Eläinten Olympialaiset Ja Muita Satuja

''Eläinten olympialaiset ja muita satuja'' by Kaarlo Hänninen is a collection of fairy tales written in the early 20th century. It follows a grand, humorous animal world that stages its own Olympic Games to keep up with humans, led by the Bear as forest king with the Fox and Wolf as organizers, and contestants arriving from every continent. Expect playful competitions, sly jokes, and a mix of nature lore and Finnish folklore as creatures race, leap, fly, and boast for glory. The opening of the book sets the scene on a Lapland fell where the Bear convenes all animals and declares the Animal Olympics to counter human prowess. A committee (Bear, Wolf, Fox, and others, plus birds and even insects) designs events—running, wrestling, long and high jumping, flight contests, slow race, head-butting and pushing, and swimming—while elephants and beavers build tracks and the Fox invents quirky measures (distance by a cock’s step, time by a cuckoo’s call). Delegations travel to Petsamo by ingenious routes—whales ferry Austra­lians, herds stream across Asia and Africa under Tiger and Lion—then a grand reception unfolds; wrestling is postponed to avoid early quarrels. The first day brings a dramatic footrace won by a European greyhound ahead of a kangaroo and an ostrich, though the timing collapses in the excitement; a slow race crowns the snail. On the next day, amid Tapio’s forest-fairy fanfare, the flea crushes the long-jump, the condor wins the high-altitude flight, and the common swift takes the distance flight to the Heinäsaaret (with a comic albatross-and-tern incident), and the text moves toward the head-butting contests.