Stories

 

Legend has it that when a farmer from Perho had gone missing and drowned in a stream one autumn, Veelu had been able to explain how the accident had happened. The following spring, the body was found in the place Veelu indicated. (Lindholm 1995, 340–341)

 

According to another story, Veelu had been walking towards the village when he met the Devil himself. The Devil had intended to touch Veelu, but Veelu claimed he was a clergyman. The Devil stepped aside and screeched nastily. In Veelu’s words, the Devil was a remarkably ugly creature. (Mäkitalo 1989)

 

Väinä Laakso (1992) talks about the “paralysis water” that Veelu used to prepare, which did not always work in the way he intended. Veelu’s brother Antti had a foreign object in his eye, and Veelu treated it with the aforementioned medicine. “Antti could not go to see a doctor because there was nobody to take him there. Veelu just washed the eye with the paralysis water and said it would soon heal. But the eye did not heal and started to fester instead. Veelu’s son, a forest technician, happened to come by and brought Antti to see a doctor. Even the doctor could not help and sent Antti to an eye clinic in Oulu. Antti went there, but the eye had already decomposed inside his head. It was cleaned and the eye was sewn closed. Antti bemoaned not having been sent to the doctor earlier, but said that there was no reason to lament since there were many one-eyed people as well.”