Mystical Black spring

Before Haatainen, Tuovinen, Korhonen and other ordinary families, Lippo Tuulenvääntäjä and his family arrived on the shores of Tuovilanlahti. At that time, the name of Tuovilanlahti was Kuikkalahti given by a hunter from Savilahti. The nearest priest cared for his congregation around present-day Mikkeli and tried his best to make his parishioners forget the customs and habits of the pagan era. The tax bears of Novgorod and Sweden would unlikely come immediately and tax Tuulenkääntäjä. First, Lippo tied pajumertoja and wove a few fishnets. Soon he built a sauna and poured birch to be burned in the following spring. Things went according to plan. At the beginning of the river, which descends to the back of the bay, perch and roach went to merrat and the fishnet gave a reasonable amount of pike.

One morning Lippo was shocked. Merrat were filled with frogs and he could not find his fishnets. When he arrived at the shore, he saw a large ball with wicker braided yarn. He guessed that someone had unwrapped his fishnets and wrapped around to be seen. Some veliid, or the devil itself, the old one. Lippo received fishermen from Savilahti who planned to return to their homes soon. They said that the old one brawled recently elsewhere on the upper water side as well. Lippo asked them to report it to the priest. During the same summer, the priest arrived in Kuikkalahti. He was strong worded and a mighty devil exorcist. He frightened the devil so thoroughly that it fled and, in his fright, kicked a deep cave into the cliff with his hoof. Lippo named the cave the Devil's Nest. That old one didn't escape for long. Maybe it wasn't the old one himself, but some smaller elf, a veliid.  

It settled in the Black Fountain, then lived here for hundreds of years and may still live there. Matti, officially named Turunen, who belongs to the family of Tuulenkääntäjät, moved to Litmanniemi in 1561. When Juntti Tuovinen settled down to Kiukoonmäki and moved from there to the lake, Kuikkalahti became Tuovilanlahti. Thus, Vetehinen, or Veliid, has lived in Black Spring for hundreds of years, spending peaceful coexistence with the residents of Tuovilanlahti, who, like Pekka Rissanen, have been able to bribe elves by taking objects they like to the source. Antti Miettinen, the owner of Kankaala, took over the economic life of the Black Spring by setting up a mill, which was spun by the water of the spring. In the early 1880s, the water of the Black Spring was fed to the water cogwheel of this mill along the wooden gutter 20 liters per second. The mill was low-powered and gave reasons to ridiculous expressions. However, the wisest said, "Do not mock the Mill of the Black Spring. It makes grain into flour." According to memories, the mill of Miettinen operated until 1907 or 1908. After that, Pesoset cultivated Kankaala as tenants, and the farm was bought by Kalle Taskinen, who kept the mill in use since the 1910s. He wanted to try to see if the water from the spring would also make electricity.

At his request, Hankkija 1922 installed a household electrical power plant with a generator power of 1 kW and a voltage of 230 V. Seppä Aapeli Puurunen installed the turbine. After a few years, Taskinen became a user of the workshop's electricity, but he seemed to get tired of the workshop's electricity disruptions and restarted his own power plant. At least in 1931 Taskila (Kankaala) got its electricity from the Black Spring generator. The mill was no longer used for grinding. Near the mill, on the same plot, was a cottage where Pekka Rissanen lived with his wife Anna and sons Otto and Kalle. They were skilled craftsmen, making wooden dishes and birchbark items. Kalle was a skilled carpenter, paperhanger, and painter. In addition, he knew how to drive a car. Even that job was often offered to him, as the two carowners of Tuovilanlahti. Savola's host Taavi Savolainen and workshop master Kalle Pesonen were not always fit to drive, so Kalle helped. 

Otto was a quiet man, working as a carpenter and cutting logs every now and then. He made clean stacks; the kitchen wood was sawed even and stacked regularly. 

Pekka himself did everything necessary; others did what they could. He was born with a tooth in his mouth, so he was a seer. He healed his neighbors in the events of illness and accidents. 

The wash water for injuries was a versatile medicine he took from the Black Spring, pouring it through a solid tree from one container to another, giving the water a healing power. 

Anna was not a useless woman either. In addition to handicrafts, she took care of the cleanliness of the Maaninka ship. Every night she went with the bucket and brush to the ship and stepped on board when the last passenger left, and the last cargo was carried to the dock. Maaninka was the cleanest in the reputation of the ship. 

With the water for the injuries, Pekka washed the stretched and pierced joints. Water alone was not enough to cure sampa (gland inflammation); it also required the skill of the nester's fingers. Pekka had acquired that skill after he had had the opportunity three times to mix the worms with his fingers. Pekka got a cow that had been in the forest to go home. Unjkakkiaenen had taught him the conjuring words needed to lure a cow that had ran away into the woods. Unjkakkiainen was - and still is - a mysterious voice heard somewhere in the distance at the border of sleep and control, which can be compared to the narrator's voice between the lines in the novel.

Once a man came to Pekka and said that a knife had been stolen from him. Pekka promised to investigate it. That meant he was going to see a thief in a dream the next night. So that with the help of self-suggestion Pekka knew how to act. He of course used the help of practical activities and supplies. He happened to have the rowan twigs he had retrieved from the cemetery. From them he cut the sticks and immersed them in the Black Spring and read the relevant spells. In the most difficult cases, silver chips were needed to summon the Unjkakkiainen, which Pekka dripped from the silver object and dropped the chips into the spring. Unjkakkiaenen took care of the knife thief for the rowan branches as a reward. The thief came to Pekka and moaned miserably, "I had such a dream that you beat me with a stick. Cancel your enchant! That's what this is." "Kuv viet varastamasj puukon oekeelle omistajalle, suat nukkua yös raohassa", Pekka said. Eelis, who was a year younger, said that he had experienced Pekka's magic power: "Kun minä olin öylön Kalapurolla, niim Pekka tuli vastaaj ja ärjäsj. Minä säekäen ja mänin rumpun alle piiloon. Minä luulin kun Pekka loehti. Rumpun niskat rutis ja kans lenti ilimaan, niin että multa pöllysj. Pekka istu aejan piällä, heilutti jalakojaan ja naoro niij että parta väpätti." 

During that time, I attended Tuovilanlahti Grammar School. My schoolmate Vilho Haatainen took care of the Black Spring power plant. He went in the evenings to start the turbine and generator and stop them in the morning when going to school. He once said to me, "You don't dare to go to the mill with me in the morning, because there is a body haunting." After all, a nine-year-old man is not afraid of the body, so I left in the morning with Vilho. The mill had a hollow atmosphere due to turbine bumping and twilight. The generator also whined and rumbled mysteriously. Vilho pushed the hatch into the gutter and opened the hatch in the gutter wall, causing water to spill onto the side of the gutter and the turbine to stop. The main part of the cylindrical turbine was located downstairs, where there were also grinding stones. Vilho expertly explained why the strap between the horizontal wheel on the turbine and the generator wheel was crossed because the generator could not be put on its side.

There was still talk of a mill, although there were now power-producing gadgets on the mill premises. The downstairs, where the main part of the turbine was located, was considered a morgue. After the mill stopped working, its Ground Floor had turned into a morgue because it was cool even in the summer. The water from spring kept it cool. A body was often there waiting for the burial. That was the case even when I was stopping the power plant with Vilho. We showed each other our courage and peeked out the end door downstairs. There the body laid on the board under the sheet. When we went to school, we told colorful stories about the ghosts of the Black Spring. During that time, the freaks of the spirit world were still tormented by life, although they were already severely persecuted by electricity and other technological developments. The ghosts of the Black Spring began to be forgotten when Pekka Rissanen's family moved to Kalapuro, and the cottage was left empty. The gypsies sometimes tried to spend the night there, but after hearing that the mill is haunted and something is happening in the Black Spring, they gave up their intention. 

One autumn morning when I went to school, there were voices coming from Black Spring. The usual morning mist rose from the spring. Otto Jääskeläinen said: "That's what happened when Rissaset left to Kalapuro." Aku Jääskeläinen wondered: "Maybe someone miserable put mercury into the spring. That trick made a natural disaster." 

Quite a revolution. A wide and deep pit had formed between the spring and the river, and at the bottom where pieces of a wooden gutter swam in the sandy water, and the mill itself had tilted badly. Most of the gutters were still standing as if on top of the pillars. 

Otto didn't like Aku's remark: "Don't talk nonsense. Mercury drops don't do such upheavals. The thing is, when Pekka, his wife and his sons moved to Kalapuro, the riffle bugs and other elves got wild. They kicked that path and then ground collapsed. You can see the seagull-shitsand on the bottom."

At the end of the school day, I deviated to the spring. It was a lousy remnant of the Black Spring. The former multi-eyed spring had shrunk into one small pond. How much had the water level dropped when most of the water was running into the river? 

Thirty years ago when visiting the spring of the Ruovesi poets, I remembered the Black Spring and stated that before Pekka Rissanen moved to Kalapuro, the Black Spring had been considerably wider and otherwise more spectacular than this highly acclaimed Poets Spring. 

What about the iron content of the Black Spring now? During its greatness, it was reproached for its iron content. It was said that children should not drink its source of water because it rusts the teeth. It could have been true after all. I, like other residents in the vicinity of the Black Spring, drank the spring water and my teeth did not rust. 

In that great natural disaster, the water level of the spring dropped considerably. Now it can be hard to find the terrain signs of the upper limit of the water surface before the landslide. The area, which was then swamp with the spring, now grows large trees.

Even sages older than Pekka had been aware of the power of the Black Spring. They, too, had purchased knowledge and skills by sacrificing items and silver chips to the source. A few years ago, researchers at the Kuopio Museum were interested in Black Spring. They visited the spring to see if it would be possible to study it, but found that hardly any remains of cult objects could be found in it. 

Who knows, if someday the residents of Tuovilanlahti should restore something related to the Black Spring. The mill at the bottom of the spring could be an interesting attraction if restored. There is also a photo of the oldest mill. A veliid or other elf may well live in the spring. From time to time, the people from Tuovilanlahti and others could sacrifice something small for the veliid into the source, so that the coexistence between the veliid and the villagers would be comfortable. The National Board of Antiquities made a wise decision when it did not start dredging the source. In this way, the elves also remained in peace, do not haunt or otherwise frighten the villagers. 

Lähde: Olavi Mykkänen 26.4.2001, Tuovilanlahden Mustalähde