haltia

haltia, a Balto-Finnic domestic spirit who oversees the household and protects it from harm. The word haltia is derived from the Germanic haldiaz, originally from Gothic haldan referring to the ruler or master of a given area.

In Finland the haltia was usually the spirit of the first person to lay claim to a site either by lighting a fire on it or by building a house on it or, in some cases, the first person to die there. The haltia was believed to resemble such a person in every way, including sex, age, dress, and mannerisms. The dominant idea was that a person, once laying claim to a piece of land, would always remain in charge of it. A haltia could even be brought to a new site from the previous one, either with the fire kept alive and transferred or by taking ashes from the old to the new site.

The haltia was the prime moral force of the household, who saw to it that norms were observed and expressed his displeasure at fighting, swearing, drinking, and other forms of socially disapproved conduct.

Other buildings on a farmstead also had their tutelary spirits. The barn spirit watched over the animals, the threshing-house spirit saw to it that the fire for drying grain was kept burning, and the mill spirit kept the miller awake to keep the mill running.

The Finnish haltia tradition has been influenced more recently by Swedish customs concerning the tomte, who appears in Finnish as tonttu. He is usually depicted as a bearded old man dressed in gray with a red stocking cap, with functions quite similar to those of the haltia. In some cases it is difficult to distinguish the household spirit from the maahiset, which is considered to be the aboriginal guardian of the land before human settlement.