Ilmatar is asteroid #385 and also known as 1894 AX. Ilmatar was discovered by Max Wolf at Heidelberg. Ilmatar’s orbit is characterized by a semi-major axis of 2.85 Astronomical Units, an eccentricity of 0.13, a period of revolution of 1 755 days, and an inclination of 13.6 degrees. Ilmatar is a stony asteroid and hence besides her high inclination with respect to the ecliptic a very common asteroid. The name Ilmatar should previously be given to an asteroid, that was by Max Wolf discovered as the asteroid #330, but later was identified to be asteroid #298 and already named Baptistina, so the name Ilmatar got transferred to asteroid #385.

Ilmatar is named after a character from the Kalevala, hence you can say from Finnish mythology. Ilmatar is a female spirit of nature. Her name is derived from the Finnish word ilma, which means air, and the suffix -tar, which is like the English suffix -ess, so that Ilmatar could be translated as Airess. She occasionally is called Luonnotar, which means “female spirit of nature”. She is the spirit of the air and a creation of the god Ukko. She was lonely, so wished to have a child. But she couldn’t because she was alone. One day she was so exhausted that she fell into the sea and got pregnant this way. But after seven-hundred years of pregnancy she still hadn’t given birth. She felt desperate and dived into the sea again. Still nothing else existed. A duck came along and was searching a place suitable for laying eggs. Because there was no such place and Ilmatar, also trying to become a mother, felt with the duck, Ilmatar offered her knee as a nest. The duck laid seven eggs, one of them was of iron. Ilmatar became impatient, while the duck was brooding. The eggs fell from Ilmatar’s knee and broke. Ilmatar used the pieces and created sky and earth as well as the stars, the Moon, and the Sun from them. The iron egg had black yolk and Ilmatar made thunderclouds of it. Ilmatar thus created the world. After seven-hundred-and-thirty years of pregnancy in total, Ilmatar gave birth to the first inhabitant of the world, to her son Väinämöinen. Ilmatar hence is known as the original mother, although Ilmatar also is a real Finnish given female name. Väinämöinen was very old already at the time of his birth. Väinämöinen is known as a singer, the creator of life, and the hero, who was at the side of Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen, when they stole the sampo back.

Ilmatar should have quite complex meanings. She represents birds’ nests. She represents air. She represents long pregnancies. She could even represent innovations in reproductive medicine.