The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

THE SWEDES AND NORWEGIANS. 117were brought into association with foreign nations. The Swedish rovers havedoubtless left a less profound impression on history than the Danish and Norwegianvikings. But this is due to the direction taken by their warlike excursions, whichdid not bring them into contact with peoples of such high culture as the Franksor Mediterranean nations. Their warlike deeds could be commemorated onlv inthe obscure traditions of Finns, Letts, Wends, and the Slav tribes of the vastGardarike, or Russia of our days.Foreigners could have had but a slight direct influence on the Scandinavianrace, for within historic times the peninsula has never been invaded by victoriousarmies, if we except the short Russian expeditions of 1719 and 1809. Nor hasthere been much peaceful immigration, and that mostly from Finland. Towardsthe end of the seventeenth century Finnish peasantry began to cross the Gulf ofBothnia and settle in Upper Jemtland, on the Norwegian frontier, where theirdescendants still survive, intermingled with the surrounding Swedish populations.Other Finnish colonies are found in the northern provinces. Religious persecutionsalso contributed in a small degree to the peopling of the land. At the end of thesixteenth century some hundreds of TValloon workmen, at the invitation of a Dutchowner of mines, took refuge in Sweden, settling mainly in the village of Osterby,near the Dannemora mines. Their descendants, nearly all of a brown complexion,have retained the traces of their descent, and carefully preserve the spelling oftheir French names. Since then several other French exiles have sought homesin Sweden ; but their influence has been purely local, and the zeal with whichthe language of Racine has been studied and Paris fashions imitated on the Balticshores must rather be attributed to a certain natural sympathy between the twonations. The Swedes are fond of calling themselves the " French of the North,"and their social ways, courtesy, and good taste certainly entitle them to the name.The Norwegians, on the other hand, are the " English of Scandinavia." Fromover the seas their gaze is fixed on the British Isles, with which their chief commercialintercourse is carried on, and whence come their most numerous foreignvisitors. They are in general distinguished rather by strength and tenacity ofwill than by liveliness or pliability. Their resolutions are formed slowly, but whatthey will they carry through. Amongst them mysticism seems more prevalentthan in Sweden, which is yet the native land of Swedenborg.The inhabitants of Scandinavia speak various languages, all, however, derivedfrom the old Norrcena, or Norse tongue of the Runic inscriptions. Hence theirclose affinity and imperceptible blendings, the Scanian, for instance, serving asthe connecting link between Swedish and Danish. The standard Swedish, whichis simply the cultivated dialect of the Stockholm district, as Danish is that of theCopenhagen district, is an harmonious language, full of assonances, and, thanks toits greater treasure of archaic terms, more original than its southern sister. Butamongst the local dialects there are others of still more ancient type, notably theDalecarlian, the Gottish of Gotland, and those still current beyond the frontiersof the present Sweden, in parts of Finland and the islands on the Esthonian coast-The literary language of Norway is simply the Danish with a few local wordsvol. v. K