Hero's Journey

Throughout human history, great heroes have been created to triumph over man’s struggles. Most every culture has, in the past, told their own tales of heroes and their trials. These champions, while spread across our world and its ages, share some key characteristics with each other. This formulaic composition of heroes, while it can deviate, has stayed true since the dawn of history. This remains true with the Finnish hero god, Vainamoinen. (okay so his name has a bunch of umlauts and such but I can’t type that every time.) The central theme around which these great heroes form consists of three main acts: The Call to adventure, the Transformation, and the Return. These concepts may deviate slightly, but overall, the theme is present. Consider
any hero of which you are familiar, and how their personal journey fits this description. To further delve into the patterns of hero stories, we must look at what is known as “The Hero’s Journey.” This pattern, first recorded by author Joseph Campbell in his book “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” is applicable to nearly all known heroes or protagonists in any works, recent or ancient.
The pattern is split into the aforementioned three acts, but can furthermore be separated into key story elements. The story begins with some sort of awakening, a call to adventure, and often times, help or advice from somebody more experienced or wise. This individual could be anything from a parental figure to an old man in a cave, handing out wooden weaponry. (See: The Legend of Zelda,
1986) The story then enters its second act, the transformation. During this period, our hero will venture to a previously unknown area to them. A different realm, society, planet, or way of life are all examples. They must face trials and adversity they’ve never known before, and change who they are to overcome these obstacles, thus being the titular transformation of the character. Finally, we come to the return. This is wherein most stories tend to deviate. The hero either succeeds over his trials, or fails. The world is either saved or doomed. This is after climax of the story, the hero’s final burden to bare. At this point, the story faces the aftermath of the hero’s struggles, and ties up all loose ends. In Finnish mythology, there is the Hero God Vainamoinen.
Born from the Maiden of the Air, creator of the Universe, Vainamoinen is often depicted as an ancient sage to the Finnish People. He floats in the Primaeval Sea before creating the land and all of mankind. This, however, is where the story of Vainamoinen gets complicated. Most modern knowledge of Vainamoinen comes from a book known as the Kalevala, arranged from ancient Finnish poems and stories by a man named Lönnrot. This compilation, however, consists of hundreds of contradictory tales as to who or what Vainamoinen even is. By some accounts he himself created the universe, and in others, his is simply a wise prophet and hero. Regardless of the particular iteration you choose to read, Vainamoinen follows the aforementioned patterns during his stories. Whether he is the first man, born of the gods, or simply an ancient hero, he is birthed as such. He finds this birthright to be his call to adventure. He goes forth to birth humanity, or to create the very earth beneath our feet. Like all other heroes, he undergoes these trials before fully realizing his potential, undergoing some form of transformation. In some iterations he literally become the land, having been shot into the Primeval Sea by a rival god, Joukahainen. The world is then left with the consequences of these actions, whether it be the very earth itself, or a wise prophet of the gods after a life of
adventure. In summation, the pattern of the Hero can be found in most any narrative. The example of Vainamoinen proves this true, even in ancient tales nearly lost to time and snow. From modern heroes to ancient gods, The Hero’s Journey is present and formulaic.