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486 ACCOUNT OF DANISH LAPLAND BY LEEMS.
When difcharging leaden balls from their mufkets they make ufe of obfcene expref-
fions, and were of an opinion that the wolf had the power of fafcinating their pieces, and
could prevent their hitting the mark.
A certain bird, of black colour, with a white ftreak going round the neck, a conftant
inhabitant of the cataraéts, called in Lapland Kwoik-Garheek, in Norwegian Elve-Kald,
was counted lucky; could any one catch fuch a bird, he kept it carefully and had it in
great eftimation. A certain Laplander of the mountains, by name John Jonfon, by the
Laplanders called Hano, a man of wealth, living at Ozejok, a place then belonging to
Swedith Lapland, was faid to have taken a bird of this fort, and to have kept it alive as
a thing of facred and ineftimable value, in a white fhoe, or Kamag, and would not fling
it away when dead, but preferved it as an object of great value, little doubting that for-
tune would be propitious to him while he kept this bird. On this man fee more in
Chapter XV. on the manners of the Laplanders.
If any man happened to come under a tree where the cuckoo kept, and it raifed its
note before it fled, he thought it a happy omen for him. To have found the eggs of
this bird was regarded as a happy omen; the head of the perfon who eat the eggs of
fuch a bird was to be covered with a kettle. To kill a cuckoo was always thought ill
duck. And if any one heard him when fafting, in the beginning of {pring, this was
deemed an unluky omen, that he would be on bad terms all the next year with his
neighbour. To avert this bad omen he forthwith tore the bark from the firft tree that
prefented itfelf to eat, after going three times round it.
If any one in the beginning of {pring had heard the cry of the /om, a kind of large
bird, when fafting, he perfuaded himfelf that all that year’s produce of milk could not
be curdled, or turned into cream, but would be like whey. They had a fuperftition
too, that if they played with fire even in jeft, that the young of the rein-deer would be
blind. It was a cuftom alfo to mark the doors with the fign of the crofs.
It is apparent, that the fun in Lapland in the winter, for the fpace of feven weeks, is
below the plane of the horizon, and under the lower hemifphere; and that the fame
does not fet in fummer for the faid {pace of time; and hence a cuftom, that on its re-
turn after feven weeks darknefs they anoint their doors.
‘They have a foolifh belief, that {tones which are weightier than their fize and out-
ward figure feem to require, had in them fomething preternatural and uncommon.
They believed that thunder ftruck their wizards with horror, even killed them.
With this pérfuafion not a fmall number of Nowegians was imprefled. Hence the pro-
verb, That if thunder did not exift, wizards would deftroy the univerfe. They fay,
that, on the fight of lightning, they run up and down the woods, ftruck with horror,
until they find a hollow tree to conceal themfelves in, which was juft blafted with
lightning.
There is no doubt but that the Laplanders cherifhed many more fuperftitions, but
to dwell longer on them would be tedious, having already adduced examples enough
to prove to demonttration the errors of this moft miferable people.
‘Cuap. XXII.—On the Lapland Miffon.
A CERTAIN diftinguifhed bifhop of Drontheim, named Eric Bredal, who filled the
epifcopal fee from the year 1643 to 1672, exerted himfelf with the greateft induftry in
the initruction of the Laplanders in divine knowledge. He not only made learned
mafters, but even in his own houfe took care that the children of the Laplanders
fhould be inftruéted, as alfo at the houfes of many of the clergy in the country. Thofe
wha
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