In
Finnish mythology Otso, the
king of the forest or
honeypaws is one of the many rarely uttered circumlocutory epithets for the spirit that was never directly named. Generally the spirit of the
bear was referred to as
friend or ways were thought up that would bypass the need to refer to the spirit at all, even indirectly.
Some sub-traditions considered the bear to be a relative who had fled the community and been transmogrified by the power of the forest.