A century ago, the population of Finland was much smaller than it is today. People in the countryside usually lived quite far apart from one another – just visiting the neighbours involved a long trip by boat or cart; there wasn't even a decent road to every farm. With no television or radio to spread the latest tidings, news passed slowly from farm to farm. The newspapers took no interest in village gossip, and not all villagers could read well anyway.
Country folk had to satisfy their hunger for news by travelling to church
every Sunday. – This often involved a long boat trip or cart ride. Dressed in
their Sunday best, eager to hear the latest news, the villagers would crowd
around and exchange tidings before the service began. A lot can happen in one
week: if you arrived in good time, you could catch up on all the local gossip.
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Walter Runeberg : Amor and Bacchus as Children Robert Wilhelm Ekman : Kreeta Haapasalo Playing the Kantele in a Peasant Cottage Ferdinand von Wright : In the Garden of Haminalahti Albert Edelfelt : Women Outside the Church at Ruokolahti Juho Rissanen : The Fortune-Teller 
Hugo Simberg Tyko Konstantin Sallinen : The Fanatics 
