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the traveller was yet obliged to rest in a safety-lodge
in the midst of the wood, an arrangement
probably subsisting from the heathen age. This,
like every other border forest, was notorious for
the acts of robbery and violence perpetrated in it;
the boundary line was formed by the Mordback
(murder-brook) [1]. To this point the law of Upland
was obeyed, beyond it that of Helsingland. That
places of common interment and sacrifice were the
points of union for the first settlers is shown by the
old appellations; Mound of the South path, Mound
of Sundheath (from which Gustavus Vasa addressed
the Helsingers), Mound of the North path [2]. These
names were also given to lands belonging to the
estate of Upsala, by which the divisions of
Helsingland were formerly regulated. The north-western
part of Helsingland is probably that which was
peopled by Norwegians from Jemteland and Herjedalen,
who having passed the forest, advanced here and
there to the sea-shore. Agriculture was more
anciently practised in the southern part of
Helsingland than in either of these provinces, but the
rearing of cattle, the chase, the fisheries of the
Baltic, and the sea fowl (for wild geese are the
oldest Helsingers) [3], no doubt at first supplied
the most available means of subsistence. This was
to a still greater extent the case with the provinces of
Medelpad and Angermanland, lying to the north,
in which the population adhered yet more closely
to the coast. In the former, deriving its name [4]
from its situation between the considerable streams
of Niurunda and Indal, the southerly valley of
Niurunda, as ancient remains prove, was settled
before the inner dale, or district of Indals-elf [5].
The herring and sprat (ströming) fisheries upon
this coast are as old as the name of the parish of
Silanger [6]. Employment was furnished to the
Angermanners (men of the creeks or rocks) by the
salmon fisheries [7] among the clusters of islets formed
by the Angerman river, the largest in Scandinavia,
at its mouth, where Hernösand is spoken of in the
fourteenth century as a haven and staple. Where
the road enters West Bothnia the last barrow is
perceived [8]. Heaps of stones, such as are sometimes
found in the mountainous districts of other parts of
Sweden, are beyond this point the only grave
marks, and the names of the rivers now become
Lappic [9]. Salmon-fishing in the spring and
summer allured the Norwegians across the mountains
to the mouths of these streams; a few remained
throughout the winter; the number of inhabitants
received accessions of Swedish incomers, and the
Lapps were driven from the sea-coast. In the
former half of the fourteenth century, the
settlements thus begun reached to Skeldepth [10], now
Skelleft river. Above this limit stretched the
wastes of Lappmark, though the trading peasants
(Bircarls [11] as they were called) visited this upper
region, especially Tornea, to fish and trade with the
Lapps; whence the archbishop of Upsala at this
time extended the limits of Helsingland, which
formed part of his diocese, into Finland, as far as
the Ulea stream in East Bothnia. Settlements
existed as far as the Umea, or perhaps further along
the Western coast, from heathen times, but these
are here proportionably more recent than in other
quarters.
Northern Scandinavia was called Finnmark.
This, according to an ancient authority, was a
territory of vast size, having upon the west, north,
and east, the sea, with many great firths; in the
interior, wild regions of mountains and dales, with
enormous waters; also near them spacious forests,
and the great ridges which are called the Keels [12]
running along the waste. Finnmark commenced,
in the ninth century, above Halogaland in Norway,
and extended across to the White Sea, almost as
far south on that side as Halogaland on the other,
or to the sixty-fifth degree. The Norwegians
levied tribute from the wild inhabitants of
Finnmark, till the Swedish settlers were numerous
enough to follow the example in Swedish Lappmark.
Such phrases as Finn-tax, Finn-faring, Finn-trade [13],
indicate the relations subsisting between them and
their neighbours. Of these and of the aspect of
the country, the manner of life and adventures of
a northern settler of former days, old accounts still
remain. From the most ancient of them [14] we
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