Poetry and Mushrooms in the Bomb Shelters?

a little fellow in it's youth

It is time for the 'metsä' (=forest) to show its magic here in the North and produce the most magnificient little inhabitants called 'sieni' or 'sienet' for plural. Mid August it seemed that perhaps this magic is not going to happen this year, but oh no - after the fairly wet few weeks - they are popping up like 'sienet sateella'! (Refer to Emmdee's previous blog post on the words 'sataa vettä', in case you are now scratching your skull in desperation what the writer means by this bizarre word 'sade' (definitely not the now perhaps so infamous singer Sade)... Not making your life any easier I will also start singing: 'Sataa sataa ropisee pilipilipom, pilipilipom...') I will not continue this entertaining rhyme (yes, I might be a little hyper after too many cups of tea this morning...), but go on to the main point: And the point is what is happening as we speak - the mushrooms are popping up in the forrest like mushrooms in the rain!

According to the 'Hesarin Kuukausiliite' (= the monthly edition of Helsingin Sanomat, similar to say Guardian's Saturday supplement, but obviouly better as it is Finnish!) 'syyskuu' -Sept 2008, p. 65-68, the mushrooming season is at its best, and the joy of finding a mushroom is topped up with he fantastic (FINNISH) names of the mushrooms. You have to be a poet to figure out new Finnish names for the new species found. The name given should reflect the charasteristics and the family the particular mushroom belongs to... Sounds easy, but how would you translate say a pig skin poison puffball (= siannahkamyrkkytuhkelo) or a soft slipper toadstool (= pehmyttossumadonlakki)? They sound ridiculous and the names are way too long for anyone to remember... But Finns seem to spend awfully long time in figuring things like mushroom names out (is it the cliché of the long winter again?) Poetry or not, I could spare the British readers and not write the next part, but knowing me - would I really consider your feelings this far (the quick answer is no, I would not). So, the early parts of the very colourful 'Hesari' article reveals the lack of imagination in the minds of Brits and therefore negatively expresses the fact that the British mushroom naming and literature is in inevitable chaos! Apparently even the most common mushrooms in Britain are without English names and carry only their Latin names... Shame on you! This is now a well known fact in Finland as everything in 'Hesari' is true!

I'll give you a living example from our back garden if you may. The example is 'Amanita'. Hope some of your alarm bells are ringing as most of these mushrooms are poisonous - and they know it and show it - you should too (know it I mean... )! According to Wikipedia the genus Amanita contains about 600-1000 species (Wikipedia is very specific here!) of agarics including some of the most toxic known mushrooms found worldwide - in Finland around 20 species can be found. This genus is responsible for approximately 95% of the fatalities resulting from mushroom poisoning, with the death cap accounting for about 50% on its own. The most potent toxin present in these mushrooms is alpha-amanitin. Despite the deathly qualities these little fellows posses they look amazing. I photographed one of the four 'punakärpässieni' (= red fly mushroom, direct translation of mine... = fly agaric is the boring English name) in our back garden the other day. This fellow was only day and a half old when pictured... now a weekk later already showing many signs of ageing - colour changes, drooping and loosing the white spots. This mushroom is probably the first mushroom all Finnish kids get to know and recognise well - it is good then to know that the history books don't know any situations where someone would have been killed by eating 'punakärpässieni' in Finland... but already the Vikings knew about the hallucinogenic qualities of this mushroom (I won't go into that)... One more thing about Finish clarity and English chaos theory is that in Finland all 'amanitas' have a name 'kärpässieni' at the end of say 'puna' (= red) or 'valko' (=white) and are therefore easily recognised as part of one family... What do the Brits call these mushrooms? ... Fly agaric, destroying angel, purple death cap - Please give me a break... a little bit too dramatic, don't you think?

Maybe enought about the mushroom world, but you might still wonder how the bomb shelters link at all to these innocent little creatures like the mushroom in my picture (so I will continue a bit further). Well, mushrooms are known to be porous and therefore they should not be picked near busy roads or say power plants - you all know that, right?... How about the event some 30 years ago in Russia? Yes, the terrible accident at the Tsernobyl (Chernobyl) nuclear power plant in 1986. According to WHO's estimate approximately 9000, or according to Greenpeace 93000, and according to some Russian activist almost a million Russian people died. The Finns were unlucky that night too having wind conditions blowing towards North (= Finland) from Russia (saying that though, lucky in the sense that most people were inside that time of the day) and therefore there are still some traces of radioactivity (Cesium 137, which has a half-life of 30 years) in Finland's soil - and where else than in mushrooms (especially in the worst effected areas). A standard becqurel level in human body is approximately 100-200, someone who might eat heck of a lot of mushrooms & fish might have say 500-700 becqurels in their system... Apparently one should get concerned around 60000 becqurel findings which would raise the risk for cancer by a minute bit... Still Finns build a bomb shelter in all new highrised buildings in the coutry and I know where to head to in case the siren starts its deadly howling. I am glad though that the kids in the schools don't have to have the monthly siren tests like in the eightees... or do they? - I don't know as I have lived in England for the past 12 years. Oh well, life is safe - would be safe for the mushrooms too if they grew in the bomb shelters.

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PS. Thank you Pika for your 'keltavahvero' =  'kanttarellikastike' perunoilla (Chanterelle sauce & potatoes) yesterday... I'm proud to say the Finns have two names for this mushroom!