Walhalla-orden

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Walhalla-orden was a secret society founded in the early part of 1783 in the Suomenlinna island fortress outside Helsinki, Finland by Johan Anders Jägerhorn along with Gustaf Adolf Reuterholm. It began as an off-shoot of an obscure Swedish masonic or quasi-masonic secret society called La Constance. However, the Swedish counterpart withered quickly, while the Valhalla society took root in the Suomenlinna (Sw. Sveaborg) fortress. In addition to the originating lodge in sweden, they had a cabin called Cabin of the Holy Axel based in Åbo. Walhalla-orden was hardly unique in Sveaborg, quite the contrary, besides A masonic lodge and Walhalla-orden, there was a secret society of "axemen" called Saint Carolinus' cabin and Brothers of February the Seventeenth, respectively.

They originally took the name of an early ancestor of Jägerhorn, namely Rutger Ingesson, who according to legends inspired by the Song of Roland was a crusader knight in the troops of Erik the Holy; but soon acquired the name under which it was most active, Walhalla. The symbology it adopted drew from romantic notions of ancient scandinavian roots, and the lodges for instance were called by a more archaic scandinavian name. The symbolic structures of the organization were designed oriented towards Finland without a Swedish component.

Though it started on strict loyalist foundations, the society quickly consisted mainly of officers stationed there who had a grievance with Gustav III. It is thought that Walhalla society may have been the first time the thought of Finnish independence floated. Certainly republican ideas were freely bandied about by Göran Magnus Sprengtporten for instance, who had been much impressed by the ideas of republicanism and the thoughts of independence which he heard from Benjamin Franklin during his stay in Paris.