Full resolution (JPEG)
- On this page / på denna sida
- Introduction
- I. Traditions of the North
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has been proofread at least once.
(diff)
(history)
Denna sida har korrekturlästs minst en gång.
(skillnad)
(historik)
Adolphus, yet long enough for undying remembrance.
Still the oldest legends which tell of the north,
reports rather than reminiscences, relate to Sweden.
The name of Suiones in Tacitus already denotes a
powerful people; that of the Goths sounded over
all the earth. With Sweden Snorro begins his
chronicles of the ancient kings. In old Suithiod
Odin and the gods had ruled over Manhem, the
home of men. The Asæ, immigrating from the
east, greeted the land with this name, which
perhaps was not unknown to Pliny.
In the first part of this history following we
propose: I. To consider the accounts transmitted
to us of the ancient period of Sweden, down to the
preaching of Christianity in the north, or the
middle of the ninth century. II. To give a summary
view of the state of the country and its inhabitants
at the end of the heathen age. We will then, III.
describe the transition to Christianity, and its
influence on the old form of society, with the contests
of the Swedes and Goths for dominion, to the middle
of the thirteenth century; IV. the age of the
Folkungers, to the middle of the fourteenth; then, V.
the reigns of the foreign kings, and the union of
the northern crowns, till the times of the Sture,
or the middle of the fifteenth; VI. the Sture as
administrators and popular leaders, till the
massacre of Stockholm in 1520; at which point we will,
VII. pause to contemplate the condition of the land
and people at the end of the catholic period. In
the next part we will proceed to the more recent
history of Sweden, beginning with Gustavus Vasa.
CHAPTER I.
TRADITIONS OF THE NORTH.
OLDEST TIMES. LEGENDS OF NORTHERN MIGRATIONS. MYTHOLOGY. CHRONICLES OF THE KINGS. SWEDES
AND GOTHS. VARANGIANS AND NORTHMEN.
If it like us to be contented with probabilities on a
topic in which certainty is unattainable, Scandinavia
is by no means to be placed among the latest settled
countries of our quarter of the globe. Its situation
on a great inland sea, which receives vast streams
from the continent, could here create no exception
from the conclusion of universal experience, that
maritime countries receive inhabitants before the
interior of a great continent, and that the sea and
large rivers are the mother’s milk of primal
cultivation. The Mediterranean and the Baltic have
nursed, each after its own fashion, the infancy of
the elder European nations, and those historically
the most important.
Around the Mediterranean flourished the civilization
of the classical world, which had its birth in
Asia. For this the Alps, with their continuations,
long formed a wall, beyond which its circle of vision
did not extend. Savage races, most of whom
subsequently disappeared, partly of Celtic origin, had
descended from those heights into Italy, and
carried devastation to Rome, to Greece, and to Lesser
Asia, or wandered beyond the mountains in wastes
and interminable forests [1]. On the islands of the
Baltic, again, and its southern coasts, we perceive
indisputably the earliest European dwelling-places
of the great Germanic race [2]. Here also these are
not without recollections of the east, although to
southern Europe they were in a manner unknown,
until the Romans, as they approached nearer to
Lower Germany and the North Sea, instead of the
nomadic hordes who now and then animated the
wilds of the inner highlands, fell in at all points
with numerous and brave nations, indomitable from
the firm and martial structure of their institutions.
Then the name of Germans was first heard. Rome,
unable to subdue their tribes, admitted the danger
into her own bosom by purchasing their services
with money or land, till at length, whether from
this or from other causes extrinsical, or led by the
spirit which urges nations evermore towards the
south, they broke through the mountain bulwark.
And now the waves of the great migration, rolling
over the corruption of the old world, prepared a
new scheme of culture, of which the natural energy
of the north laid the foundation, and the Christian
religion supplied the nutriment.
If the Thule mentioned by Pytheas were, as may
be conjectured, a part of the Scandinavian
peninsula, it had already inhabitants and agriculture
several centuries before the birth of our Saviour.
Certainly the condition which Tacitus describes a
hundred years after Christ, supposes cultivation to
have long subsisted. The states of the Suiones—so
he was informed—were powerful by the number
of their people, their fleets, and arms; their vessels
were especially serviceable for rivers and coast
i navigation; riches they held in honour; the sea
encompassing them prevented sudden attacks by
their foes [3]. What he adds therewithal, that the
Suiones were ruled by a single person with
unlimited power, and even that arms were not, as
with the rest of the Germans, free to general use—this,
so unlike all we know of the manners of our
ancestors from other sources, seems only to be
explained by supposing that the governing persons
also exercised a higher power, founded upon
religion, which was not unlimited, but might well
appear so to distant observers. Here we are
reminded, that the appellation ‘monarch [4]’ given to
the early Swedish rulers, by no means implied, in
the north, the possession of unrestricted power. It
in general denoted him who held the supreme
authority among a whole people, here consecrated by
[1] Deserta Helvetiorum, Bojorum, Getarum, which at a
later period were partially occupied by the Germanic
populations immigrating from the north.
[2] Teutons and Goths (Guttones) inhabited the Baltic
coasts from the time of Pytheas. Compare Mannert,
Geography of the Greeks and Romans.
[3] Germania, c. 44.
[4] Envaldshöfding, sole ruler. T.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Project Runeberg, Sun Dec 10 07:08:34 2023
(aronsson)
(diff)
(history)
(download)
<< Previous
Next >>
https://runeberg.org/histswed/0029.html
