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language. But they do not deserve that name, meerly for this reason, any more
than the Finlanders and others, for they are generally cloth’d in good woollen
garments, as we shall shew hereafter. Grotius thinks they are call’d Lapps from
running or leaping, but Lœpa, which in the Swedish language signifies to run,
is writ with a single P, and the name of this Country with a double one:
and these People naturally are no great runners, tho by an art they have of
sliding over the frozen snow, they are very swift in their motions. Some think that
the Inhabitants do not denominate the Country, but the Country the
Inhabitants, as in the name of Norwegians and others, which seems to be
strengthed by this, because Ol. Magnus calls them Lappomanni, after the manner
of Nordmanni, Westmanni, and Sudermanni, in which words Manni signifying
Men, they were call’d Lappomanni, i. e. Men of Lappia. [1] Others fancy
that the name of the Country is deriv’d from Lappu, which in the Finnonick
language is furthermost, because it lies in the farthest part of Scandinavia.
There is yet another opinion which may seem no less plausible then any of the
former, which agrees as well with the signification of the word Lapp among
the Laplanders themselves, as the credit given to what has been matter of fact,
viz. that ’twas call’d Lappia, not from its situation, or other such like
accident, but from the Lappi that inhabited it. So that I take Lappi to signify
no other than banish’t persons, which is the genuine signification of Lapp in
the Lapland language; for the Laplanders were originally Finlanders, and
from leaving their Country may be presum’d to have took their name; and
that not of their own choosing, but the Finlanders [2] imposition, with whom
to Lapp signifies to run away: whence the compellation seeming something
scandalous, no person of quality to this day will endure to be call’d by it, tho
from the Finlanders others Nations, as the Germans, Swedes and Moscovites,
have learnt to call them so. But they of Lappia Umensis stile themselves
Sabmienladti, and those of Lappia Tornensis, Sameednan, from the word Sabmi or
Same; the signification of which, and whence they had it, we shall see hereafter.
At what time this Country and it’s inhabitants were first distinguih’t by
these names Lappia and Lappi, ’tis hard to prove: ’tis certain ’twas but of late,
for the words are not found in any antient writer, neither in Tacitus, who
mentions their neighbours and forefathers the Finlanders, nor in Ptolomy,
Solinus, Anton. Augustus, Rutilius, or others, neither in Authors nearer home (not
to name Jornandes, Paul Warnefrid, &c.), nor in those who have writ the
actions of Heraud and Bosa, or Gætricus and Rolfus, or King Olafus in the
Islandick, Norwegian or Gothick language: we find nothing of them in Adam
Bremensis, whose diligence in writing of the Northern Countries, his Scandinavia sufficiently testifies; or in Sturlisonius, who writ very accuratly of these parts
in his own language. Therefore I cannot be so easily persuaded with Grotius
to believe Cluverius, who says they were mention’d in the Peutingerian Tables,
the Author of which is thought to have liv’d at least before Theodosius’s time,
i. e. 600 years before Adam Bremensis: how then could he, that was none of
the best Geographers, if we may beleive Welserus, and very far distant from
these parts, give us any account of them, since Adam Bremensis, who was so
near a neighbour, and had commerce with those that lived there, could give
us none? Besides, in that Table the Sarmatians are called Lupiones, with
whom the Lappi were nothing concerned; neither doth any antient Author say
they were seated so far Northward: wherefore the Lupiones there described
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