Where from comes myth from the game's intro?

[Andrboll]

"There are countless stories, legends and myths about The First Winter.
During The First Winter, the Inehmo became many.
Men, wives, children, the heroes and the wise ones walked the earth, The heroes made the fire, they made the bow and the arrow and they hunted.
They made clothes, they made tools and shelters, they wade skis, and they made drums and the kantele.
When The First Winter was over, Inehmoes could not understand The Wind Singing, nor The Bear and The Forest humming.
The wise ones among the people said that The World was no longer real.
The World was Unreal."

I tried to look for similar motives about the unreality of the world but found them only in Buddhist mythology or in Greek philosophy.
The question is whether this motif exists at all in the Baltoscandian and Finno-Ugric mythology?
I also tried to find a motive about the "first winter" that was but ended, and I couldn't either.

Is onception of Unreal and real world is totaly fictional setting?

Also i managed to find another pieces of information in game manual

"When The First Winter was over, inehmoes could
not understand The Wind singing, nor The Bear and The Forest
humming. The wise ones among the people said that The World was
no more real. The World was Unreal. Still, inehmoes can return
to the Real World in the dreams and with the spells. The Shamans
became negotiators between the people and the spiritworld, the
otherworld, The Real World."

[Erkka]

The first winter is an adaptation (and combination) of "stealing of the Sun", and "Sampo" myth. The idea that a long long time ago there was an age of prosperity, when earthly life was somehow free of trouble. And then something happened (the sun went down and didn't rise up the next morning), things got difficult. But the humanity coped, and eventually the Sun returned - but somehow it was no more the same, things were different, something had changed permanently.

I remember that about the same time when UnReal World turned from a more generic "sword and magic" phantasy to Finno-Ugric mythology, Sami was also considering changing the title of the game. But a considerable number of players resisted, saying that they had grown attached to their mental images of a phantasy world which is somehow "unreal".

So, we took these ingredients and cooked a fictional mythology which both keeps the original name of the game, explains it, and still draws from Finno-Ugric mythology - not being a direct reference, but an artistic adaptation of the age old themes.

EDIT: Hmm, so I think that the theme of "unreality" as such isn't a theme in Finno-Ugric mythology. But there is this idea of world being made of various layers, most of the layers being unseen to the normal waking consciousness, but those unseen layers oftentimes being the most influential. So, the "unreality" is an adaptation from that idea, thinking that once humans had a direct contact and communication with all the unseen layers, but then they lost it - humanity survived, but the direct contact with the unseen world became more like a rarity, something for trained professionals, and rare occasional supernatural encounters experienced by common folks, and a loose collection to beliefs and rituals to manage these relationships.

[Plotinus]

Thanks for the explanation, Erkka!

I used to wonder why the game was called unreal when it was so realistic, when the thickness of the ice was modelled to the nearest millimetre and everything was do deep and real...but then I saw one of your videos that you and Sami did some years ago, in the real world, the one outside with grass and the bright fireball in the sky...and understood that no matter how real the game was, it would always be unreal, compared to the outside place

[Andrboll]

Thanks for detailed explanation!