A Brief History of Finnish Sauna

A Brief History of Saunas

10,000 years ago Woolly Mammoths went extinct, and some really cold nomadic dudes somewhere in Finland dug a hole in the ground, covered it with animal skin (hopefully not the Wooly Mammoths) and build the first sauna.

As the Finnish people ceased no madding, saunas evolved to resemble cabins with a fire pit. Stones were placed over the fire and would be heated throughout the day. Once the smoke was cleared, people and even animals would enter the saunas to stay warm through the night.  Later, electric stoves and chimneys were built into saunas because they saved wood and heated the structure much faster.

According to statistics, there are 2 million saunas for the 5 million people living in Finland.

Spirit Of The Sauna

Saunas were utilised for religious ceremonies, relaxing, social engagement, childbirth, and even death! It's been recorded that elders would go to the sauna when it was their time to pass away. No wonder they believed spirits inhabited these wooden structures!

New saunas would need to be spiritually purified to ensure good experiences for all future uses. Using someone else's sauna required its own unique set of spells.

A Finish saying goes, In the sauna, one must conduct themselves as one would in church.'

There was even a myth of a sauna elf that was meant to protect the wooden house from fire and other types of damage. Families had to follow traditions, leave the water and even food on holidays to keep the elf happy!

A farmer coming in from a long day in the fields would step into a sauna to unwind, while also drying and smoking his meats alongside him!

However, just like today, many people used it to detoxify the body and healing illness before plunging into freezing water.

A Finnish proverb says: If tar, vodka or the sauna won't help, then the disease is fatal'.