The Song of the Scarlet Flower 1938

Olavi Koskela, Kille Oksanen, a young and handsome lumberjack, roams the countryside where women and landscapes shift with the seasons. Yet Kyllikki, Rakel Linnanheimo, the daughter of the wealthy Moisio family, does not surrender easily to his charm. To win her, Olavi faces a perilous test: he must descend a treacherous rapid and prove himself worthy of her heart. Against the odds, he survives the risky log rafting, and the stubborn thread of her resolve begins to loosen.

The moment of reckoning comes when Olavi and Kyllikki must swim across a swift stream, and their fledgling romance threatens to go up in flames. The Moisio host—a stern man who acts as Kyllikki’s father—voices fierce objection once he learns of the couple’s wedding plans, creating a volatile obstacle that tests every secret they’ve kept. Yet Olavi is not merely a nameless laborer: he is the heir to the powerful Koskela clan, a lineage he let go of after clashing with his parents when he planned to wed the maid, Annikki, Mirjami Kuosmanen.

Rather than flaunt his noble birth to win Moisio’s favor, Olavi presses on with his journey, choosing to endure rather than dominate. Along the way, he encounters women from his past that he had known intimately, memories that blur the line between duty and desire. In the end, a seasoned man returns to the homestead, and the mother, Ida Kallio, lies on a deathbed yet forgives her son for the earlier quarrels. Olavi’s father, Lauri Korpela, had already passed away before reconciliation could occur, leaving Olavi to face the consequences of his choices alone.

Upon returning to the Moisio estate, Olavi takes Kyllikki as his wife, despite the lingering objections of the household, and the wedding promises to mend the rift between two families. The revelation of Olavi’s true identity as the Koskela heir lands with quiet gravity, and Moisio’s host—the man who stood in the way—now seems to acknowledge the union’s legitimacy, softened by the weight of impending kinship.

The newlyweds’ bond is challenged from the outset. On the wedding day, Olavi confronts a painful demand: he desires his wife to be a virgin, and the revelation from Toivo, Onni Veijonen, that Kyllikki once had a prior partner becomes a source of tension. Kyllikki counters by reminding Olavi of his own past escapades, highlighting a push-pull dynamic that had sparked their romance in the first place. What began as a reckless rush gradually stabilizes after the birth of their first child, and the couple’s imperfect union finds its own form of peace.

In the end, the story tightens around forgiveness and atonement. The lovers navigate the fallout of their early choices, transform the hostility into understanding, and move toward a shared future where sins are visibly faced and eventually reconciled. The arc of Olavi and Kyllikki’s relationship—born from risk, tempered by revelation, and resolved through family ties—signals a homecoming that both honors tradition and embraces the possibility of a renewed, sturdier bond.