Midwestmutt, beautiful haikus like always!
Incidentally I came up with a couple of complementary ones, not having seen yours! Mine are about a specific hill, which for me is definitely a focal one in the ”hills of my home”.
As you can see from the haikus, Koli is two syllables and Pielinen (the lake) is three.
In case someone doesn't see the pictures:
There are three pictures, two of which have haikus.
The first one shows a view from Koli (seen from the hotel, the same level as the upper end of the funicular and the Nature Centre Ukko) towards the lake with dense fog and then with the fog clearing and a partial rainbow appearing over the lake. The haiku reads:
The lake is breathing
Mist rises from Pielinen
Koli hides itself
The second picture is an aerial photo of the Ukko Koli summit and the lake beyond it, with yellow autumn foliage (birch) and dark of the conifers. This picture is not by me, as I don't have a photography drone. However I wanted to borrow one that works with the haiku:
Bones of the mountains
Remnants of a range now gone
Ancient hill Koli
The photo is by Harri Säynevirta and taken from the all free image bank (license CC 0 i.e. public domain) kuviasuomesta.fi
The third one is a collage of four of my winter photos from Koli, the uppermost is looking towards the west (overlooking the funicular tracks), two are towards the lake to the east and one is snowy trees with some sunset in the background.
Here are more aerial (and other) photos by a proper photographer:
https://eskonkuvat.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Kuvia%20Pohjois-Karjalasta/
Koli info for the interested!Koli is indeed "bones of the mountains", it is the last vestige of a mountain range higher than the Himalayas from 2 billion years ago. The current altitude is 347 m above sea level, and some 253 m above the water level in the adjacent lake Pielinen. Before the previous ice age it was several hundred meters higher than now, although the mighty mountain range was gone already. The remaining peaks nowadays are largely formed of very hard quartzite that was able to withstand the erosion of eons, including several ice ages, longer than the rest of the range. The rounded shapes of the rock was generated by the ice sheets just like Midwestmutt describes.
The old name for Koli and/or the area is Mustarinta ("Black-chest") which also happens to be one of the many many names for bear! Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. It is not known whether the name here derives from bears (there is a rock formation presumably resembling the head of a bear) or just from the fact that it looks dark from the distance. The current name Koli started appearing in maps since 1700's but the origin for it is not known. One theory references the word meaning bald in Carelian, which would refer to the bare summits. Such prominent bare rock summits are rare in southern Finland.
There are many folktales about there having been places of worship, sacrifice and public assembly, and hermit wisemen living there. However there are no archaeological finds to support this, only oral traditions. The place gained popularity during the national awakening of Finland, so some of the stories may be at least exaggerated by the artists enthusiastic about Finnish traditions in general and Koli in particular. Nevertheless it's an impressive place and has most likely been viewed as a place with powerful spirits.
A preserved poem mentions
Kolin korkeat isännät, Mustarinnan murhat miehet "the high masters of Koli, the murder men of Mustarinta" (the "murder" here means they are fearsome) that were known to live there in 1500's. Fear of these spirits reigned strong and no houses were built in the area throughout the 1600's. The area became permanently inhabited from mid 1700's when local clergy had scoured out the "superstition of the simple folk". The spirits were approached to ask for luck in the hunt by the hunters of the surrounding areas all the way to Ilomantsi who prepared a ceremonial meal on the summit to share with the spirits. (source: Pielisjärven historia I, 1954, Kilpeläinen, Hintikka ja Saloheimo)
