At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, the Finnish team wanted a sauna, so the organisers built one by a lake. Crowds came to stare at the little wooden house. The great runner Paavo Nurmi, so the story goes, looked inside and said: that is no sauna, hot drops are hanging on the walls.

A German doctor, Hermann Karsten, read about it. In 1937 he built his own at Bad Kripp on the Rhine. Truly Finnish, he said. His first stones came from the Rhine, and they exploded. So he used iron balls.

In 1945, as Karsten later told it, American soldiers arrived with bayonets fixed. They tried his sauna, over a hundred degrees, and let him stay as their Saunameister. He was paid in tea. Three years later he founded the German Sauna Association and a school for sauna masters.

Today Germany has sauna shows with music, choreography and towels swinging like flags. There is even a world championship in pouring water on stones.

In Finland, anyone can throw löyly. In Germany, there is a master. And he has a towel.

Who throws the löyly in your sauna?

Sources: Official Report of the XIth Olympic Games, Berlin 1936; Luku-Sikermä 1936; Dr Hermann Karsten's 1975 lecture, printed by Josef Hoss in Heimatjahrbuch Kreis Ahrweiler 1976.
Sounds: lake, forest and loon recordings by Yle Arkisto (Freesound), CC BY 4.0. Other sounds CC0 or Apple-licensed.