The Milk Hare, or Tussegutt

“A dear child has many names,” and indeed, no one was dearer to the housewives of Finnskogen (in Norway) a century ago than the tussegutt, or milk hare. Its proper Finnish name is para. It was also called the milk imp (melkepuken).

It was a creature that required a great deal of work and sorcery to make, but once it was finished it was also a fellow that could make itself useful. Its task was to go around all the cowsheds at night and suck milk from the cows — only a little from each cow, so that it would not be noticed. Once full, it ran home and poured the milk into a tub, which had to be standing ready with even the smallest splash of milk in it, so that the tussegutt would know where to deliver the milk.

It was incredible how far such a tussegutt could run. Old people claimed that it could run across seven parishes in a single night. But then it would also be full of milk when it came home.

All sensible housewives had tussegutter in the old days.

Old Lauri Lehmoinen, who died many years ago, told how such a tussegutt was made.

One took an old, worn-out fur cap and filled it with nine different kinds of woollen yarn, clasps, and hooks — hooks like those on a spinning wheel that guide the thread had to be included, otherwise there would be no tussegutt. All this was stuffed into the fur cap, and it was tied together so that it took on roughly the shape of a hare.

For legs, four large maple knitting needles were used. They had to have actually been used for knitting, otherwise they were no good. Two smaller knitting needles were used for the ears, and two silver buttons — inherited silver — for the eyes. The mouth had to be large enough for it to gape around the teats of a cow. For a tail it had to have a small twig of linden.

The tussegutt was now finished, but the worst remained: bringing it to life. That required old, experienced people; it was no use for beginners to try.

One had to have twigs from nine different kinds of deciduous tree, and with these twigs the tussegutt had to be whipped on nine successive Thursday nights, from sunset until sunrise. Two people were required, because the whipping had to continue without interruption. They were not allowed to speak or do anything else, but only keep whipping and endlessly repeat the following magic formula:

“Who is here seeing, who is here hearing, and who is here giving warning, so that the para is not born?”

If anyone lay in wait and watched them, no tussegut came into being.

If everything had been done properly, the tussegutt came alive on the last Thursday night, and was immediately ready to begin its work.

A tussegutt could be shot with inherited silver. A man at Purala (Puranstorp) once shot one of these things as it ran about at night sucking milk from the cows.

The tussegutt could also be rendered harmless in another way. If, along the route where the tussegutt ran, one found paranpaska (“para dung”), and whipped it with switches from nine species of deciduous tree, the tussegutt was rendered harmless. But if the owner of the tussegutt could borrow something from the person who had done the whipping, the tussegutt became as good as new again.

One night, toward morning, the traveling Karlstorp shoemaker awoke because something was shuffling about on the floor and crying:

“Tub! Tub!”

“I’ll give you a tub!”

shouted the shoemaker. He seized his strap and struck the tussegutt so that the milk splashed out.

The housewife had forgotten to put out a milk tub for the tussegutt, and therefore it did not know where it was supposed to deliver the milk.

I have heard from other old men knowledgeable in magic that, in order to remain alive, the tussegutt had to suck blood from the housewife’s left ring finger, which therefore always had to have an open wound.

“But,” said Lauri Lehmoinen, “the tussegutt must surely have lived on all the milk it carried inside itself. It didn’t give all of it away; it had to keep some for itself.”

— Olaf Lindtorp: Finnskogens folk (1940) [ transl. & abbr. ]

[ Wäinölä 🇫🇮 ]