Rahko is a creature in Finnish mythology. This Rahko being is connected with the moon, but exactly how is a question.
In one version, he is a thief who was bothered by moonlight, which can perhaps be a nuisance if you are a thief. He decided to paint the moon black with tar. This results in the new moon, and also the face you may see when looking up at the moon.
In another version, spirits known as kapeet eat the moon, and the Rahko forges a new one out of cow hooves and fat.
So in the aggregate, the Rahko is responsible for either the moon being there or for it not being there. Or perhaps both. After all, the phases of the moon are cyclical.
2 comments:
I can't say I've heard of the Rahko previously but it is a richly imagined story to explain the phases of the moon. Imagine watching this entertainment in the sky every night of your life and never knowing the reason it happens. Some legendary being painting the moon with tar makes as much sense as anything.
It's also true that Finnish mythology had a very strong influence on J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings including the Elvish language. He was intrigued enough by the Finnish language as a boy that he actually learned to read and write it. The 19th century collection of epic poetry compiled by Elias LΓΆnnrot provided the foundation for the linguistic patterns for his Middle Earth writings. It's a pretty fascinating story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_influences_on_Tolkien
It's an engaging story with--paradoxically enough--elements of both reverence and irreverence in it. In our time we know much more about the heavenly bodies we see above us at night. The problem is that this has led to many thinking of the universe solely in mechanistic terms. I think you lose a lot that way, and there's something to be said for coming up with weird stories like this one.
Tolkien was a philologist, and a very accomplished one. As you say, he learned Finnish when he was very young. It's not an easy language to learn, either. But you can see what caught his fancy in it. Finnish is a Uralic language, coming from different roots from Scandinavian languages to its west and the Slavic ones to its south. Its mythology also comes from a different source, although in both cases there has been some mixing. But it was different enough to give Tolkien another perspective on creation myths.
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