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Sweden’s southern region was inhabited by Goths
as far back as our information reaches; of the
occupancy of the middle division by the Swedes an
account, half mythical, half historical, has been
preserved; the settlement of the northern part, which
is still proceeding at the present day, falls entirely
within the range of history; although heathenism
was not extinct when the old nomadic inhabitants
of this vast territory already began to be driven
back by the new settlers. All that portion of the
present province of Norrland which lay along the
coast from the mouth of the Dal [1] to above
Norrbotten, was still called in the fifteenth century by
the general name of Helsingland. In the west,
nearer the mountains, lay Herjedale and Jemteland.
Of the first settlement of these countries the
Chronicles of the Kings give the following account.
‘Ketil Jamte was the son of earl Annnd of
Sparabo in Drontheiin (or Trondhem). He fled before
king Östen Illrada eastwards from the mountains
of Kiölen; he cleared the woods and cultivated the
ground in the district now called Jemteland.
Eastwards to him fled many who dwelt in Drontheim,
by reason of the troubles, when king Östen
was vexing them with taxes and set his dog called
Saur over them to be king. Thorer Helsing was
grandson of Ketil; after him Helsingland is named.
There he tilled the land, and when Harald the
Fair-haired grasped the whole dominion for
himself, many from Drontheim and Naumdale again
joined him. Further settlements were made
eastward of Jemteland, and pushed on through
Helsingland to the sea, those who abode there
becoming subject to the king of the Swedes, and
carrying on a trade-with Sweden.’ Haco the Good,
king of Norway, established a commercial intercourse
between his subjects and the settlers of this
region [2]. This addiction to trade is noted as
characteristic of the first Norrlanders; and for this
they continue to be remarkable at the present day,
cattle-breeding and the chase supplying their
materials of exchange. So permanent are relations
which spring out of the nature of the country. Of
the settlement of Herjedalen, again, the following
relation is preserved: ‘Heriulf was banner-man [3]
to king Halfdan the Black, father of Harald the
Fair-haired, and stood high in his favour. At a
feast, he struck another courtier so rude a blow in
his anger with a silver-mounted drinking-horn, that
the horn broke, and the man whom he struck died.
For this cause was Heriulf, who thence had the
surname of horn-breaker, banished from the land;
he was well received in Sweden by king Eric
Edmundson, and was for a long time his man. At
last he enticed the king’s sister Ingeborg to love,
fled with her, and settled in the wild valley south
of Jemteland, which after him received the name of
Heriulf’s dale, or Herjedale [4].’ The people of this
district still show the spot where the fugitive pair
are said to have dwelt, and the mound where
Heriulf’s ashes and treasures were buried, near the
stream of Herje, four miles west of the church of
Lillherdal parish [5]. They still tell of a daughter of
this personage, and four sons, two of whom slew
each other in a quarrel respecting a fishery. Two
sons of Heriulf are mentioned as under-kings in
Norway, and one of his grandsons was among the
first colonists of Iceland. Elk hunting [6] and the
chase were the first, and long the principal
occupations of those who fixed their abode in these
territories; they traded with their furs to Norway,
with whose inhabitants both their extraction and
vicinity of situation disposed them to amity. But
eastwards on the sea, observes Snorro, the Swedes
had settled Helsingland [7], and generally the original
population ascended from the sea the waters of the
valleys. In Gestricland, it followed partly the sea,
and partly the stream of the Gafel (from which the
fishing village and town of Gefle received its name)
to the lake Storsiö [8], the country round which,
especially in the parishes of Ofvansiö and Thorsacre,
was occupied in the heathen age. From
Helsingland Proper, Gestricland was, and is still,
separated by the forest of Odmord, formerly so
large, that although in the fourteenth century a
new parish had been formed within its bounds [9],
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