Aside from this, the lyrical concept for this album was based on Nordic myths, the Kalevala (the Finnish national epic), history and stories of Jämsen's own creation.

The sources as well as the manner are recognizable: a Nordic myth with factual traces, hopeless love, revenge by murder, blasphemy followed by curses from on high, and final redemption.

Actually, though the sets are geometrical and abstract, the costumes could be from some storybook of Nordic myths.

Santa Claus lives in a small hill called Korvatunturi in Lapland, Finland in the Nordic myth.

Sometimes he succeeds, often by evoking strange quasi-human creatures that seem to have walked out of Nordic myths.

Each one has the majestic power of a Nordic myth; clues to the stories are hidden within.

Aragorn, he explained, "has connections with a lot of characters from Nordic myths, some of which are specifically told about Denmark."

As for 13, Nordic myth tells of a banquet arranged for 12 gods at Valhalla.

Tom Uttech's scenes of water, boulders and conifers with serpentine roots could be settings for Nordic myths.

I don't expect you to understand this, Nick, but Nordic myth is more deeply ingrained in our psyche than in any of the other Scandinavian cultures.