Otto Jääskeläinen

With the help of Otto Jääskeläinen, a wealth of different kinds of folk knowledge has been recorded, such as poems, spells, proverbs, charms and especially vocabulary. At the Phonetic Institute in Helsinki, his assistance was also used in dialect research seminar exercises led by Professor Äimä. In 1938, the Jyväskylä College of Education made sound photographs, or oscillograms, of his Savonian dialect.

Ahti Rytkönen recalls the following:

Around 1931, Otto took part as a language master in seminar exercises on dialect research techniques led by Prof. Frans Äimä. When Otto spoke, the entire academic auditorium, that is, the lecture hall, fell silent. The presentation was captivating. His dialect was also recorded with the so‑called kymograph: the sound was turned into a winding line from which, among other things, the time taken to pronounce different sounds can be calculated. In 1938 we visited the capital for a second time, and then Tuovilanlahti was transferred onto record, and in 1959 the contents of these records were printed in a book called “Suomalainen murrelukemisto” (“Finnish Dialect Reader”). Otto describes, for example, the prophetic powers once attributed to an old‑fashioned wooden torch as follows: “It was regarded as a kind of magic trick, at least in those days, when the torch started to howl as it burned. And that howling was such a pitiful, eerie sound that people on the spot would start saying that now some strange things were coming, news of death or bad tidings.”

Raftsman Otto Jääskeläinen knew all the wonderful lumberjack tales, both the beautiful ones and the coarse ones. He also had a good singing voice. Ahti Rytkönen has preserved audio tapes on which Jääskeläinen’s songs can be heard.

The texts are based on old newspapers

Savon Sanomat 18 November 1955

Should get a little “sweetheart”

Old-time “gnarled stumps” of the people are encountered ever more rarely; perhaps the reason lies in the hectic pace of modern life, which wears people out and makes them old and frail before their time. Here and there, however, such people can still be found. In Tuovilanlahti, for example, there is old grandpa Otto Jääskeläinen who, despite his 83 years, is in remarkably good condition both mentally and physically. 
Jääskeläinen was born in Pielavesi, but has lived in Tuovilanlahti for almost 70 years, so he can with full justification be counted as an old resident of the village. 

In his manhood he worked in the forests, because “he could not choose a better lot, like the Virgin Mary,” as he jokingly remarked. Now he spends his old age at the home of blacksmith Antti Saastamoinen, still busying himself with many little tasks. Sometimes time tends to drag, especially in the evenings, and that is why he should get a little “sweetheart”, he thought. The right one has not yet been found, for when “the rich turn away and the poor flock in,” it is hard to make a choice “when one hand is empty and in the other there’s nothing either, then the woman should be that much richer that she’d keep and look after me, and I’d just treat her well.”

“I was raised in a barrel, food was given through the bunghole, I’ve had no other schooling than the blockhead’s school,” our interviewee went on, as he continued to recount the stages of his life. As a young man he had travelled around the parish as a cupper, even though Syyrakki says: “a man is no good as a cupper nor a woman as a sexton.” This work, too, seemed to have gone well for Jääskeläinen, and many in need had received relief from their pains.

Our interviewee had many amusing memories from along the way of his life. In Karttula, for instance, there had once been a man called Jussi of Äkölä, who had a very special flower called “Heperkukka.” Once Jussi had been at the Koivulahti shop showing off his flower. When Jussi returned home, Jääskeläinen and his companions were out picking berries on the slopes of Tallusmäki. From far away they heard a thudding, and secretly watching Jussi’s doings they saw how he broke off an alder branch, struck his Heperkukka with it and said: “I haven’t punished my Heperkukka in 10 years; now I’ll give it a dress of red flannel and oats for rent.” Another story Jääskeläinen told concerned the changing of a flower’s name. In his youth there had been a flower called “burning love,” then its name had changed to “damn cow” and later still to “damn mare.”

Our interviewee seemed to remember many other tales from times gone by, and in these memories he remained as he was left to continue spending the evening of his life, this sprightly old man.

Article in Savo newspaper

"A good bell is heard far, a bad one even farther"

With the words in the headline, the famous storyteller Otto Jääskeläinen, living in Perimä in Pielavesi, greets the interviewer when arriving in the hope of getting to chat with him and perhaps take a photograph as well.

"I've had plenty of folks come to interview me, and once those professors even managed to trick me all the way to Helsinki. So, what else could I do but tell those gentlemen there that a good reputation travels well. But now I'm planning to change my name to Jäpäkyörä, so that no one can track me down from here anymore."

From time to time the old man packs his blackened pipe and takes a few puffs before continuing his story:

"My sparring partner has been dead for a long time already. I've heard that some who are widowed in old age still take a younger wife, but I've just been wobbling along here on my own."

I asked the old man what kind of work he had mostly done during his long life.

"I've done the very cheapest jobs, the ones no one else wanted to do. I didn’t have the chance to go to school when I was young, and I couldn’t quite learn everything just by feel. I was under ten years old when I started earning my bread from the handle of a wooden plough. Later on, I worked on the log-driving rivers too. You had to head out to work early there, since by three in the morning we were already at the winch on the riverbank. Long days we worked in those days on the farms as well, but at least there you got long meal breaks to lie down after eating."

I wanted to know the secret behind his great age and his good physical and mental condition.

"Surely I've lived to be this old and stayed healthy because I haven't eaten delicacies. Sometimes we've even eaten bark bread when there wasn't clean wheat bread to be had. But now my life is like a gentleman's. Here at the home I can live just as if I were in my own house. And I still go on trips now and then. I drop by Kuopio sometimes to see my daughter, and then I take smaller pleasure trips around the nearby area. In my old age I've become almost like a court jester."