Iku-Turso: A Mysterious Sea Monster

Iku-Turso was a malevolent ocean deity who took the form a terrible sea monster. Not only was Iku-Turso’s appearance formidable, but he had powerful and weird magic. Iku-Turso’s makes a typically bizarre appearance in The Kalevala, the great mythological epic of the Finns (which Ferrebeekeeper has already visited—to tell the dark story of Lemminkäinen and the Swan of Tuonela). In the second part, Iku-Turso rises from the depths and burns a huge haystack. From the cinders grows an oak so large that it threatens to blot out the sun and moon so the tree must be cut down. Later in the epic, Iku-Turso is enlisted by the goddess Louhi of the North to prevent the theft of the powerful magical artifact Sampo. However one of the sorcerers seeking Sampo
was too powerful for even a bizarre walrus/octopus sea god to stop. Poor Inku-Tursu ended up magically cursed to haunt the bottom of the ocean.