Stories

The blacksmith Sakri Järvenoja was among the top shooters in the entire region of Ostrobothnia, which also proved the high quality of the guns he made. In a competition arranged in Kokkola, Sakri is said to have shot three bullets to the bull’s-eye, even to the same hole. The referees did not notice or even believe this first. But Sakri took offence and asked them to dig out the bullets. There were three bullets on top of each other. He is also said to have shown a sceptical customer how the gun he made works. The customer asked Sakri to adjust the gun because he did not hit the target well enough. Sakri took the gun and shot a sparrow on the roof from 60 metres, stating that “it is actually the man who needs adjusting, not the gun” (Kujala 2011, 111–112).

The story goes that even in the late 1800s they believed in Sepäntalo that the soul of a deceased person remains among the relatives for 40 days, in other words, the same period that Jesus spent among his relatives after Resurrection. It was believed that the prayers read for the deceased during this period were effective. As far as is known, in Sepäntalo they read, for example, the writings of the German mystic Jakob Böhmen (1575–1624), of which handwritten Finnish translations existed. Legend has it that a certain deceased person had locked the door of Sepäntalo and made noises in the attic (Kotila 1978, 8). Of the Järvenoja brothers, especially Jaakko was a mystic. “The mystics emphasised praying and daily repentance” (Suur-Lohtajan historia II, 356).