survive in the archaeological record. Today, many Finns wear the hammer as a symbol of protection.
Many weapons were associated with Ukko, and the Finns believed that stone tools that had been abandoned by previous generations and were found, especially washing up when it rained, were ancient weapons of Ukko. They were called Ukonvaaja (thunderstones) and were often buried around homes as a form of protection.
Warriors would pray to Ukko for protection, hoping that he would grant them Umpiputki, a kind of magical charm of protection in battle.
Healing God
Interestingly, Ukko was also considered a god of healing, but more than that, he was often explicitly called on for assistance in childbirth. It is very unusual for male gods to be associated with maternity.
Ukko’s healing abilities also extended to the spirit world, and he was believed to be able to drive out and protect against evil spirits that attack the body. This is something that could be linked back to his serrated serpent lightning bolt symbol, which seems to be ancient as it is found in Neolithic stone carvings in southern Finland.
Serpents seem to have been associated with controlling evil spirits. Tietäjät, Finnish shamans, are considered mediators between the different realms or realities. In their tradition, finding a serpent under a rock can be a sign that something has recently passed between worlds, quite likely an evil spirit. But serpents could also be leveraged by these shamans to avert spells or evil spirits sent by other shamans for the purpose of healing and protection.
Ukko may have been seen as having similar powers for healing and protection as he wielded his serpent lightning bolts. If he is also associated with shamanism and magic, this is something that he shared with Odin, who was a master of both Seidr and Rune magic in Norse mythology.
Sky Father
At least in Christian times, Ukko was also considered the supreme ruler of the sky, with power over other deities. He was often given the epithet Ylijumala, which means supreme god. But he may already have had this position as he was also called by the name Aija/o, which means old man or grandfather in Finnish and is used as a form of respect.
In one folklore verse from the 19th century, Ukko described as follows:
You Ukko, the supreme god, the highest father in the heaven, the heavenly god. Create a cloud from the northwest, send another from the west, a third one from all over. Bang them against each other, water the flintlock’s powder.
Ukko’s abode was thought to be a central heavenly vault located at the navel of the sky. He was also sometimes called Jamala, which means heaven god.
Ukko is remote and is only called on for big things, such as controlling the weather, which is on a “global” scale. For day-to-day things, the Finns called on local guardian spirits, following a form of animism. While these spirits were much more accessible and could be prayed to and cultivated directly, they were ultimately under the command of Ukko.
Symbols & Festivals of Ukko
While Ukko’s most important symbol was his axe, there were various other symbols associated with the Finnish god.
The snake with the serrated back represented lightning. The rowan tree also seems to have been considered his, as well as the ladybird, called the Ukonlehma, which means Ukko’s cow. Rainbows were also associated with Ukko, and called Ukko’s arch, and he was sometimes called the “master of the clouds” and the “father of the weather”.
Ukko seems to have had two principal festivals among the Finns. The first was midsummer, known as Ukon Juhla, the second was the May festival for spring sowing, known as the Vakkajuhlat. At both festivals, the Finnish people were working to ensure good weather for the coming harvest.
At both festivals, Ukko would receive sacrifices of food and alcohol. He seems to have been fond of sheep’s meat. It was placed in a birch-bark chest for him, and he would eat his fill overnight. The next day, the community would eat the rest. These sacrifices were usually made at a grove considered sacred to the god.
At some festivals, bear meat was also eaten, and bears may also have been sacred to the god. The bear was also sometimes ritually married to a woman in the community, who could mystically become impregnated by the bear after it was slaughtered.
Ukko: Finnish God of the Sky
Ukko is a complex deity with several domains, including the weather, harvest, battle, protection, and healing. He also seems to have had domain over the sky and the world of humanity, though this is a power that he exercises in a fairly remote way. Followers of the old Finnish religion are often best advised to call on the local spirits that inhabit the world around us.
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