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Middle Ages: Use of Spas, Saunas and Hot Tubs in Scandinavia
The sauna was generally the first building a Finnish settler built, thereby also designating the limits of his forest, hunting, fishing and slash and burn farming. There is an ancient Finnish legend about a splinter of wood found in a river and showing that an inhabitant had arrived upstream to build his sauna. It is reported, for example, that Lastukoski in Nilsia (Savo) got its name from the occasion when a denizen of Savo, on perceiving the splinter, seized his axe and set out, after which the white splinter was floating in the current in water red with blood.
Building a sauna involves knowledge of timberwork construction, the right type of wood and choice of felling time. As in all buildings with a fireplace of some sort, according to folk belief there was a spirit watching to see that customs were observed and infringements punished. Thus the first person to light a fire had to be chosen with care, as it was he who would, according to the superstition, assume the position of saunutonuu or spirit of the sauna.
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