I've been to Finland.
Looking for trolls and Etiäinen in the Finnish forests. Maybe a Menninkäinen, but I doubted I'd be that lucky. Some of my contacts had posted that they'd observed some strange happenings in the forests near Pokka. I've spent three weeks with backpack and recording equipment, walking between spots of snow, lakes, rivers, and trees, trees as far as the eye could see.
It was... beautiful, I have to say, but eerie. From time to time I needed to call on an Ircanrraat, otherwise I might've gone insane. Internet connection was... more than spotty, even my satellite connection. Like the forest was a smothering blanket.
I've spent days with not a single sound. Only the vague hiss of my blood in my ears, a whistling that seemed like self-protection from the absolute nothing - until even that stopped. Total. Absolute. Silence. No birds. No snapping. No snow falling. No wind blowing. Absolute, utter, complete silence.
I've never heard anything like it.
I've never experienced anything like it.
This is what being deaf must be. It is terrifying.
I really thought I'd go mad, and maybe I did, because while I never saw hide nor hair of any Finnish cryptid, but I think a piece of the Finnish silence came along with me. When I remember that utter stillness, and visualize it, and... channel it... it comes back, just for a couple of seconds, just for a quick reminder of a cold and dark stillness, of a forest beyond time.