Case file · Folklore / legend
Metsänpeitto: hidden by the forest
Finnish folk belief, recorded widely by 19th-century collectors, held that the forest could 'cover' a person or animal, making them invisible or lost even close to home.
1850 CE · 62.24, 25.75 · status: legend
The account
Victims might see the world strangely or appear to searchers as a rock or stump. The cause was often blamed on maahiset (underground folk); remedies included turning clothes inside out or looking back between one's legs. Swedish-speaking Finns said 'skogen håller' (the forest holds).
The sceptical view
Folklorists link it to disorientation, hypothermia and confusion of the lost, explained in a supernatural idiom.