Tuonela

[2][3] Similar realms appear in most Finnic cultural traditions, including among Karelian, Ingrian, and Estonian beliefs.

[1] According to the Finnish pagan faith, the fate of good and bad people is the same and the dead wander the afterlife as shadow-like ghosts.

The dead must cross the river, either by a thread bridge, swimming, or taking a boat piloted by the daughter of Tuoni.

In the 19th song of Kalevala, Väinämöinen, a shamanistic hero, travels to Tuonela to seek the knowledge of the dead.

[7] On the isle of Tuoni, however, he is not given the spells that he was looking for and he barely manages to escape the place by turning into a snake.

After his return, he curses anyone trying to enter the place alive.Also in the Kalevala, the adventurer-shaman Lemminkäinen goes to Pohjola to woo the daughter of Louhi, a powerful old sorceress.

By the river of Tuonela (Tuonelan joella) by Akseli Gallen-Kallela , 1903
Lemminkäisen äiti by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. The mother of young Lemminkäinen has gone to the river of Tuoni to find the corpse of her dead son. One of the myths told in Kalevala .
Väinämöinen in Tuonela (1890) by Pekka Halonen