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and their wanderings in the remote eastern districts of
Finland testify to the backwardness and superstition
prevailing in that part of the country.
It was the last period of the Crusades which
introduced Swedish culture into Finland. In 1006, Olaf
Haraldson — St. Olaf, later on a king and popular saint
of Norway — was in southern Finland; and St. Olaf’s
Saga speaks of old Swedish kings who had power in
Finland and Carelia (“Kyrialand”). The “law-man”
Thorgny tells Oluf Skötkonung that the men of
Sweden would gladly accompany him to the East, if
he would follow the example of his ancestors and go
there instead of harrying the Norwegians. Oluf’s
daughter Ingegjerd is finally married to Jaroslav of
Russia, and obtains as a dowry Ingermanland, which
is governed in her name by her foster-father, Jarl
Ragnvald of Westgötland, the friend of the Norwegians.
The stories about the crusade of King Erik
the Saint, Jedvardson, Jarl Guttorm (the same name
as that of the Danish King Godorm or Gudrum in
England), and of Bishop Henrik (an Englishman by
birth) to Finland proper, and particularly to the district
of Åbo, may be for the most part only a legend.
There is a story that, after the visit of the Papal
legate, Nicholas of Albano, to Sweden, Henrik went
over to Finland, where he was killed the following
year (1158), and that after him Bishop Rodulf was
taken prisoner and killed by the Carelians in 1178.
At all events, Birger Jarl went a hundred years later
into Tavastland, where he built the castle of Tavastehus.
A little later, in 1293, the Marsk (or Marshal)
of Sweden, Torgils Knutson, sailed round to Carelia,
whose people had already established communication
with Novgorod; and there he built the castle of
Viborg, where it is said that fourteen Carelian
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