Finland is celebrating its “National Sleepy-Head Day” on July 27 in a tradition dating back beyond the Middle Ages and which can be something of a rude awakening for Finns who sleep in late.
According to custom, the last person still asleep in a household will be woken up by having water thrown on them or, in more extreme cases, picked up and thrown into a lake or the sea.
The tradition is based on the idea that anyone who slept late on Sleepy Head Day would be lazy and unproductive for the rest of the year.
The practice may not be so widespread nowadays but the western seaside town of Naantali still keeps the tradition alive.
In Naantali, each year a small committee chooses a local celebrity or someone who has done something of benefit to the city. The identity of the official Sleepy Head, or “Unikeko”, is kept a closely guarded secret until the last moment.
This year, in the warm morning sun, hundreds of spectators gathered. They watched as two young uniformed drummers walked down the wooden pier over the sea, followed by six men carrying a stretcher, where the hapless lazybones was covered head-to-toe in a yellow blanket.
With one big swing the men flung tubby, middle-aged figure – who turned out to be Finnlines shipping CEO Tom Pippingsköld – into the green waters below with a great splash.
Pippingsköld was in good spirits after his impromptu dip. “The water was surprisingly warm” he said. “It feels really great. This is an incredibly great event and tradition. It is an honour to be the Unikeko of 2023.”
He now joins a varied list of official Sleepy Heads; virtually every mayor of Naantali has ended up in the water, while other Unikekos have included governors, local church organists, writers and even (gulp – Ed), journalists.
The earliest official record of the tradition is from a religious text of 1652 but the celebration goes back further.
The ritual is part of the much older “Feast Day of the Seven Sleepers”, marking a Christian legend about seven young Christians who hid in a cave to escape Roman persecution but fell asleep and woke up centuries later – after the Roman Empire had converted to Christianity.
In days gone by, the Naantali event could be quite boisterous. Crowds would gather early in carnival mood for the official Sleepy Head to be thrown in to the water.
They would then proceed house-to-house to hunt down any unlucky residents who were still enjoying a lie-in and subject them to a good soaking, too.
