Zombie Hunters' Dead Season : Enjoy your safe winter

Yes, I know, what's up with the long gap ? Well, I was quite busy. First, there was the Winter Cleansing, which is traditionally achieved before the Winter Solstice (so we burn all of the remains at once, plus it ads to the festive atmosphere to know that after that, it's time to rest and feast with the good conscience of a job well done). The season is now the Dead Season (no pun intended) as the wild ghouls are frozen and covered with 20 to 50 cm snow, ice, and will remain there until Spring returns and leaves us with nothing left from Winter than the ghouls. And all the dog poo*. Then the Hunting season starts again at Ostara, well known for its christian counterpart Easter. It seems they chose to put the Resurrection of Jesus on the same time than the official start of the Defreezing of Ghouls to help thick pagans to get the point. Which they did by interpreting with great horror this holiday as a happy celebration of the coming Zombie Apocalypse. 

Hundreds of years of hatred and slaughters for such a ridiculous misunderstanding.

Which is ridiculous considering that even though Jesus is known for shamanistic zombie reanimation, little has been told on his true and undoubted skills in Zombie Hunting, when needed.

Until now...

And while the Dead Season is going on, I hope you enjoy your tranquility and safety gained by hard work, the sweat of your brow and the blood of your preys.

*Finns from Helsinki know what I'm talking about.

The League of Extraordinary Badasses : Origins

As some of you may have realized, if they paid any attention to my articles and pages instead of only looking at the silly pictures (And do not even try to deny. I know you. Yes, yes), the Zombie Hunters in Finland are part of a broader club of gentlemen, which purpose lies somewhere between saving the world and enjoying ridiculously exotic hobbies. This club is the League of Extraordinary Badasses. You know some of the most important members of this club already, but it is time you discover the shadowy history of this organization.

Yes, you are worthy knowing the Truth.

No, no. No need for thanks, keep your gratitude. You may not be as pleased when you discover the unholy story of these unspeakable tales. In fact, you might fall into the deepest of madness and sorrow. If you're not ready for this, click away, you fool.

Apparently the Club keeps gathering in memory of Jean Chastel.

The first official mention of the club is Jean Chastel's invitation card for the Annual Celebration of the League in 1789, as the villagers of La Besseyre-Saint-Mary went to burn down his house and cover it with salt after his death (or during, things aren't really clear, you know, the country being on the brink of its bloody, gory, and full-of-human-rights Revolution). The brave people of the town found the card in its house while looting preparing the purification of the unholy ground of this Beast killer. It is said that this card was kept as a book-mark in the Priest's Bible until the Priest lost his head on the guillotine, and that a peasant took the bible from his blood-spotted robe to stabilize a newly acquired wardrobe (lots of people acquired lots of new stuff in these days). It's Quite unclear when the wardrobe was moved and the bible opened but the card was then found and used again as a book-mark for a cooking-book that was discovered, covered in grease, in a flea-market in 1908, by an anonymous buyer who ended up using the card as a book-mark for his very creatively illustrated version of Apollinaire's Les Onze Mille Verges. It was already greasy after all.

And this is where a historian found it in 1982, looking through his family-stuff in the attic in desperate search of grand-pa's war-time uniform, the one with the funny cross. (Unfortunately, the uniform had already been burned two days after the Liberation due a dire need to light up the oven for the American's welcome feast)

Why did I tell you this whole story ? Well, to make you understand one thing : Without that unexpected game of fate, nobody would ever have had a written trace of the Club before we agreed to blog about it. We were so secret, nobody ever knew we were around, saving the world, kicking asses. To bring us to light, it took an angry mob, a bible, and a french pornographic novel.

Secrecy was the key for centuries, as different religious dogma and political leaders were quite keen on blaming us when things went wrong, or even if they thought they had seen the worst already (usually they didn't, maybe we should have let them... just for fun). In fact, we were so secret, that we aren't even sure when exactly it all started, by whom, where...... how...... why.......

(People did not write many reports back then. It only came with one of our worst and unfortunately undefeated enemy : Bureaucracy)

What we know for sure is that many Clubs part of the League trace back to Ancient Times, pre-christian antiquity,  even possibly Prehistory according to some cave paintings, such as this one :

Fortunately, there are still people claiming it's a fake. Our secret is safe.

In different times, in different places, courageous people have stood against Evil in all its forms and created, without knowing it, future chapters of the League. And I will now proceed in revealing the history of these unsung heroes....

The Great Fire of Turku : Stupid tragedy or outbreak cover-up ?

On September the 4th 1827, the greatest city of Finland was burned to the ground almost completely by the the biggest blaze that ever occurred in the Nordic Countries. Turku, former capital of the Finns, was devastated. How ? Why ? Many questions remain unanswered even today. Let's return to the catastrophe and seek the Truth about a tragedy that could have been avoided.

And here a map of the old town for a better understanding of the events.

So we are in 1827. Since a few years already, the Russians that rule the land have transferred the capital of Finland from Turku to Helsinki, officially to get rid of the Swedish influence over Turku. But a few important institutions remained in the oldest city of Finland, like the Imperial Academy and such. Unfortunately, on September the 4th, things changed forever. Let's go through the official version such as described on Wikipedia here. 

A fire starts in a house at 9. pm and spreads to the North quarter, than to the South quarter, than... jumps over the river to conveniently put the church on fire... than the East, leaving only the western part and some of the South... OK... Seems perfectly logical.... or does it ?

The blaze seems to have spread very easily without any real firefighting. Where were the people ? Shopping in Tampere ! So as the biggest part of the inhabitants were buying new stuff to decorate their smoking hot living room, nobody seemed to be there anymore to extinguish the fire. Wait a second... The city suffered 30 fires in its history and they STILL did not have any plan for... OK, let's just accept this. So three quarters of the city destroyed, 11 000 homeless, and only 27 casualties and hundreds of wounded - most likely the ones trying to do something about the town burning.  Again.

The biggest fire of the Nordic Countries makes 27 dead.

And 11 000 homeless.

Are they trying to make me believe that around 10 000 people were currently at Tampere's Market Place ?? AT 9 PM ??

I smell a rat. And what about the log of Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander, half-German half-Finnish Observator at the Imperial Academy of Turku writing : "Today observation was interrupted by a horrible fire that reduced Turku to ashes". Seriously, do you really believe that in such situation you would go :

"No shit was given that night." F.W. Argelander.

"Dear Diary. Today was most annoying because the light pollution forced me to stop observing the sky and perform my duty. People in town are screaming something about the city burning to the ground, I think it's nonsense and intend to prepare some more tea." 

No you wouldn't, and so he didn't. Because yes, this is of course what was officially released by the Russians after the so-called "investigation". The real log is far more insightful. Thanks to an anonymous informant at the National Museum in Helsinki, I had the honor of witnessing the real log, preserved by the Russians and saved by a brave Finnish historian from pogrom destruction during the 1918 Civil War as the museum was under siege (but that's another story). It goes like this :

"Dear Diary. Today was most annoying because the light pollution forced me to stop observing the sky and perform my duty. People in town are screaming something about the city being infested by flesh-eating ghouls, I think it's nonsense and intend to prepare some more tea."

Now it makes sense ! The lack of official response, the panic of the inhabitants unable to try anything even though a RIVER flows in the middle of the town, the "absence" of many people, probably let's say, away to, hum... the Tampere Market ? Who's going to check anyway ! When you move the people and important infrastructures far away from the town, there is a word for this : Evacuation.

"Verdammt, now it's the smoke ! Well, let's wait a few days and keep observing as if nothing happened." Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander, personal log.

So what really happened in Turku in September 1827 ?

We know that the area is a big swamp that had suffered many ghoul infestations through time. 30 fires, that's not fortuitous. But if they had the experience, why did they fell ? Again ? The answer is simple : They stopped practicing. As Turku was being the center of the Church in Finland, Zombie Hunters were prosecuted and their teachings considered heresy and blasphemy. What should happen happened : They were unprepared. Let's go through their mistakes :

- Not recognizing a zombie outbreak : If it does not go down after you burn it, it's not alive anymore.

- Fighting with fire : The biggest mistake one could do while facing the undead is the use of fire. Nowadays, movies like to show off with Molotov cocktails and flame-throwers. But these are merely cleaning tools, no killing tools. Did the people of Turku believed they were fighting demons from Hell with holy fire ? Did they simply panic ? We will never know, but it was a bad, bad choice.

- Forgetting the double-tap : Some Zombie Hunting Historians have argued that the initial fire may have been cause while trying to get rid of the bodies, but without having double-tapped them. Outbreaks may at first look like a plague of some sort, and the people could have simply wanted to burned the deceased like they should. But without a good skull-crush, grand-pa probably made a unexpected yet spectacular raising from his pyre.

- Taking refuge in the Church : No. You don't take refuge in a church during an outbreak. You have no resources, no good way of defending yourself, you usually don't know all the entrances and exits, and every bitten dude will come here, thinking He may give a hand. This never happens, and infection spreads fast. The bright side, once the church is full of ghouls, it's easy to lock and put on fire. Oh, wait...

- Staying in the area despite constant outbreaks : After a while, when shit keeps happening, you may start to consider moving out, or at least, improve safety measures and defense against all odds you face again, and again, and again. A city that burns 30 times is a city that never learns.

- Going shopping in Tampere.

"Turku on fire !" : Official slogan.

Consequently, the Russians did the call the Swedes should have done long ago. The capital was definitely moved closer to real soldiers garrisons (meaning Russia) instead of Sweden and things went better for Helsinki*.

Still, people argue nowadays that all this never happened, that it was just another demonstration of the maybe not-that-far-fetched reputation of Turku (which still brings a smile on Helsinki inhabitant's faces whenever the city is mentioned. Fortunately, as shown with their Turku Capital of Culture 2011 logo, they have humour. I guess this they really had to learn...). Other claim that it was a Russian plot to accelerate the moving of the capital to Helsinki, closer to their sphere of influence, teaching the Swedish lobby a lesson. But some of us have a more darker theory about this huge cover-up.

Where's the Truth ? You decide.

*Quote from Wikipedia : "Little came of the plans (nb : of the Swedes) as Helsinki remained a tiny town plagued by (...) diseases. The plague of 1710 killed the greater part of the inhabitants of Helsinki. (...) it was not until Russia defeated Sweden in the Finnish War and annexed Finland as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809 that the town began to develop into a substantial city." If it was still necessary to prove the superiority of Russia against Sweden in Ghoul Hunting. Thank you who ? Thank you Ivan !

EDIT : And for those who appreciate the Turku Humour, this is how the tourism board of the city reacted to the reputation of Turku being the asshole of Finland :

EDIT 2 : And here is a less known theory about how it all started :

Short VS Long : Never be ashamed of your small tool

Again we are going through a tool misconception today, similar to the Big Tools Are Cool from last time. Today, the eternal debate : Short VS Long.

The German Qual der Wahl ! The agony of the choice. I love the brutal poetry of my mother tongue :-)

Even those would understand that a very heavy and massive tool is totally inconvenient can still think that a long handle is better than a short. And contrary to the fat and brutal sledge-hammer, the question here is a bit more tricky, because both are potentially useful.

A long handle can be good because it offers a double-handed grip and therefore more power in your strike. The blow is magnificent, the gesture very badass, like a Canadian metsämies killing a bear with one strike. 

The range is also a quality not to be overlooked, since it's always good to keep ghouls at arm's distance. Did you know that this is actually where the saying comes from ? During the Great Epidemic, people were taught never to trust any stranger since they could potentially be infected, and the ghouls being unable to use weapons, grabbing distance or "arm's distance" was safe enough. Funnily, it has the same origin in Finnish where you keep people at "smelling distance", because back then the Finns had a larger safety perimeter and distinguished rotten meat smell from forest lurking drunk quite well. Nowadays the smell-skills thing is gone but they still have this ancient reflex of keeping a very large safety perimeter when encountering strangers. Example of Finnish safety-distance :

A Finnish bus-stop. Unfortunately, this picture is not staged...

But on the other hand, I would still recommend short handles. Why ? It's lighter, travel-friendly, and the kinetic energy will be less, the risk of getting stuck in the skull will be lesser (Not every tool has a skull-ejection system like this german zombie-hunting slingshot/hammer !). Of course, in this matter, it will mostly depend on... you. Your arm-strength, your endurance, your ability to aim with a longer tool. Short-handle are usually more precise for who is not an expert.

This is why I would also recommend, before hunting with the Best-Ever Brush-Axe I praise so often, to start billhooking (nothing pervert here) with a simple one-handed billhook, such as this one :

Pikku-Billhook for beginners. Or emergency kill.

You lose the "medium range" but this will oblige you to be careful. If you're not... I'm sorry to say you had nothing to do in this business, but see the bright side, Zombie Hunting in Finland guarantees your family will get a nice personalized card for your cremation, with the "badge of honor" for having tried ! Because who never tries succeeds nothing* :-D

So if you feel strong enough to carry and swing and get back a two-handed axe, fell free, but.... I won't advise you so. Don't be to eager to prove yourself, the best, cleanest kill are with small but efficiently used tools. All you need is skills and experience.

Wait.....

*This quote is attributed to Wolfgang W. Müller, inventor of the "chainsaw-flame-thrower during WW2. I won't present you this tool, it failed. But his sacrifice was not in vain, Frau Müller got his Badge of Honor and used it to finish a ghoul in East-Berlin during the Blockade... but that's another story.

Vintage : Hand-forged Billhook

Today : The ancient class of hand-forged billhook

Pick your choice, hunter.

I was chilling in the medieval market of Turku this Friday, wandering between all these people dressed like in the good old times when zombie hunters were still an elite to be respected, when my attention was suddenly caught by a very familiar item on a blacksmith's table. I went closer, intrigued and excited, only to gaze in awe upon... a real hand-forged ghoul-hunting billhook, shaped in complete respect of the ancient tradition ! You can't imagine my joy discovering that this arcane handcraft survived and questioned the blacksmith. With subtle riddles and secret signs he made very clear he was one of us (hammer on necklace, sharp tools all around, Elder Sign tattooed on the arm : He clearly knew how to face the unspeakable) and once trust had been gained I could have a closer look at his marvelous pieces of art.

Vintage Tools, this blog is becoming hipster.

Two models were displayed, reproducing tools from two distinct eras of zombie hunting. The elder model is the first Ghoul-Hunting Billhook shape recorded in the annals of the Karelian Historical Society for Ghoul Slaying (Yeah, "slaying" was the old term, we changed it to be more "social" and "sportive"... and not sound like mass-killers. Some people even would like to change it into "Zombie-Challenging" but that's over-politically correct. "Zombie-Preventing" perhaps ? Don't you "pssss" me, I'm still looking for better ideas !). It has the concept of short handle with a medium-length blade and - hence the name - a hook (duh). But notice how these two components are distinct : Hook on one side, blade on the other. It has been hypothesized that it was in order to accomplish a very cool efficient technique involving a back and forth movement allowing the hunter to fight in very close-combat, in the middle of a ghoul pack. Like a blady-pointy bitch-slap.

However, the model evolved with the fusion of the blade and the hook to reach the shape popularized by Fiskars we all know (and use) today.

Othal : The only Seal of Quality you need.

Notice the runic hallmark of this Artist of Iron, for those who doubted my revelations about the pagan roots of ghoul hunting.

Well, hammers were worn around many blacksmiths' necks, I think that makes it clear. What, can't you see the correlation ?

Jokes apart, I really recommend those who can meet him on this kind of events to greet the man and watch him do his work in the ancient ways :

Yeah, this little piece of metal will, somehow, become a ghoul-hunting tool, I swear.

And for all the brutes here around, NO, the anvil is NOT an option.

If you want to know more about this very sympathetic Tool-Provider, why don't you just visit his website www.takomoalkutuli.fi ? (well, perhaps because you don't speak Finnish... still, click around and you will see lots of cool things, and if you want something, just ask him, he's very open and nice. And knows why we need more billhooks.)

Our blacksmith displays a very cool zombie hunting tool. And a billhook.

Tool Misconceptions : Sledge hammer & Pickaxe

There is a common misconception among casual Zombie Hunters : The bigger the tool, the better the hunt.

WRONG ! DEAD WRONG ! LIVING DEAD WRONG, even ! (Yes, I really can't insist enough on this)

As an example for this little explanation, I will use a tool I haven't shown yet because of its very inefficiency : The sledge hammer.

Yeah, yeah, like a brute.

Yes, a sledge-hammer is big. And heavy. And you probably think that you will fight the Z-Plague like a boss, as Badass as, say, this :

Totally you facing the hordes of the Living Dead. (Except for the dying part because short-range fight sucks, of course)

So can it be a better tool to crush the heads of the Living Dead ? Well, yes, plenty. Almost all of them. A sledge-hammer to kill ghouls is like using a Humvee to go buy some cider at the next door's Alepa. It's pretentious over ridicule. By the way, if you're looking to compensate something with ghoul hunting, you're in the wrong hobby ( Yeah, no guns, no over-sized tool, no chainsaws... welcome to the real world, jackass)

A sledge-hammer is not heavy, it's far, far too heavy. Except if you are a well trained athlete brute or Mighty Ukko himself, I doubt you will wave around a 5 to 9 kilos mass more than a couple of times before your arms send you a nervous message roughly translated as "Go to Hel, asshole !". If you don't actually brake a bone in holding it to strike.

Oh, and you'll also have to aim this 9 kilos-heavy hammer towards the head of the moving ghoul. Repeatedly. When you think you will look like this :

 You will, in fact, look like this :

(But don't worry about your sole manliness, it can also happen to the best)

(But please do worry about being eaten alive)

And if you miss your target, how good are you at lifting it again before the walking corpse grabs you and snacks ? Remember that in Zombie Hunting your opponents are rarely impressed by the size of your weapon. As for the over-size of your manly muscles, for them it just makes the difference between having two chicken wings or a beef-steak for dinner. Think about it.

Fuckfuckfuckfuck !

Same goes, of course, for other heavy tools such as the pickaxe. Heavy and difficult to aim (it's not really balanced for something else than hitting the ground. A unconvenient finishing tool, perhaps ?) You think you'll look like this :

"YYYAAAARRR !!" aka, "Did you notice my pointless show-off ?"

And you end up like that :

Final report : Got two ghouls neutralized and a lumbago.

The Hoe

Today : The Hoe.

"In the beginning there was the swamp, the hoe - and Jussi killing ghouls." Väinö Linna, Under the North Star, uncensored edition.

The Hoe is a very common gardening tool, therefore easy to find in any mökki, shed, garden cabin, barn, Clas Ohlson. A simple look at it will reveal its great appeal for a zombie hunter : The blade, firstly. Not as heavy and strong as an axe, perhaps, but can be equally sharpened and benefits from its light weight. Convenient to take by your side in a fight, you won't tire too easily. Beware, nevertheless : The blade is perpendicular to you and may possibly curves towards you, making it sometimes difficult to extract from the skull if you strike to strongly and vertically. Use the blade to crush but don't abuse of your muscle-power because once again : this is no axe !

So why recommend this tool if it can be tricky ? Because the hoe can be very nice to chop the lower-jaw apart while keeping a safe distance from the ghoul, preventing it from biting before you finish it. A lateral swing hitting at the mandible level should do the trick. Now, at last, the curved blade works at your advantage as it pulls the jaw away as you swing further ! (Tip of the day : the more rotten the ghoul, the more efficient this technique will prove itself ! Beware fluids.)

And it's a very light tool, that even exist in travel/pocket version ! If you have to take care of a few isolated ghouls, go with the double-handed hoe : It's fast, not too tiring but still a bit demanding... Greatly replaces morning yoga to keep fit and lower down your cholesterol.

But if the horde you're going to face may drive you to close combat, then the single-handed hoe will allow you a better freedom of movement, more elaborate choreography - don't forget classy posture after the kill - and avoid the clumsiness of an almost one-meter long handle in a relatively small hunt-area (Inside the mökki, inside the boat, inside the horde...)

Hammer and blade in one, small tool. You can now hunt mushrooms in total safety.

I would like to conclude with a word about the tool's head. Be aware that some hoes have only a blade, but others are equipped with additional hunting potential. My demonstration model, for instance, has its blade balanced with a hammer-type of head (Zombie Hunters like hammers, remember ?) But I could also recommend, not with a hint of delight, this awesome ancient Rome model (told you the tradition was old): The Axe-Hoe. Double the blade, double the kill.

The fabulous Axe-Hoe of the Roman Legion. Want to buy it ?