Year 1974 featured the second Finnish Christmas postage stamp issue, and rightfully the stamps decipted christmas elves. In nordic mythology christmas elves, or as finns call them tonttu’s, have a long tradition.
The origin of word
Year 1974 featured the second Finnish Christmas postage stamp issue, and rightfully the stamps decipted christmas elves. In nordic mythology christmas elves, or as finns call them tonttu’s, have a long tradition.
The origin of word tonttu comes from Swedish word tomte with roots back to ancient times. They were caretakers of a farmer’s home, particulary children or home animals all around the year. If you treated them, they did the same for you. But the wrath of tonttu was something many feared.
The 1890’s illustrations of Jenny Nyström turned this mythical character into white-bearded, red-capped friendly figure associated with Christmas. Initially they had nothing to do with Santa / Joulupukki, but as the American version of Santa and christmas elves became more popular, the mythology surrounding the tonttu’s evolved.
Nowadays they are santa’s little helper’s who keep track of children and take care of the animals of the forest. Usually tonttu’s move in pairs of two.
Taking care of wildlife, especially birds during the cold winter season is a task many Finns do with pride. Bird feeders are very common in most households, but especially on Christmas time many prefer old fashioned sheaf as displayed on the 1978 Christmas postage stamp.
The 1979 Christmas postage stamp continues on a similar theme of taking care of animals. The finnish tallitonttu, literally stable elve, was the caretaker of domestic animals. Especially stable elves shared a common habit of moving about only after nightfall.
One of the Finnish national epics is Seven Brothers (F