Disclaimer: I didn't write this, but I thought some of you might find it funny. If it rubs anyone the wrong way just make up some crank story about America, it's easy. :D
The Finn Eddas
By Ushanka Jorgenson
Official historian of Svalbard
Way back during WWII, relations were extremely tense between the Mother Russia and Little Nephew Sweden. Russia was pressuring Sweden to turn socialist, and Sweden was concerned that this would upset the Swedes' most powerful allies, the Capitalist Moon-Men from Deimos. Besides, Sweden was already comfortable with its economic system, which was based on cubes of narwhal tusks. Needless to say, concerns began to arise regarding the possibility of a Sweden-Russia war. To avoid this, top diplomats from the two countries met in Murmansk to discuss a possible end to the stress. The Swedish Diplomat, named Hansfjørd Åckalstrengenbüjen, was a big fan of large-scale practical jokes, hoaxes, and swindlings. One could almost call him a connoisseur of cons. To break the ice, Hansfjørdengraratoskenska Åckalstrengardishelingbüjenderlijj began to tell the Russian diplomat (a gentleman named Йжмарон) about one of his favourite hoaxes of all time. In the 30s, immediately after Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic flight, an article was published about a hot-air balloonist in North Carolina, who had been caught in a cross wind and ended up in Paris. The story generated a massive uproar for a few days, until it was discovered to be a joke of Edgar Allen Poe's, intended to cause some small hysteria. Йжмароноржман happened to be a man with a great sense of humour, and found this story to be delightful. How wonderful it was that people would believe such a strange and fancifully absurd tale as that of the ill-fortuned balloonist! Together, the diplomats devised a grand hoax, one that would involve co-operation between the two nations and hopefully keep them at peace for decades. The hoax began with a question: If people could be fooled into believing Poe's ballooning tale, could they believe an entirely unreal nation existed? So began the Great Finland Flim-Flam.
The obvious location for this new, and completely fake, country was right between Sweden and Russia, where the two could work together to maintain the hoax. Russia donated a large, barren stripe of land that it didn't particularly care for anyway, while Sweden financed a voyage to explore Finland. The expedition was both a complete failure and a complete success. The explorers spent all of their funding on ale a few days before setting off, and so were unprepared for the harsh Finnish terrain. The intrepid adventurers eventually succumbed to the hilarity of the situation--nearly all of them died laughing at the prospect of people believing this godforsaken hellhole was a real country!
The fact that the explorers died laughing at the Finland Flim-Flam was enough to convince the countries that this was a really, really great idea. A tourism campaign began, one that invited people to visit beautiful Finland but conveniently never mentioned the fact that no one actually lives there. Sure enough, people began to arrive. In droves. They all wanted to be some of the first tourists in a new, allegedly pristine country. The hoax began to expand to more and more ridiculous measures. It was determined that the official food of Finland would be the butterball. The diplomats invented a new form of music, called "METÅL," that involved needless screaming and smashing things.
Although the Swedes and Russians were having fun, the tourists were not. As a matter of fact, the tourists were all dead. Now the countries had a problem on their hands. If news that these people had died because they had been dropped off in a really cold, isolated, and lame part of the world, then the hoax would be over! To cover this up, Sweden issued a press release, saying that the tourists had loved Finland so much that they decided to apply for citizenship. The announcement explicitly stated that Finland had just accepted its first--and last--outsiders as citizens. This settled any of the outside world's concerns over the tourists' fates, but just to be safe, Russia and Sweden began handsomely paying some families to travel the world, claiming to be of Finnish descent, to ensure that people thought Finnish people actually existed. These families continue to flourish today. Many guarded the secret of Finland very closely, even going so far as to not tell their children and grandchildren. The progeny grew up honestly believing that they were from Finland and spreading even more fantastic tales of the horrible place. The end.
Build a man a fire, warm him for a day,
Set a man on fire, warm him for the rest of his life.
