Christfried Ganander, in his 1789 "Mythologia Fennica", characterised Pohjola as 'the most extreme North, described as a dark and terrible place. Tartarus and Ultima Thule'. Elias Lönnrot, one of the principal collectors of Finnish folk poetry and composer of the "Kalevala", went to some lengths to interpret Pohjola as a real region, considering whether its inhabitants might be Saami or Finns, and precisely where areas such as Luotela/Luode ('North-West region'), Pimentola ('region of darkness'), Sariola, and Untamola/Uni ('region of sleep') might be; many other scholars followed in the same vein. However, the idea of an otherworldly far north is a widespread motif in both Classical and medieval European literature, and has a corresponding concept, "boasso", in Saami culture. Thus Pohjola can be thought of as a purely abstract place, a literary trope standing as the source of evil — a foreboding, a forever cold land far in the north.