Sara Edengréen

Inside the sauna, we sit high up on the bench. There are steps up to it, and beside it hang wooden channels where the water flows down to the stones and evokes löyly, the spirit of the sauna. The only light that exists in the sauna is the glow from the fire. When I was a child, I sat on a little stool below the bench where the adults sat. Down there was a presence. Maybe I felt it more clearly down there because I was closer to the sauna elf who lives under the bench. I remember that I never really looked back under the bench so that I wouldn’t catch his gaze. I sat down there while my grandmother, aunt Lea, my auntie and my mum sat above me and talked non-stop, until someone came down with a whisk and whisked me.