In Finland's snowy past lived the greatest sorcerer who ever was. He was born an old man of his mother, Ilmatar, a great air and sea goddess. He sang his magic and created all we see around us. But one day he sang a change into the world and that's when all the trouble began. In the north, past Finland's furthest fields, lay Lapland, a green and fertile place under the rule of Louhi, a shape-shifting witch. She and her priestesses tended a magical chest from which the land's fertility came. Theirs was an idyllic world, until the aftershocks of the sorcerer's song of change swept through their land and their lives. Even the eternal magical forestfolk sensed that something new was coming. Among the oldest myths are the oral stories that Finnish storytellers told around their firelit inglenooks. A few of these myths were recorded in the Finnish epic, The Kalevala. Snowmagic is written in homage to this classic epic, using its characters and events as a jumping off point. Tolkien based aspects of his Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion on The Kalevala.