Self-translated/rewritten from the Finnish
I rarely read self-published books, and treat direct approaches by authors with some trepidation. However, Finnish author Aki did his research before approaching me. He read my review guidelines, noted my caveats, but checked his novel would be up my street before sending me a lovely email asking me if I’d consider reviewing his book. He got it all right, and I couldn’t say no, especially as he sent me a print copy from Finland.
As any regular reader of this blog will know, I’m a big fan of Antti Tuomainen, the quirky Finnish thriller author. His most recent books from The Rabbit Factor onwards have all been hilariously funny alongside all the fish out of water antics of his protagonists. The Finns seem to have a propensity for writing quirky fiction and I love it.
Now I know from Tuomainen’s 2024 novel, The Burning Stones, that the Finns take their saunas very seriously indeed, the near sterile environment providing a purifying effect on the body sweating out impurities. However, I didn’t know any of the folklore around Finnish ‘tonttu’ or elves, the traditional guardians of homes, saunas, and barns.
Enter the Sauna Elf, one of the last of his kind, who writes his memoirs in the last blank pages of Mirjami’s sauna guest book. He gives us a series of five linked stories, centred around the sauna, built by her father on Mirjami’s farm. The sauna elf had spent years guarding it and its users, lurking as steam or mist on the grass outside, never showing his real self to anyone. Today, things will change…
Poor old Mirjami, watched over by the sauna elf, shuffles along the road to the village’s lone store, arriving just as two robbers burst out, loaded with booty and waving a gun. Mirjami was knocked out of the way, the door instantly breaking her arm and she fell to the ground dying shortly after. The robbers, a couple, fled, ending up at somewhere to hole up for a bit – guess where? Mirjami’s sauna of course, and the sauna elf will demand retribution, cornering them one by one to meet their end, giving their entrails to the creatures of the forest, and stretching their skins to dry!
The sauna elf will be left without people to protect, as Mirjami’s son lives in the city, but as his apartment block sauna doesn’t have an elf, he goes there, only to discover more impure people to be dealt with! Then he delves back into his deep past, It’s the 1800s and a young couple who believe in the elves are confronted by the arrival of a debauched Christian missionary, who will try to rid them of their beliefs in folklore. That the Sauna Elf survives this while his fellow house and barn elves perish is telling. Back to the present and when a drunken student film crew arrive at the sauna, complete with a sauna elf costume, you just know it’s going to go badly for them.
A couple of the stories in Aki’s novel, began their lives as a film script. He studied film in the UK and Finland, making well-regarded horror shorts in his homeland. However, these stories didn’t make it into a film, so he combined them into the novel, linking them with the Sauna Elf’s memoir:
I am the Sauna Elf, spirit of sauna – the incarnation of dirt, filth and spiritual decay. […] I see you, but few have ever seen me. The unfortunate ones who have met me did not live to tell the tale. The dead tell no stories. That’s why I must tell mine by myself. […] The filth, all the corruption and the spiritual decay among people seems only to grow with each passing year. Soon, I will be nothing more than a butcher. People must find time for the sauna. On the warm benches of sauna, peace of mind and purity come effortlessly. Regular purification would ease the burden for all of us. So bathe, come to sauna, my good fellow people.
Obviously, as this is a horror novel after all, there is lots of blood and gore in these stories, and even more vomit and excrement – something that really upsets the sauna elf, who seeks purity over everything. Butcher he may be, but he also appreciates nature, sharing the spoils of his summary justice on the impure with the wildlife. His way of life, in the sense of traditional wood-fired saunas is under threat, he can’t imagine himself on social media or taking ‘elfies’! His musings do have a spiritual side to them, he tries to understand how to exist alongside us today. I loved that the Sauna Elf himself never swore, being rather proper about his speech; he left that to the impure humans he was dealing with. I ended up having more than a little sympathy for this mythic creature, despite his murderous tendencies.
I ‘enjoyed’ reading The Sauna Elf a lot. It’s written with a lot of humour in its dark pages, and certainly has that Finnish quirky character in spades. Thank you so much to Aki for sending me the book to read.
I’ll close by saying, I’ve never actually had a sauna, but do like the purification aspect of it, and hope that should I ever enter one, that the Sauna Elf is in a good mood!
Source: Review copy – thank you! Self-published paperback, PoD, ISBN 9789528075769, 220 pages.
BUY at Amazon UK via my affiliate link.
A very interesting review highlighting an original and dark novel where Finnish folklore blends with black humor and horror. The character of the “sauna elf” offers a curious perspective on the mythical, the spiritual, and the violent, in a story as unsettling as it is creative.