I was born into a family of witches. My family comes from East Karelia, the very place where Finland's national epic, the Kalevala, was born. From Vuokkiniemi, the village of Vuonninen, the song-lands known as Kalevala.

I am a direct descendant of Andrei Malin, also known as Ontrei Malinen and Andrei Sevastjanov Malikin, a great Wise man, bear-slayer, and rune singer who sang for Elias Lönnrot, the compiler of the Kalevala, the section about the forging of the Sampo and, according to some sources, the greater part of the entire Kalevala. According to tradition, he was such a powerful wise man that he sang the teeth out of a bear's mouth. In Finnish folklore, wise men were folk magicians, healers and seers. The Finnish word “tietäjä” literally means “knower”.

These things run in the family – witchcraft is hereditary. My father's grandmother was a famous folk healer, a blood-stancher, a clairvoyant, and a witch. She was known to see spirits and speak with the dead. According to Finnish folk tradition, a blood-stancher is a person able to use supernatural powers to stop even heavy bleeding.

The story goes that one day an old woman in the village had accidentally sat down on a scythe. Her leg artery had been cut, and blood began spurting from her leg! The men of the village had rushed to fetch my great-grandmother for help.

“Come quickly, it's an emergency! We need a blood-stancher”, they shouted when they saw her.

“No need to come, the bleeding has already stopped. Just go back”, she had simply replied.

When the men returned to the village, they saw that my great-grandmother had spoken the truth. The bleeding had stopped, and the old woman survived her ordeal.

Once, as a young boy doing hay work, my father's father had accidentally cut his thumb off with a sharp scythe. The thumb was completely severed, hanging on by just a thin strip of skin! He had run to his mother in tears to show her what had happened.

“Mother, mother! My thumb came off!”

“Don't worry”, she had simply said, putting the thumb back in place and wrapping it in some kind of herbal bandage.

When the bandage was removed three days later, there was no trace of what had happened on the finger at all! Not even the smallest scar remained!

My great-grandmother had learned her knowledge and skills from a great Wise man under whom she had studied. This Wise man was known as Wise man Sotamaa, and in his time he had been extremely well known and famous. He had also trained as a medic. This Wise man was known to be capable of performing great miracles.

Once, a completely immobile, crippled boy had been brought to the Wise man to be healed. The Wise man had carried the boy in his arms to the edge of a rushing rapid – and thrown him into the worst of the raging rapids!

Horrified, the people had shouted:

“Why did you do that? The boy will drown!”

But the boy had risen from the rapids completely healthy!

The Wise man had for years been searching for a Mantle-Heir, a successor to his work, to whom he would pass on all his knowledge and skill. But to be accepted into the Mantle-Heir's training, there was one condition: one had to be able to spend an entire night in a barn that was haunted...