About the Health Sauna
Virgin Mary, our Mother,
Pure Mother,
Come here, we need you,
We call for your help,
To bring us health,
And bring peace to this place,
Heat up the sauna,
Get the stones ready for the steam,
With wooden paddles,
With the steam rising from the water;
Create a gentle steam from it,
Let the honey steam rise,
Through the hot stones,
Through the burning logs,
So it won’t burn your sons,
Or ruin what you have made.
The “Health Sauna” incantation portrays the sauna as a place quite different from today’s space for relaxation and purification. In the incantation, the sauna is a place of healing where heat, water, steam, and the sauna’s heat work together. The steam is not described merely as hot vapor, but as a force that is asked to heal rather than harm.
In the incantation, the Virgin Mary is called upon to heat the sauna, promote health, and bring peace. The verses ask for “mead-like steam” and “honey steam,” which passes through the hot stones but neither burns nor harms. The sauna appears as a liminal space of care, faith, and physical healing: there, wounds, pain, and fatigue are placed in the care of the steam.
The spell can be found in the collection edited by Elias Lönnrot Ancient Spell Poems of the Finnish People under the heading “60. The Health Sauna.” The work was published by the Society of Finnish Literature in 1880.