# Ilmatar — The Kalevala character guide

> Ilmatar in The Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Straightway Ilmatar

**First appearance:** 0004-rune-i-birth-of-wainamoinen

## Snapshot

The air-daughter who drifts alone in the void for centuries, then bears Wainamoinen and shapes the world from a teal's egg on her knee.

## Who they are

Ilmatar is the primal virgin of the air, the mother of Wainamoinen, and the creatrix whose body and patience bring the world into being. She longs for a child and for release from her endless solitude, but her pregnancy lasts seven hundred years before she can give birth, and the cosmic egg she shelters shatters to form the earth, sky, sun, and moon. Her long waiting and sudden creative act set the whole epic in motion, making her both the origin of the world and the source of the hero who will sing it into memory.

## In the story

### [Rune I: Birth of Wainamoinen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_kalevala_se/chapters/rune-i-birth-of-wainamoinen)

The Daughter of the Ether who becomes the water-mother, bears the world from a duck's eggs, and creates the landscape before giving birth to Wainamoinen.

### [Rune II: Wainamoinen's Sowing](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_kalevala_se/chapters/rune-ii-wainamoinen-s-sowing)

Invoked as Luonnotar, the ancient mother and nurse, from whom Wainamoinen seeks water-forces to fell the oak.

### [Rune XLVII: Louhi Steals Sun, Moon, and Fire](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_kalevala_se/chapters/rune-xlvii-louhi-steals-sun-moon-and-fire)

Ether-daughter who meets Wainamoinen and Ilmarinen, recounting the fire's journey and its swallowing by fish.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_kalevala_se/characters/ilmatar
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_kalevala_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_kalevala_se/characters