Finnish Maiden
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Maiden of Finland (Finnish: Suomi-neito) is the national personification of Finland, much as Marianne in France, Britannia in the United Kingdom, Deutscher Michel in Germany and Uncle Sam for the United States. She is a young woman in her mid-twenties with often braided blonde hair, blue eyes, wearing a blue and white national costume or a white dress. She was originally called Aura after the Aura River in Turku. As a symbol, the Finnish Maiden has been used since the 18th Century when she was pictured as a woman wearing a turreted crown, and then developing as Finland gained a national consciousness and independence. Poetically, the maiden Aura has been linked to her foster mother, Mother Svea, the personification of Sweden.
The Maiden of Finland can also refer to the shape of Finland on the map. With a little imagination it looks like a female form which has one hand raised (and another before the Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940), a head, and a skirt. The metaphor is so commonly used that the northwestern area around Enontekiö is known as the Arm (Käsivarsi) even in official contexts.
