Scandinavia

“ At a later period, the historians of Scandinavia paint their heroes and champions, not as bending at the altar of their deities, but wandering into remote forests and caverns, descending into the recesses of the tomb, and extorting boons, alike from gods and daemons, by dint of the sword, and battle-axe. ”

“ However, as I did not come to Sweden to inculcate my peculiar principles, I refrained from calling attention to the fact—which is very patent to all who have any sort of knowledge of Swedish history—that a large proportion of the men and women who have made Scandinavia the truly great land that it is, and whose memory all Scandinavians delight to honor, were of the so-called “common people.” ”

“ While I had learned in America to esteem the vigor, the intelligence and the worth of our Scandinavian immigration, no finer race contributing to the citizenship of the Republic, yet it has been only when I have met the Dane and Norsk and Swede upon their native soil, and beheld their noble cities, so alert and clean and modern, and traversed their hills and valleys, and climbed their mountain heights and floated upon their fjords, that I have learned fitly to admire and appreciate the grandeur and greatness of Scandinavia. ”

“ There are grand mountains and glaciers in Switzerland, but they do not rise directly out of the ocean as they do here in Scandinavia; and as to the scenery afforded by the innumerable fjords winding inland, amid forests, cliffs, and impetuous waterfalls, nowhere else can these be seen save on this remarkable coast. Like rivers, and yet so unlike them in width, depth, and placidity, with their broad mouths guarded by clustering islands, one can find nothing in Nature more grand, solemn, and impressive than a Norwegian fjord. ”

“ The whole evidence of history manifestly leads to the conclusion that Britain long preceded the Scandinavian races in civilisation, nor was it till she had been enervated alike by Roman luxury and by the succeeding intestine jealousies and rivalries of native tribes, that Scandinavia, fresh in her young barbarian vigour, made of her a spoil and a prey. ”

“ It was now, that the three principal Scandinavian tribes, the Norwegians, Swedes, and the Danish Goths, got each their king.
We have thus seen how the antiquities and barrows serve to prove, that the flat fertile Denmark must have been peopled earlier, than the northern parts of Sweden and Norway, which were full of immense forests and mountains. The monuments shew the peopling of Scandinavia in a natural point of view; which view finds confirmation, and that in a remarkable degree, rather than contradiction, in the most ancient and trustworthy of our historical records. ”

“ On the bleak shores of the North Sea, where the fiords and creek-mouths of Scandinavia gave shelter not only from foreign enemies, but from each other, there had grown up a seafaring race of men, of Gothic ancestry, who had settled on the coasts of what are now Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. ”

“ As a farther proof, appeal is made to the circumstance that stone implements, of the same kind, are often found in all the three northern kingdoms of Scandinavia, consequently that the whole of Scandinavia has been inhabited by the same race, and what people could it be but the Fins, who have inhabited Sweden, and Norway, from the earliest times. ”

“ Scandinavia is not a very convenient word. Norway and Sweden it suits; because, in Norway and Sweden, the geographical boundaries coincide with the phenomena of language and blood. But Denmark is not only divided from them by water, but is in actual contact with Germany. More than this, it is connected with the Empire: Holstein being German and Imperial, Sleswick partly German though not Imperial. ... Generically, a Scandinavian is a German. Of the great German stock there are two divisions—the Scandinavian or Norse, and the Teutonic or German Proper. ”

“ We know the English fairly well, but with the Scandinavians, who have more in common with us than any other Europeans except the English, our acquaintance is of the slightest. Books in plenty, descriptive of present-day Scandinavia, are in existence, but they somehow fail to present the Scandinavians as definite personalities. My aim in writing this narrative has been to introduce to my fellow Americans in as intimate manner as possible their Scandinavian kindred, who are still living in the ancient ancestral homestead—the Grandmother Land. ”

“ If the literature of Scandinavia continues to develop during the present century with the strength and rapidity it has manifested during the last, it will present to the mind of the English race rich sources of enjoyment of a more congenial spirit than that of any other part of the European continent; and the more this literature Is cultivated the more it will be perceived that we are less an Anglo-Saxon than a Scandinavian race. ”

“ Scandinavia includes the peninsula of which Sweden is but a part, Norway and Denmark making up the rest of it; and its history, is it not all written by Pliny and Tacitus in pagan antiquity times? and a thousand years after they wrote of it, did not Saxo Grammaticus the Dane, and Snorrow Sturleson, of Sunny Iceland, bring down the story to their times? Not far from the same time when the Saxons invaded England, the Gothic tribes under Odin migrated to Sweden, and founded an empire on the borders of Lake Malar, with Sigtuna for its capital. ”

“ But, long ere this stage was reached, the ballad-poetry of Scandinavia crossed the North Sea,— (thanks no doubt to the seafaring and commercial habits of the Northmen) ,—and found a congenial home in the Lowlands of Scotland. [24] Something in the rough, simple unlettered life of the Borders, resembling that of its earlier home, formed a suitable nidus for its growth. It became part of the life of the country ”

“ And when true greatness—that of superiority of character and intellect—shall be made the test of national worth, instead of political power gained through commercial control and militarism, Scandinavia will come to her own. ”

“ Scandinavians are not too busy thus to recognize our common humanity. I like the custom well.
“Vaer saa god” is a polite expression which one hears everywhere in Scandinavia. The words as I have given them are Danish, but they are the same in Sweden or Norway, except for slight variation in spelling and, consequently, in pronunciation. We have no single equivalent in English for the expression, which literally means “Be so good”; but its use is very similar to the German “Bitte.” ”

“ The little people of Norway and Sweden—which together make Scandinavia—get so much night in winter and so much day in summer that it doesn't seem strange to them at all—this getting up by night and going to bed by day. ”

“ The barbarous tribes from the northern part of Europe at different times invaded the southern sections, conquering various other tribes, occupying their territory, and thus mingling with all the people from whom originated the present nations of Europe. Thus, in remote ages, the Scandinavians, among others, by their conquests and their emigration, have contributed largely to the modern elements of society. With this explanation we will look at Scandinavia in detail, beginning with Norway. ”

“ The common origin of the three Baltic nationalities which constitute Scandinavia is clearly apparent to the traveller who has visited Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, or to any one who has even an ordinary knowledge of their history. The race has been steadily modified, generation after generation, in its more vivid characteristics, by the progressive force of civilization. These Northmen are no longer the haughty and reckless warriors who revelled in wine drunk from the skulls of their enemies, and who deemed death only respectable when encountered upon the battle-field. ”

“ This map shows that the vitality of Scandinavia was far from exhausted after sending for upward of two thousand years tribe after tribe across to the continent and that it was now producing an extraordinarily vigorous type, the Vikings in the west and the equally warlike and energetic Varangians in the east, who migrated back to the motherland of the Nordics and laid the foundations of modern Russia. ”

“ This nation is unique in its unity of race, language, religion and social ideals.
Southern Scandinavia only became fit for human habitation on the retreat of the glaciers about twelve thousand years ago and apparently was immediately occupied by the Nordic race. ”

“ Though the highest point in Norway or Sweden is only about eighty-five hundred feet above sea-level, an elevation which is reached only by the Jotunfjeld, or Giant Mountain, still no highlands in Europe surpass those of Scandinavia in terrific and savage grandeur, "rocked-ribbed and ancient as the sun." ”

“ The peninsula known as Scandinavia is composed of Norway, Sweden, and a small portion of the Russian possessions in the northeast. This division of country supports a population of little less than seven millions, and contains in round numbers three hundred thousand square miles. The mountains of this section of the globe are mostly of primitive rock, presenting as near as possible the same form as when they were first solidified, standing forth as tangible evidence of the great antiquity of this region. ”

“ But as these serpents and interlacings very much agree with ornaments on different antiquities of the heathen times found in Scandinavia, and, as the language of the runic stones is pure Scandinavian, there is every reason to conclude that the splendid specimens on Man were carved by Norwegians, who, though they imitated the monuments in vogue in Scotland, frequently allowed their own characteristically fantastic ideas to display themselves in peculiar devices. ”

“ Although the ancient races of Scandinavia have become somewhat intermixed, and a strong analogy exists between the Danish and Swedish languages, and one country is more or less subject to the influence of the other, yet the state of society in Sweden and spirit of the people are, in many respects, quite different from that of Denmark. At present there is much less freedom, both political and religious, a wider difference between the toiling millions and the nobility and gentry, and more extreme cases of degradation. ”

“ Scandinavia is there represented as a peninsula with a mountain chain (Kjölen ?) along the middle (see map, p. 223) , and the names “Gotilandia,” “Dacia,” “Suetia,” “Noruega” may be read. On the continent is written “Guenden [Kvænland, or else == “Suenden” == Sweden ?] vel Gotia”; and on the coast to the north of the peninsula is “Liuonia” and to the south of it “Frixia” [Friesland] . As Kretschmer has shown, Scandinavia was originally drawn (in both atlases) as an island, but was afterwards connected with the continent by a narrow isthmus. ”

“ The people of Scandinavia were at this moment in much the same state of development in which the English had been three centuries before, ere yet they left the shores of Saxony and Schleswig. The Danes and Norwegians were a hardy seafaring race, divided into many small kingdoms, always at war with each other. ”

“ In examining these relics in detail, I shall endeavour honestly to assign to Scandinavia whatever is her own, but if the arguments advanced here have any foundation in truth, it is obvious that the British Iron age had lasted well-nigh a thousand years, and as a Pagan era was at an end before we have any historical evidence of Scandinavian invaders effecting permanent settlements on our shores. ”

“ In particular, the different conditions of nature and of climate of the several countries of Scandinavia must have produced numerous, and by no means unimportant differences among the inhabitants, a supposition which is confirmed by numerous facts. ”

“ For this reason the geographical distribution of these brooches marks the range of the Scandinavian conquests of the ninth and tenth centuries. In Iceland, in Russian Livonia, in Normandy, in England, in Ireland, and on our own shores in Shetland, Orkney, Caithness, and Sutherland, and in the Hebrides, including even the remote St. Kilda, their presence attests the historical fact of the Viking settlements from Norway. But the area in which they are specially abundant, of course, is in Scandinavia itself. ”

“ To find the pure Nordic type at the present day we must seek for it in Scandinavia, which possesses one of the most highly individualised populations in Europe. The Osterdal, and the neighbourhood of Vaage in Upper Gudbrandsdal in Norway, and the Dalarna district in Sweden contain perhaps the purest Teutonic type in all Europe, the cephalic index falling well below 78. ”

“ Before we proceed to the Norwegians’ great contributions to the exploration of the northern regions, we shall attempt to collect and survey what is known, and what may possibly be concluded, about the most northern people of Europe, the Finns, and the earliest settlement of Scandinavia. ”

“ Scandinavia is a mass of barren mountains coming down in almost all parts abruptly to the sea. Its coast line is indented by innumerable fiords and bordered by thousands of small islands; and the sea which washes these coasts is warmed by the Gulf Stream. ”

“ Scandinavia, a region not widely known to Englishmen forty years ago, had struck him as an interesting field. He must have alighted on some old books of Swedish history or memoirs, and the idea had struck him that there was room for a book descriptive of travel in Sweden, interspersed with episodes from the history of some of the great Swedish families. He procured letters of introduction, therefore, to some persons of quality in Sweden, and set out thither in the early summer of 1863.
Of his travels in the North there is no need to speak, nor of his residence of some weeks in Stockholm. ”