Like Helheim of Scandinavian mythology, Manala, or Tuonela, was
considered as corresponding to the upper world. The Sun and the Moon
visited there; fen and forest gave a home to the wolf, the bear, the
elk, the serpent, and the songbird; the salmon, the whiting, the perch,
and the pike were sheltered in the "coal-black waters of Manala." From
the seed-grains of the death-land fields and forests, the Tuoni-worm
(the serpent) had taken its teeth. Tuoui, or Mana, the god of the
under world, is represented as a hard-hearted, and frightful, old
personage with three iron-pointed fingers on each hand, and wearing a
hat drawn down to his shoulders. As in the original conception of
Hades, Tuoni was thought to be the leader of the dead to their
subterranean home, as well as their counsellor, guardian, and ruler.
In the capacity of ruler he was assisted by his wife, a hideous,
horrible, old witch with "crooked, copper-fingers iron-pointed," with
deformed head and distorted features, and uniformly spoken of in irony
in the Kalevala as "hyva emanta," the good hostess; she feasted her
guests on lizards, worms, toads, and writhing serpents. Tuouen Poika,
"The God of the Red Cheeks," so called because of his bloodthirstiness
and constant cruelties, is the son and accomplice of this merciless and
hideous pair.

Three daughters of Tuoni are mentioned in the runes, the first of whom,
a tiny, black maiden, but great in wickedness, once at least showed a
touch of human kindness when she vainly urged Wainamoinen not to cross
the river of Tuoui, assuring the hero that while many visit Manala, few
return, because of their inability to brave her father's wrath.
Finally, after much entreaty, she ferried him over the Finnish Styx,
like Charon, the son of Erebus and Nox, in the mythology of Greece.
The second daughter of Tuoni is Lowyatar, black and blind, and is