> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://meetingplace.bogbodiespress.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # we have a story for you - URL: https://meetingplace.bogbodiespress.com/we-have-a-story-for-you-418/ - Published: 2025-03-29T14:01:45.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-21T13:28:31.000Z - Description: no.6 - a series of stories we've published - Author: bog bodies press - Tags: Newsletter, #Migrated-1792589186246, #Import 2026-10-21 13:27 here is a story from issue 006, a poem between ireland and finland. we’re delighted to have another platform for our contributors’ work - incredible wide-ranging stories from everywhere that need to be heard. we genuinely love these pieces and can’t wait for you to read them too! here is the fifth of the series, from [mnemotope issue 006.](https://www.bogbodiespress.com/shop-all/p/mnemotope-006?ref=meetingplace.bogbodiespress.com) [Subscribe](#/portal/signup) ![](https://meetingplace.bogbodiespress.com/content/images/2026/10/9280bd68-7306-422e-b139-8a8db28fdbb2_1112x1323-1.png) ### lasse come home by gary jermyn ##### I was naked ##### I was alone ##### I was hot ##### I was sticky ##### I was sweating profusely ##### I was wasting away to nothing ##### I was burning up with a fever ##### I was sitting in a sauna ##### a smoky savusauna ##### in the small Finnish town of Myrskylä ##### these were desperate times and I was a desperate man ##### although it felt like hell ##### in Finland the sauna is a church ##### so here I sat ##### naked reverential and alone ##### thumbing through a red leather-bound bible ##### which had belonged to my mother ##### I was a desperate man in need of a miracle ##### the pages of the bible were hot and clammy like myself ##### the thin pages sticking together ##### blackened from the soot ##### dampened from the steam ##### I turned with difficulty to the Book of Psalms ##### and read aloud from Psalm 102 ##### “I am like a pelican of the wilderness: ##### I am like an owl of the desert ##### for my days are consumed with smoke ##### and my bones are burned up as if I were a fire-brand” ##### over and over ##### I read and re-read the words ##### I sat on my perch alone ##### like an owl ##### like a pelican ##### like a broiled chicken in the oven ##### praying for an escape ##### suddenly the door opened ##### and a tall bearded man ##### in a blue athletic vest and white shorts ##### entered ##### I recognised him immediately ##### the vest had the number 228 ##### it was my boyhood hero ##### the finnish runner Lasse Virén ##### it was not altogether unlikely that I would meet him ##### on this my first visit to Finland ##### he was a finn after all ##### and Myrskylä was his home town ##### this was Lasse Virén ##### here in the sauna ##### one of the great Olympians of the modern era ##### here in the sauna ##### I was in the presence of greatness ##### here in the sauna ##### it would have been churlish of me ##### to have pointed to the sign which said ##### “no clothing to be worn in the sauna” ##### deferentially I asked him ##### “will I pour some water on the rocks ? ##### will I make some löyly for us ?” ##### he stood up and said ##### “I am Lasse Virén ##### I was born in Myrskylä on July 22 1949 ##### I ran for my country ##### Suoniaiti – Mother Finland ##### I won gold medals at 5,000 and 10,000 meters in the 1972 Munich ##### Olympics ##### I repeated this achievement in Montreal, Canada in 1976 ##### and I came fifth in the marathon ##### in Moscow in 1980 I won nothing ##### I have tasted victory and defeat ##### come with me ##### do not be afraid” ##### and so that morning ##### I went with Lasse Virén ##### and we ran like the wind ##### through forests of pine birch and spruce ##### over flat expanses of granite rock ##### by hundreds and thousands of blue and shimmering lakes ##### we swam in the gulfs of Finland and Bothnia ##### we climbed to the top of Haltiatunturi ##### we could do anything ##### we could do anything ##### we ran like we were gods ##### on our sacred journey of discovery ##### that night ##### tired and exhausted after our endeavours ##### I asked him why he had chosen me ? ##### he replied slowly ##### “we are all just pelicans in the wilderness ##### we are all just owls in the desert ##### we all need someone to open the door for us ##### and take us away from the heat of our own psychological sauna ##### all I did was bring you running in the woods: ##### there the air is clear ##### and the tranquillity of nature ##### lets our minds fly free - ##### there the air is pure ##### and sprinkles the imagination of believers ##### with the dew of hope” ##### I shook his hand and thanked him ##### and told him if he was ever in Ireland ##### he was welcome to stay with me anytime ##### I watched him running ##### until his blue athletic vest disappeared into the Myrskylä twilight ##### it would have been ##### however what are the chances of Lasse Virén walking ##### into my savusauna ##### I was faced with a dilemma ##### Another rule of the sauna ##### Creating the lohlee ##### We are all naked in the eyes of god ##### Before entering the sauna ##### *(Having been brought up in the Church of Ireland* ##### *When attending church I normally wear a jacket* ##### *and open-necked shirt casual trousers and a pair of stout shoes –* ##### *however the sauna was hot enough as it was without dressing* ##### *for an Irish winter - I applied this in spirit rather than literally –* ##### *Besides I am not overly modest about my body* ##### *And was happy to sit naked in the steam)* ##### All the normal conventions of question & answer now did not apply [Subscribe now](#/portal/signup) see you soon! your bog bodies