Moomin

The Moomins are the central characters in a series of books by Finnish writer Tove Jansson, originally published in Swedish. They are a family of trolls. In appearance, they are white, round and furry with large snouts that make them resemble hippopotamuses.

The Moomins also appeared in the form of comic strips; their first appearance was in the London Evening News in 1954. Tove Jansson drew and wrote all the strips until 1959 when she lost inspiration. After this her brother Lars Jansson, who could duplicate the style of drawings and texts accurately, took over the job until 1975 when the last strip was released. The strips were made in English and then translated to other languages.

The Moomins have also been adapted in to television-animation on many occasions by various groups. The most recent have been Japanese-European collaboration works which have also produced a few feature-length movies.

Moomin characters

The Moomin family

• Moomintroll - the main character of most of the books, a spirited teenager with a keen sense of adventure and fun, and a generous spirit.
• Moominmamma - the mother of Moomintroll. She very rarely gets cross and takes even the most distressing circumstances (such as the arrival of a comet, or being washed away by a flood) in her stride. Moominmamma never denies anything from her child and his friends, not even smoking (she says it's good for the stomach). Moominmamma is almost never without her handbag.
• Moominpappa - a somewhat restless soul who was adventurous in his youth but has now settled down, determined to be a responsible father to his family. He is almost always wearing his black top-hat.

Close friends

• Sniff - Moomintroll's immature friend and later adopted brother. He is one of the few characters who is sincerely interested in money, and is always on the lookout for another way to get rich quick.
• Snufkin - Moomintroll's best friend, who goes south every winter and returns in the spring. He is the son of the Mymble and the Joxter, and is half-brother to the Mymble's daughter and Little My. Snufkin is an adventurer and a vagabond, admired by those who are small and shy. Snufkin wears old clothes and lives in a tent. He plays the harmonica.
• Little My - She is a small, determined and fiercely independent Mymble. When she wants something done, she does it straight away. She is very aggressive and totally disrespectful, but can be a good friend.
• The Snork Maiden - Moomintroll's lady friend and admirer. She does fall in love with other men sometimes, but returns to Moomintroll before things get too serious. She changes colour according to her mood.

Other characters

• The Hemulen - an avid collector. Hemulens feature frequently in the books.
• The Snork - The Snork Maiden's organize-loving brother.
• Mymble's daughter, later known as simply the Mymble, is the oldest of Mymble's many children. Every bit as independent as her youngest sibling, little My, Mymble's daughter is very proud of being the oldest sibling, and considers it her duty to raise Little My.
• Too-Ticky - A friend of the family, craftsman and practical philosopher. Has her first appearance in the novel Moominland Midwinter and returns in the short stories of Tales From Moominvalley and in comics. She is modelled after Tuulikki Pietilä, Tove Jansson's life partner.
• Fillyjonk- Fillyjonk is the opposite of the Moomin family. Not a single moment of fantasy or joy, only duties and discipline. She is an extremely methodical person tied down with principles and has a deep rooted belief in prestige and tradition. But in a catastrophe, Fillyjonk may behave totally irrationally. Deep inside she probably has a wish to live like the Moomin family, without any worries. She is most often accompanied by her three children.
• The Groke - She is cold and ghostlike, and represents all that is scary in the world of Moomin. She seeks warmth and fire, but is unable to do anything but to put them out. Makes first appearance in Finn Family Moomintroll and returns in Moominland Midwinter and Moominpappa at Sea.
• The Hobgoblin - Appearing in "Finn Family Moomintroll", he is a powerful magician who travels the Universe looking for the King's Ruby. His hat is found in the Lonely Mountains by Moomintroll, Snufkin and Sniff, who take it back to Moominhouse. Chaos ensues, as anything you put inside the hat is transformed. Moomintroll himself is changed into a strange creature by the hat when he uses it to hide in during a game.
• Thingumy and Bob - Two little creatures who turn up in Moominvalley in with a large suitcase, which contains the King's Ruby. They speak a strange language and are persued by the Groke who wants the contents. They upset Moominmamma by stealing her handbag. They eventually return it and the whole family throws a party to celebrate. The Hobgoblin arrives when Thingumy and Bob open the suitcase, exposing the King's Ruby for all to see. He offers them the Queen's Ruby in exchange.
• Stinky - A criminal by profession, trickster, and a dangerous influence who tempts the Moomin family to do things that are against the law. He has a code of conduct of his own, and is offended when the Moomins want to give him a large sum of money which has been causing them much trouble. Physically, Stinky is some sort of furry mammal, whose most characteristic attribute is his constant, unbearable stench. He doesn't appear in books, just in comics and animation.
• Niblings - small aquatic creatures, which chew off people's noses if they are too long for their taste. They enjoy doing the multiplication contests devised by the rather bossy Hemulen's Aunt.
• Hattifatteners - Small white ghost-like creatures that resemble worn socks. Hattifatteners are always on the move and travel in large groups, such as boat convoys. Their only goal in life is to reach the horizon. Hattifatteners can not hear or speak, nor can they see very well, but their sense of feeling is very strong, and they can feel ground vibrations and electricity. Hattifatteners assemble once a year when they "recharge" in a thunderstorm. At this time they should be avoided since they are highly charged and can give you electrical burns. Despite physiologically resembling animals, Hattifatteners grow from seeds. Planting Hattifattener seeds where someone has taken up residence is an effective way to get rid of him/her.
• The Muskrat - a philosopher who believes in the pointlessness of things and reads Oswald Spengler, appears in Comet in Moominland and Finn Family Moomintroll. The Moomin children annoy him by putting hairbrushes in his bed and such like. He eventually takes to living in the cave Sniff discovers in order to get some peace. Unfortunately, Moomintroll has hidden the Hobgoblin's hat there *Finn Family Moomintroll". Anything you put in the Hobgoblin's hat is transformed and the Muskrat gets a terrible shock when he puts his false teeth in it to keep the sand out of them.
• Hodgkins - an inventor and childhood friend of Moominpappa "The Exploits of Moominpappa". He builds the Oshun Oxtra, a boat in which Moominpappa and his friends travel on their adventures.
• The Joxter - Snufkin's and Little My's father and childhood friend of Moominpappa "The Exploits of Moominpappa". He is very lazy and ends up marrying the Mymble.
• The Muddler - Sniff's father. A rather untidy and confused individual who collects buttons of all sorts and lives in the tin where he keeps the buttons.
• The Mymble - Little My's mother. She has many, many children, but is very jolly. She gets married to the Joxter in "The Exploits of Moominpappa".
• The Island Ghost - a spectre that haunts the Island colonised by Moominpappa in "Exploits". He isn't very good at haunting and gets annoyed when the colonists laugh at him. He takes up knitting to soothe his nerves.
• The Ancestor - the Moomintrolls descend from ancient creatures living in tiled stoves. One of those is still dwelling in the Moomin family's bathing house cupboard and stove. He is called the Ancestor and makes appearances in Moominland Midwinter and Moominvalley in November.
• Misabel - a very depressed and paranoid female character. In comics and picture books, she is usually the Moomin family's domestic help. Misabel has her only novel appearance in Moominsummer Madness, in which she is not a domestic help, but shows up to be a good actress. She is sometimes the owner of Sorry-oo. It has been said that Misabel's initial reaction to anyone talking to her is fear of them complaining about the quality of her work.
• Whomper - an earnest little chap. He joins the Moomin family on the floating theatre in "Moominsummer Madness".
• Emma - the rather bitter stage rat. She helps the Moomin family understand what a theatre is and also collaborates with Moominpappa on his play, "The Lion's Brides.
• The Park Keeper - a horrible Hemulen in charge of a park where everything is forbidden. He is Snufkin's enemy. Snufkin plants Hattifattener seed in the grounds of the park to drive the Keeper away and then burns all the signs forbidding things.
• Sorry-oo - a small dog appearing in various relations - however, he is always melancholy and longing. He has his only novel appearance in Moominland Midwinter, in which he is constantly howling after his distant cousins the wolves.
• The Dweller Under the Sink - a small, furry creature that lives under the sink in Moomin House. He only appears in Moominland Midwinter and becomes known to Moomintroll when he wakes up during the long winter hibernation undertaken by the whole Moominfamily. Moomintroll tries to strike up a conversation with him by complementing on his rather bushy eyebrows, but only succeeds in upsetting him.
• Edward the Booble - a gigantic monster who pays for people's funerals if he accidently treads on them. He is generally bad tempered because of this. He accidently aids the launch of the Oshun Oxtra (Ocean Orchestra), a boat invented by Moominpappa's childhood friend, Hodgkins, by sitting in a river bed.
• Daddy Jones - the Autocrat in "Exploits". He owns a fairground full of surprises, sits on a throne and gives a blast on his foghorn when he makes royal proclamations.

There are other characters who appear from time to time.

On Moomin characters

The life partner of Tove Jansson was the graphic artist Tuulikki Pietilä, whose personality inspired the character Too-Ticky in Moominland Midwinter. Moomintroll and Little My can be seen as psychological self-portraits of the artist. The Moomins, generally speaking, relate strongly to Jansson's own family - they were boheme, lived near the nature and were very tolerant towards diversity. Moominpappa and Moominmamma are often seen as straight potraits of Jansson's parents Viktor Jansson and Signe Hammarsten-Jansson. Some of Jansson's characters are on the verge of melancholy, such as the always formal Hemulens, or the strange Hattifatteners who travel in concerted, ominous groups. The novelist Alison Lurie has described the Groke, a black, hill-shaped creation with glowing eyes, as a walking manifestation of Nordic gloominess - everyone she touches, dies and the ground freezes everywhere she sits.

The Moomin stories have a very humane message. The books have caprices and utterances which ponder life and ways of the world. Snufkin comments on freedom: "One can never be entirely free, if one admires someone else too much." Little My expresses possession: "Possession means worries and luggage bags one has to drag along."

The books

The books in the series, in order, are:

• Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen - 1945
• Kometjakten / Kometen kommer (Comet in Moominland) - 1946
• Trollkarlens hatt (Finn Family Moomintroll') - 1948
• Muminpappans bravader / Muminpappans memoarer (Moominpappa's Memoirs/The Exploits of Moominpappa) - 1950
• Farlig midsommar (Moominsummer Madness) - 1954
• Trollvinter (Moominland Midwinter) - 1957
• Det osynliga barnet (Tales from Moominvalley) - 1969 (short stories)
• Pappan och havet (Moominpappa at Sea) - 1965
• Sent i november (Moominvalley in November) - 1970 (in which the Moomin family is absent)

The first book, known in English as The Little Trolls and the Big Flood (original Swedish title Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen) has not yet been officially published in English.

There are also several Moomin picture books by Tove Jansson - those include Hur gick det sen (The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My, 1952), Vem ska trösta knyttet (Who Will Comfort Toffle, 1960), and Skurken i Muminhuset (An Unwanted Guest, 1980).

The books and comic strips have been translated from their original Swedish and English into many languages.

The Moomin Boom

The Moomin Boom (muumibuumi in Finnish) started in 1990s, when Dennis Livson and Lars Jansson produced in Japan a 104-part animation serial Tales From Moominvalley, which was followed by a long movie Comet in Moominland. Moomin books had always been steady bestsellers in Finland, but the animation started a new Moomin madness both in Finland and abroad, especially in Japan. A large merchandising industry was built around the Moomin characters, covering everything from coffee cups and t-shirts to plastic model Moomin Houses. New Moomin comic books and comic strips were published. Moomins were used to advertise Finland abroad: the Helsinki-Vantaa International Airport was decorated with Moomin images and Finnair painted big Moomin figures to its Japan-line airplanes. The peak of the Moomin Boom was the opening of the Moomin World theme park in Naantali, Finland, which has become one of Finland's international tourist destinations.

The Moomin Boom has been critizised for commercializing the Moomins. Friends of Tove Jansson and many old Moomin enthusiasts have stressed that the animations banalize the original and philosophical Moomin world to harmless family entertainment. An antithesis for the Disneyland-like Moomin World theme park is the Moomin Museum of Tampere, which exhibits the original illustrations and hand-made Moomin models by Tove Jansson.

The Jansson family has kept the rights of Moomins and controlled the Moomin Boom. The artistic control is now in the hands of Lars Jansson's daughter, Sophia Jansson. Wanting to keep the control over Moomins, the family has turned down offers from Walt Disney Company.