The magical mill that grinds wealth in the Kalevala is the Sampo.
In Elias Lönnrot’s epic, the smith Ilmarinen forges the Sampo at the demand of Louhi, the witch-queen of Pohjola. Its three-sided mechanism produces flour, salt, and money, making it a source of seemingly inexhaustible prosperity.
The Sampo becomes the centre of the epic’s major conflict. Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, and Lemminkäinen travel to Pohjola to seize it, but Louhi pursues them. During the struggle, the Sampo breaks and falls into the sea, scattering its wealth.
A common mix-up is treating the Sampo as an ordinary mill. Its exact form is deliberately mysterious: scholars have interpreted it as a mill of plenty, a world pillar, a cosmic object, or a symbol of prosperity. Pohjola is its location, not its name.