Kreeta Haapasalo, or Kantele-Kreeta (13 November 1813 – 29 March 1893), was a Finnish kantele-player, singer and folk musician. Life Kreeta Järvilä was born 13 November 1813 in Kaustby parish in Järvilä village as the youngest of a family of five. Her parents were known as Jaakko Matinpoika Järvilä and Liisa Eliasentytär Björn (Jacob Mattsson Järvilä and Elisabet Eliasdotter Björn). Her maternal grandfather, Elias Mattsson Björn was a soldier with a talent for music. Haapasalo's musical training began at six years of age with a 6-stringed kantele under the guidance of her uncle Vanhatalo Juho (Gammalgården), who played both violin and a "large, black kantele". As a child, she would sit and listen as he played his kantele. She also played the violin in the beginning but quit later. When she became older, her brother made her a bigger instrument of alder with wooden screws. As a 13-year-old Haapasalo moved in with her sister and husband where she helped with the farm work; she stayed with them five years. During this time she travelled from house to house sewing, working on farms during the summer and sewing in the winter. As an 18-year-old she moved back to her parents and worked as a seamstress. Her musical interest was concentrated on practicing on the kantele. Nothing was mentioned about Haapasalo's singing, but she said in 1890: "When I was young I did not sing, but when sorrow and distress came as an adult, then I first burst out in song." Kreeta Järvilä was married 24 June 1837 (in full attire with a large crown) to farmer's son Joonas Tanelinpoika Huntus, (Jonas Danielsson Wirkkala), born 13 April 1814 in Kaustby, died 20 May 1890 at Varkaus. The couple had eleven children. As newlyweds, the young couple stayed in Joonas' home, but after a short time they got a little croft near his parents. They had not settled themselves before they moved to Haapasalo's home. After some years they went to Kelviå as crofters. Restlessness led them to a crofter's holding at Haga at Vetil parsonage. They went to Luoma farm the following year, and in 1850 the family moved to Haapasalo, to the side of the village that borders on Halsua, the crown residence. From that time Haapasalo began to use the name Haapasalo at the initiative of Zachris Topelius in 1853. The stay at Haapasalo was not of long duration, until