Some strange incidents and ghost stories have been collect from the Juva area for village histories, which were compile in the 1980s as a group effort. Many village books simply list “scary places” without any further explanation. The longest story is about the scary Boktaal and the Surmakiv.
There is a Surmakiv bend on the road between Kaislajärvi and Häkkisensalo. The Surmakiv stones are located a few hundred meters away at the bend when coming from Kaislajärvi on the right.
map of the location of the Surmakiv stones between
In this story, I would like to briefly tell you where the stone got its name and its scary reputation. The information is based on what I heard, what my father and uncle once told about it.
They must have also based this on what they heard. The stone was located on a forest path between Kaislajärvi and Häkkisensalo and aroused a telegram number database lot of fear in quieter road users, especially at night.
My aunt Olga even told me that she had heard her once, how in the dark they came galloping along the road after her with a horse and cart, but when they reached her the sounds stopped,
and she could neither see nor hear anything anymore. Who must have been the driver and where was he in a hurry, because he did not have time to ask the girl on the side of the road for a ride.
The same source also relates a longer story about the stones,
in which a game of cards leads to the arrival of a mysterious retriever at night. On the slope of Sorvasmäki there was a house where the master and mistress lived alone,
if you do not take into account the male guests who often gathered to play cards in the evenings in the house’s parlor.
These could sometimes also arrive at night to challenges in data modeling continue their unfinished games, as long as they could get the master along.
When the master asked from his bed: “Who is there?” a voice came as if from under the ground: “BOKTAAL wants to speak now”.
Hearing this, the master took the scythes from under his bed, put on his foot and a long red cloak, and left.
This was also the last time he left his own hut
because after this no one knew his whereabouts. Despite intensive searches, the man was not found anywhere, and so his disappearance remain a mystery until the following spring.
There was a forester name Taneli Kervinen, who in the spring look for fox dens under large rocks and had to peer deeper than usual when moving around in the forest.
That’s how the scythes, the man’s legs, poke out and so the whole man was found frozen under a rock.
>No one ever knew who Boktaal was, fax database what business he had with someone else that night, and why he was finally found dead under a rock. However, at that time, everyone was consider “devils”, as the decease was never known to have had any enemies. This is how the stone got its name and its fear reputation, although the superstition of the time may have play a role in the story.
These recollections of Johannes Härkönen about the Surmakiv are from the book .Perinnetietoa Hietajärvi koulupiirista, a group project of the
Juva Adult Education Centre course “Know your hometown – save the information”, 1983.
Others have also experienced ghosts near the stone
Vuokko Ikonen has heard and compiled these memories from her relatives. Vuokko Ikonen’s grandmother Heta Sofia Ikonen (née Kokkonen, born 28.10.1875 Maaninka, died 13.6.1959 Juva) told the following about the Surmakiv.
Pedestrians used to turn right along the kinttupolku at the Surmakiv bend. Heta also did this when she came home from Häkkisensalo to Kaislajärvi in the dark of an autumn evening. While walking on the path, she saw that at a bend in the road, a horse was going in the direction of Kaislajärvi, pulling a load of hay. A light was twinkling on top of the load. Grandma stopped, but then continued on her way when the sounds from the direction of the road had faded. When she reached Pekka Immonen’s cottage in the village of Kaislajärvi. she turned in and asked who it was that had just passed by with a load of hay. She was told that no horseman had pass by for a long time.
Another strange incident that Grandma noticed was also connect with a light phenomenon. When she was little, she had gone to visit a neighbor on the other side of the lake. In the evening, during the full moon, she was returning home on the ice. Then she saw a fox running on the ice, and a light was shining from its back. When he told his parents at home what he had seen, they said it was a fire fox.
