Mastodawn

Spirituality & Religious Studies Oct 3, 2025

Metsanpeitto

Metsanpeitto, literally ‘forest’s cover,’ is a term in Finnish folklore. This refers to the belief that the forest could hide, or imprison, people or domestic animals, such as cows or horses, so that they couldn’t escape & would be invisible to people who went in search of them. Another term for the same phenomenon is metsankatko, literally “the forest’s secret place for hiding things.” Swedes in Finland called this: skogen haller (“the forest keeps”).

People “covered by forest” were recounted as not being able to recognize the landscape around them, even if they were on familiar grounds. In other cases, they might’ve walked endlessly through unfamiliar landscapes, or were rendered completely paralyzed, unable to move or speak. Unnatural silence barren of the sounds of nature was also common.

People, or animals, under the influence of the phenomenon were described as becoming either completely invisible to other people, or looking like part of the nature around them, like a rock. In 1 story, a man had been looking for a missing cow for days. When he finally gave up & returned to his work, the 1st tree stump he struck with his axe transformed back into his cow.

The cause of metsanpeitto was sometimes credited to maahiset (maahinsen, singular) who were supernatural small human-like beings imagined to live underground. It’s literally earthlings or earth-dwellers, often translated as “gnomes.”

A lost person could sometimes free oneself by reversing one’s garments, turning their jacket inside out, by switching their shoes to the wrong feet. Or by watching world upside down through their own legs.

This was because of the idea that everything was topsy-turvy in the lands of the maahiset. Some were released without reason. Others only after being sought after by a shaman. Some were never seen again.

Metsanpeitto greatly looks like “Kamikakushi” or “spirited away,” found in Japanese folklore.

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#Finland #FinnishFolklore #Forest #Gnomes #Japan #JapaneseFolklore #Kamikakushi #Maahinsen #Maahiset #Metsankatko #Metsanpeitto #Shaman #SkogenHaller #Swedes

Spirituality & Religious Studies Sep 9, 2025

Spirit(ed) Away

In Japanese folklore, spiriting away refers to the mysterious disappearance, or death, of a person, after they angered the spirits, or kami. In Japanese, Kamikakushi. There are legends of people being abducted to the spirit world by the kami.

In Philippine folklore, spiriting away means the disappearance of a person toward the land of Engkantos (enchanted beings). An example is Biringan, a magical city rumored to be in Samar. Engkantos are mythical environmental spirits that are said to have the ability to show up/appear in human form. They’re often associated with the spirits of ancestors & spirits of the dead, called anito.

Enoch, in the Bible, is written as being “…no more, for God took him.” (Check out Genesis 5:21-24.) Elijah disappears when a chariot of fire appears & he’s taken up to Heaven in a whirlwind. Philip the Evangelist is taken away after witnessing to the Ethiopian Church (Check out Acts 8.).

In a very popular anime film, called Spirited Away, the main character, Chihiro, is “spirited away” from reality to the spirit world after her parents angered a witch, Yubaba, by eating their food greedily. Chihiro meets friendly, & aggressive, spirits as she tries to return before forgetting her name while there.

In a semi-popular video game series called Fatal Frame, many of the characters get spirited away by ghosts often leading them into a spirit world where they use a Camera Obscura, which is an antique camera-like device that, in the game, captures images of spirits to either find a way out or save someone who’s been spirited away.

In the 1820 short story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the main character, Ichabod Crane, vanishes after being chased by the Headless Horseman. Ichabod is rumored to have been spirited away by the Horseman.