and history affords good reason for believing that the Finns were at one period quite as barbarous as we now find the Lappes, though it appears that before their conquest by the Swedes they had learnt to cultivate the earth.* Lehrberg's doubts are overcome by a weight of argument sufficient to establish the consanguinity of these nations, on which both the older and later testimonies are nearly agreed.† As early as the ninth century we find evidence of affinity between their languages. Ottar, the Northman, who related his adventures to King Alfred, declared that the Fennas of Norwegian Finmark, that is, the Lappes, appeared to him to speak almost the same language as the Beormahs, near the mouth of the Dwina.‡ The Beormahs were a tribe nearly allied, as we shall show, to the Finns, and certainly not Lappes. In Ottar's time they were an agricultural people, and had their land well tilled. Leemius § says that the Lappish and Finnish languages have considerable resemblance, though it is not so close as that between the Danish and the German. He concludes, however, that the analogy is such between these dialects as to prove that the Finlanders and the Finnas, meaning the Lappes, were originally one people. Gunnerus, in his commentary upon Leemius, says, "it is beyond the possibility of a doubt that the Finnas or Laplanders are of the same origin as the Finlanders." He adds that the resemblance of their language is, considering their long separation, surprising. This is proved in a diffuse comparison of their dialects by Schnitler.|| I shall add the opinions of two or three modern writers, who of all others are best qualified to decide this question. Porthan,¶ who devoted himself to profound researches into the history of the Finnish nations, their language, mythology, and the relation of their different tribes to each other, says, that "both nations certainly belong to the same 'chief-stem' or princi * Rühs, Finnland und seine Bewohner. Ottar, edit. Rask. cited by Geijer. + Geijer, ubi supra. § Cn. Leemius, "De Lapponibus Commentatio," in 4to, Havniæ, 1767. || Gunner, Episcop. Nidrosæ ad Leem. de Lapp. ¶ Porthan was a professor and president of the Royal Academy at Abo. His opinion is of the greatest authority in subjects relating to Scandinavian, and particularly to Finnish antiquities. pal race." That their languages are of kindred origin is a fact which, as Porthan declares, can be denied by no impartial inquirer.* Ihre, whose authority is scarcely of less weight, says in the preface to his Lapponic lexicon, “Observabit lector me promiscuè linguas Finnicam Lapponicamque in præsidium vocare, quod, quantumcunque illæ jam distent, neminem offendere debet, cum, non obstante hodierno discrimine, tanta inter illas observetur harmonia ut perquam videatur probabile ante bis mille annos, illas unam eandemque linguam fuisse." And the late Professor Rask, who is well known to have made the Finnish and Lapponic languages the object of his particular study, and who was the author of the best and latest "Lappiske Sproglæhre," declares that the affinity of the two languages is instantly apparent on a comparison, although it is true that a genuine Lappe is not understood in conversation by a genuine Finn." Some other testimonies of nearly equal weight are cited in the margin.§ It may be worth while to notice as a fact tending to confirm this opinion, though not itself a ground for any positive argument, that the Finns and Lappes give themselves very similar national appellations. The Finns call themselves • Henr. Gabriel Porthan, Præses. Dissertat. Acad. Aboëns, t. 14. Geijer's Swedens Urgeschichte, s. 347. † Ihre's Lexicon Lapponicum cum interpretatione vocabulorum Sueco-Latina, &c. 4to, Holmiæ, 1780. Rask's "Undersögelse om des gamle Nordiske Sprogs Oprindelse," cited by Geijer, p. 347. § Lappones antiquissimos sine dubio Septentrionis nostri, etiam Finlandiæ, incolas, ad eandem referendos esse stirpem, linguæ suæ cum reliquis comparatio arguit." (C. G. Sanmark, Dissert. Acad. Aboæ, 1788.) Peter Högström, a Swedish missionary, who resided as a preacher among the Lappes, and who wrote a celebrated work on the people of Lapland, says decidedly, “It is quite certain that the Lappes and Finns were originally one people. This has been proved by Scheffer, and it is so clear and incontrovertible, especially from the comparison of their languages, that no doubt whatever can exist upon the subject." (Historische Beschreibung des Schwedischen Lapplands von M. P. Högström, aus dem Schwedischen,--Allgem. Hist. der Reisen, Bd. 20.) The same conclusion as to the identity of origin between the Lappes and Finnlanders has been maintained, as a result of much curious research, in several dissertations in the series published by the Academy of Abo, at the head of which was Professor Porthan. Suoma or Suomalaiset, in the singular Suomalainen. The Lappes term themselves Same, Sabme, or Sabmelads. Travellers indeed have been struck by the different aspect of the Finns and Lappes. Von Buch has remarked that although these nations have the same origin they were probably separated before they came to inhabit the north. He supposes that the Lappes descended from the White Sea towards Sweden and Norway, and that the Finns came up from Esthonia. Geijer observes that the earliest historical traces of the Finns and Lappes, supporting as they do the affinity of the two nations, bear testimony likewise to their diversity and early separation. The Lappes have been from time immemorial pressed continually further towards the north, and this not only by the Swedes and Norwegians to the westward, but equally by Finns on the eastern side of the Baltic, where many circumstances indicate that the Lappes formerly possessed territories now in the occupation of genuine Finns. Places recalling the name of the Lappes are found in Finnland. Tribes of Laplanders still wandered on the northern Tavastland, in the upper Savolax and in East Bothnia during the fifteenth century, and were gradually obliged to retire northward.* The great number of Lappish names which are spread though Finnland in the Finnish and Swedish districts, supported by the consenting traditions of both Finns and Lappes, are thought by those antiquarians who have most carefully examined this subject to afford sufficient proof that the Lappes once inhabited even the southern parts of Finnland. That they were the aboriginal inhabitants of Scandinavia is the most probable conclusion; and this is maintained by their own national traditions.+ "That this weak, unwarlike people should have left an impression of terror on the minds of our ancestors," says M. Geijer, "is indeed difficult to understand;" but it is a difficulty which vanishes when we take into the account the influence of a poetical imagination on the composition of our sagas, and consider that the great numbers of hostile bands, and the circum * Dissertatio Acad. de Bircarlis, præsid. H. G. Porthan, F. M. Frantzen, Aboæ, 1789. Högström über die Lappen. Geijer, Deutsch-Übersetz, 350. stances under which they engaged, may have rendered them formidable, though individually infirm; and that there are some Lappish tribes of greater stature and bravery than the rest. It is moreover unquestionable that Finnish tribes were to be found at an early period in the present Swedish Nordland, and these were certainly included under the name of Iotuns or lotnen. There is no doubt that the Quæns were a tribe of this description. In the ninth century they wandered about in the forests to the northward of Sweden. In Harold Härfager's time Quænland reached as far as Helsingland; next to Quænland was Finnland, beyond it Kirialand or Karelia, and above all these lay Finnmark or the Lappmarks. A singular mistake in the old writers indicates that this people, the Quæns, were in the immediate vicinity of the Swedes at an earlier period than it is generally supposed. Adam of Bremen speaks of Quinnaland-Quæn-land, or the land of women. -to the northward of Sweden. He was led to this notion by an obvious mistake of names, and hence the fabulous representation to be found in authors of a northern country of Amazons. Hence it happened also that Paul, son of Warnefrid, two centuries before, and even the older geographer of Ravenna, had placed Amazons on the northern ocean. Even Tacitus represented that in the neighbourhood of the Swedes dwelt a nation who were governed by women. * As the Teutonic nations when they made their way towards the Baltic and beyond that sea, found the countries which they entered from the middle region of Europe preoccupied by people of the Finnish and Lappish race, so the Slavonian Russians in the eastern parts met with tribes of the same stock in all the countries, reaching from the gulf of Livonia to the Uralian mountains. To these tribes they gave, as we have observed, the name of Tschudes, which means barbarians, or people alien from the Slavonic blood. In the northern tracts of the Ural this last name gave way to that of Ugrians or Ougres, bestowed on tribes whose savage ferocity and fabulous prowess are celebrated in the popular mythology. * Dissertat. Acad. de Antiqua Gente Quenorum, præsid. H. G. Porthan, subj. H. Vegelius. Aboæ, 1788. VOL. III. T The more general designation of Tschudes, however, prevails where the Russians have spread, even in late times, and by them the aborigines of the Siberian deserts are so termed. In Asia various Tartar or Turkish tribes have encroached on the southern borders of the Tschudes and Ugrians, and like the Germans and Slavonians in Europe, have driven them towards the North, or have subdued and caused them to assimilate in customs and general habits, and in some instances in language, to their conquerors. SECTION II.-Of the Country originally and at present inhabited by the Iotuns and the kindred Nations, and of the different Tribes belonging to the Race. IOTUNHEIM, the abode or home of Iotuns or Finns, is celebrated in the Sagas. Its situation is undefined. Some writers place it to the north-eastward of Biarma-land or Permia, in the unknown region beyond the eastern Dwina, and reaching towards the Uralian mountains,* but the name was vaguely applied to all the unconquered countries of the Finnish and the kindred tribes, wherever situated. Iotunheim was the land of mystery and darkness, as were the extreme north and west in the early fables of the Greeks: it was called by the Northmen "Risenland," the country of giants,† and “ Hundinginland," a region the inhabitants of which howled like wolves and dogs.+ In periods long antecedent to the arrival of the first IndoGerman colonies on the shores of the Baltic, it is probable that the race to whom they gave the name of Iotuns, inhabited all the borders of that sea, and the whole of Scandinavia; but at the opening of the historical times, in the age of the Sagas, wars of conquest had long been waged between the aboriginal Finns and the Teutonicand Slavonian nations who invaded them. At that time we find the Iotun race stretching eastward from Scandinavia towards the Uralian chain, and separated by a definite barrier from the tribes of a different kindred who had expelled them from the south. This barrier is marked out by striking features * Schlözer, Allgem. Nord. Geschichte, s, 442. Ibid. s. 415. |