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across lake Vener, then along the stream of the
Motala to Brawick, and thence over the Kolmard.
We now stand on the boundary between Sweden
Proper and Gothland (Svea and Götaland), a
division which is as old as our history. The Kolmard
and the Tiwed still separate them, and from this
circumstance in former days, the kingdom was
divided into the land north and south of the forest [1].
Although the great woodland formed the border,
the old line of demarcation, perhaps from that very
reason, differed as much from the modern, as the
cultivation of early from that of later times. The
day has been when the great forests of Tiwed and
Käglan nearly met [2], when Nerike depressed
between hill-peaks connected them, and the whole
extent of its low lying, rich grassy meadows
consisted of moor and moss [3]; when Sudermania,
varied with so manifold beauty of bay, lake, hill
and dale, was little else than a group of islets, the
chief seat of the sea-kings [4] of Upper Sweden, and a
border land in the occupation of both Swedes and
Goths; and it is perhaps on this account that
the oldest historian of Christianity in the north [5],
reckons it as belonging to East-Gothland, thus
extending Gothland to Lake Mælar. As a people
anciently of several different stocks, congregated in a
border-land on the sea, the Sudermanians show
fewest provincial peculiarities. Yet the settlement of
their country is old, as is evinced by the abundance of
memorials remaining from the times of heathenism.
Nerike [6] is of more recent occupancy; yet it was
probably settled by Braut Anund, and is perhaps
the scene of the death of the greatest king of the
Yngling line [7]. Through Nerike, by lake Hielmar,
and the place where Oerebro, formerly Oeresund [8],
now lies, Sigurd Ring marched over the Kolmard
to the fight of Bravalla.
On the west, Suithiod Proper was encompassed
by old Gothland, which stretched along the border
of the former in indefinite extension towards the
north. Vermeland, where Olave the Treefeller
(Trätälja) when the hate of the Swedes had
driven him from his refuge in Nerike, first laid the
axe to the root of the primitive forest, was held
both in old and modern times, to belong to Gothland
in the wider sense, in so far as it was taken into
account at all. For Vermeland was a debateable
territory between the Swedes and Norwegians [9],
subject to both kingdoms alternately, which
proves that the settlers of Olave confined
themselves to the western part of Vermeland, bordering
on Norway. The first occupiers kept close to the
streams which took their course to lake Vener,
through the wide-extended valleys of the country,
and soon arrived at well-being [10]. Between the
dales were forests and mountains; the whole of
eastern Vermeland was a wilderness. The settled
districts were separated from Norway by the waste
wood [11], in the recesses of which robbers lurked in
ambush for those who undertook the dangerous
office of carrying the tributes of Vermeland to the
king of Norway [12]. Towards Gothland, forests
alone formed the frontier on the eastern as well as
the western side of the Vener. This great lake, on
whose banks rose the holds of the sea-kings, its
proximity to the coast of Wiken, and to Norway,
with the border conflicts and adventures which its
shores often witnessed, allured the eye of old
poetry betimes to this region; and the waves of
the Vener, its ice-fields, as its islands, were the
scenes of many a combat whose memory the sagas
have sung. Above Vermeland, in the eleventh
century, Skridfinns or Finn-Lapps still wandered
in the wilderness [13]; for the name of Dalecarlia
was not yet known.
We now ascend to old Swedeland, which has
given its name to the monarchy of Sweden
(Sverike), formed in the age of Paganism by the
junction of Swedeland and Gothland [14].
Swadrik, Denmark, and Norraway,
Nor in the Steiddis (States) I dar nocht ga.
Dunbar, Bannatyne Poems, p. 176. Trans.)
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