The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

114 SCANDINAVIA.collected in the museums, bear witness to the artistic originality of the people ofthe bronze age, although many archeeologists suppose that Etruscan influenceinspired the Scandinavian art of this period. But most of the Swedish objectswere cast in the country, as is evident from the stone moulds occasionally pickedup, though the bronze must have been imported as an alloy, for it contains aboutone-tenth part of tin, a metal not found in Scandinavia. Nilsson fancies he detectsnumerous traces of Phoenician industry, attributing to these Semites the tombstoneson which are figured ships, hatchets, and swords. But the absence of theusual Phoenician inscriptions militates against this view. Nor is Greek art at allrepresented in Scandinavia, except perhaps by a few isolated objects found on theeast coast of Sweden.But Roman influence was strongly felt, though indirectly. Even beyond thelimits of the Empire the barbarous nations followed the impulse given by theconquerors of the Mediterranean world.They learnt the use of iron, and began toemploy a series of letters akin to the Latin alphabet, and probably derived from thatof the Celtic tribes in North Italy.These runes, or "mysteries" (runar, runir), asthey were called, are of various forms, and have been greatly modified in thecourse of ages. The inscriptions run sometimes from right to left, but morecommonly from left to right, while several are of the " boustrophedon " class, theorder of the letters alternating with each line. Some must even be readChinese fashion, in vertical columns, and the form of the letters changeswith the time and locality, those of the extreme north being especiallynoted for their originality. At first numbering twenty-four, they were reducedin Scandinavia to sixteen, and were here carved on rocks or bones, or wood,horns, ornaments, and arms. The northern museums contain large collections,which, if throwing little light on the history of the race, have at least illustratedthe successive changes of their language. In nicdireval times wholevolumes were composed in runes, as, for instance, the Skanelagen, or " Law ofScania," dating from the thirteenth century. The gold ornaments known as bracteates,of which nine times more have been found in Scandinavia than in all therest of Europe, are mostly covered with Runic signs. The figures of heroes, horses,birds, dragons, are all referred by Worsaae to Northern legends.The age of iron, when the runes were in vogue, blends gradually with thehistoric epoch, about the time of the great Norse expeditions. But it is difficult todraw a hard-and-fast line between these various epochs. During the Empire, whenthey exchanged their wares for Italian coins, the Scandinavians used concurrentlyiron weapons, bronze and gold ornaments, stone implements. The runes themselvessurvived in the island of Gotland till the sixteenth century, and Runiccalendars continued in use still longer in the peninsula, and even in England.Thus it is that the successive civilisations rather overlap than follow each otherabruptly. The rites of the old worship surviving as superstitions are a furtherevidence of this mingling of epochs, resembling the currents of various streams wesometimes see uniting in one bed. Thus Thursday, in Swedish Thorsdag, or dayof Thor, was still kept as a holiday so recently as last century in various parts of