In Finnish mythology

Finnish mythology

Finnish mythology is the mythology that went with Finnish paganism which was practised by the Finnish people prior to Christianisation. It has many features shared with fellow Finnic Estonian mythology and its non-Finnic neighbours, the Balts and the Scandinavians...

 Otso, Ohto, Kontio, metsän kuningas (the king of the forest), and mesikämmen (honeypaws) are some of the many rarely uttered circumlocutory epithets for the spirit that was never directly named. Generally, the spirit of the bear

Bear

Bears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern...

 was referred to as friend, brother, uncle, or forestcousin, or ways were thought up that would bypass the need to refer to the spirit at all, even indirectly.

Some sub-traditions considered the bear to be a relative who had fled the community and been transmogrified by the power of the forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

.

If a bear had to be killed, a sacred ritual of Peijainen

Peijainen

In Finland, Peijainen is the ritual burial of a bear that has been communally brought down and has died. A bear was never "hunted"; it was merely brought down. A single man could claim to have hunted and killed a bear, but in a community effort, the bear simply died...

 (which some consider the source of the Odin

Odin

Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....

 and Wotan myths) was held, and the bear's spirit in the form of its skull

Skull

The skull is a bony structure in the head of many animals that supports the structures of the face and forms a cavity for the brain.The skull is composed of two parts: the cranium and the mandible. A skull without a mandible is only a cranium. Animals that have skulls are called craniates...

remained in a sacred clearing which was upkept, and people would bring expiatory and tributory gifts to it.