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But this energy was not confined to Göteborg.
Turning to the capital, Stockholm, we again meet the ubiquitous
Scot in early times—not in great numbers, to be sure;
still he is there, and means his presence to be known. To
prove this we need not go back to Henning Tait, who is
said to have been a friend of Birger Jarl (Earl), the
founder of Stockholm in the Xlllth century, to have
joined him on his expedition to Finland, and to have become
the founder of the noble family of Sterncreutz.1 We
1 The early presence of Tait in Finland seems to rest on something more
than tradition. In a description of the district of Perno in Finland, the
author, A. I. Hipping, mentions a document formerly preserved among the
Perno Church documents, which ran: “ Extract of a document the
original of which is in Malingård. A nobleman from Scotland named
Teet of Pernå served Birger Jarl in his war against Tavasthus and Nylands
in Finland, conquering these countries for the Crown of Sweden in 1250.
Afterwards he became an influential person there (i.c. Finland), built
Pernå Church, and called the district and the church after his own native
place of Pern in Scotland. His coat-of-arms was a‘red St Andrew’s
cross in a white field, one-third of the field over the cross red with three
silver stars. The crest above it consisted of a stag’s head with a star
between the antlers. His son was Jöns Teet, who was Hakan’s father in
Teetorn. Ex vidimato vidi George Lagus.” This Lagus was Pastor
at Perno Church in 1756, and his report cannot be doubted, though both
copy and original of the document have since disappeared. Very likely,
however, it referred to a later time. There is no record of churches in
Finland having been built at so early a date. Åbo Cathedral was finished
in 1300. Hattula Church in Tavastland is first mentioned in 1324, the
present church of Perno in 1351, unless we like to accept popular
tradition which points out an old stone foundation, discovered on the
property of Tait, as the remains and site of the old church, which was
afterwards removed to its present location, since it proved too far out of
the way for the peasants of the shore. About sixteen years ago C.
Carstens again discussed the question of Tait in an Almanac published
by friends of the Swedish primary schools at Helsingfors in 1891, where
he adduced the fact that, according to information received from the
Historical Department of the General Register House, Edinburgh, one Tait
was granted the charter of Pirn or Pern or Pren near Innerleithen
by Robert III. (1390-1406). The armorial bearings of the Scottish
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