got pynched yet?

[hankhank at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu]

On Thu, 17 Apr 1997, Alan Westrope wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Apr 1997, doktor at primenet.com wrote:
> >John--
> >>I was bummed out by it, because it just seemed like another small line
> >>crossed in the >ever creeping incursion of cheap commercial tricks into
> >>every nook and cranny of my >life as a 'Murrcan.
> >In Arkansas, it's pronounced Markin.
> A-and I'm shocked that John, whose dissertation included section 14 of
> GR, misspelled 'Merkin!  BTW, I prefer the Australian term Seppo, derived
> from Cockney rhyming slang:  Seppo is slang for septic tank, which rhymes
> with Yank, and connotes that 'Merkins/Seppos are full of shit.

Well, use Seppo if you feel it absolutely necessary, but it is a Finnish
name, too, and, what is more, has deep connections to Finnish mythology,
meaning  'smith' in archaic Finnish. There is this Seppo Ilmarinen,
jack-of-all-trades, a bit like our Der Springer. Both a god associated to
the air and wind, and the most competent of all smiths. Among other things,
Seppo I. shapes the sky, strikes the original spark, makes himself a bride
of gold, and, importantly, shapes the 'sampo', which - quite like the
Rocket to interpreters inside and outside GR - has been the subject of
endless interpretations among the world's folklorists.

Yes... Smith may still be the most popular last name among Yankees, I
admit... So if you really want to keep torturing me on the list by using
that name... There's one more excuse.

(For those who want to hear more, here is one version of how 'sampo' came
to being. The arch hero of Kalevala, Vainamoinen has got wounded and flees
into the sea, where he strays for several years, performing various acts
of creation on the side, until he gets washed ashore at Pohjola, whose
mistress promises to let him go, given that he is willing to make her the
'sampo'. When back home, V-nen asks his buddy Seppo Ilmarinen to forge the
sampo; Seppo agrees. In return to it S.I. receives the daughter of the
mistress of Pohjola. The sampo makes the Pohjola folks stinkingily rich,
which makes V-nen and I-nen mad: they sail to Pohjola and steal the sampo.
The Pohjoleans start pursuing them; a furious battle takes place at sea;
mistress of Pohjola turns into a wyvern; the sampo is smashed and the
fragments are lost in the sea, some of them being washed ashore.
It's not all that sad, since these pieces bring fertility to the land
and sea. It never becomes clear what exactly the sampo is. It is never
implied, either, that there would come a Collection Day, as with those
Broken Vessels of Kabbalism.)

Heikki