insignificant spot in the vault of the sky, but on this spot he knows
no master."

The Finnish deities, like the ancient gods of Italy and Greece, are
generally represented in pairs, and all the gods are probably wedded.
They have their individual abodes and are surrounded by their
respective families. The Primary object of worship among the early
Finns was most probably the visible sky with its sun, moon, and stars,
its aurora-lights, its thunders and its lightnings. The heavens
themselves were thought divine. Then a personal deity of the heavens,
coupled with the name of his abode, was the next conception; finally
this sky-god was chosen to represent the supreme Ruler. To the sky,
the sky-god, and the supreme God, the term Jumala (thunder-home) was
given.

In course of time, however, when the Finns came to have more purified
ideas about religion, they called the sky Taivas and the sky-god Ukko.
The word, Ukko, seems related to the Magyar Agg, old, and meant,
therefore, an old being, a grandfather; but ultimately it came to be
used exclusively as the name of the highest of the Finnish deities.
Frost, snow, hail, ice, wind and rain, sunshine and shadow, are thought
to come from the hands of Ukko. He controls the clouds; he is called
in The Kalevala, "The Leader of the Clouds," "The Shepherd of the
Lamb-Clouds," "The God of the Breezes," "The Golden King," "The Silvern
Ruler of the Air," and "The Father of the Heavens." He wields the
thunder-bolts, striking down the spirits of evil on the mountains, and
is therefore termed, "The Thunderer," like the Greek Zeus, and his
abode is called, "The Thunder-Home." Ukko is often represented as
sitting upon a cloud in the vault of the sky, and bearing on his
shoulders the firmament, and therefore he is termed, "The Pivot of the