Old Finns respected the bear so deeply that they avoided saying its real name. Instead they used gentle names for it: Mesikämmen, the honey-paw. Kontio, the one who lives on the land. And Otso, the bear of the old songs.
In the Kalevala, Finland's national epic, Otso is said to be born in the sky, near the moon and the stars of the Big Dipper. People believed the bear watched over the forest, and the homes at its edge.
Today the brown bear is Finland's national animal. Strong, calm and fiercely protective of its own. That's exactly what we wanted our agent to be.
