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[Illustration: GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS]
THE WORLD’S BEST HISTORIES
SWEDEN
BY
VICTOR NILSSON, PH.D.
AUTHOR OF “LODDFAFNISMAL, AN EDDIC STUDY”
_WITH FRONTISPIECE_
THE CO-OPERATIVE PUBLICATION SOCIETY
NEW YORK AND LONDON
COPYRIGHT 1899
BY PETER FENELON COLLIER
SWEDEN
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 5
CHAPTER I
SWEDEN IN PREHISTORIC AND EARLY HISTORIC TIMES--ARCHÆOLOGICAL
FINDS AND CLASSICAL TESTIMONY 11
CHAPTER II
DAWN OF SWEDISH HISTORY--HEIMSKRINGLA AND YNGLINGATAL 33
CHAPTER III
THE VIKING AGE--ANSGAR, THE APOSTLE OF SWEDEN 44
CHAPTER IV
EARLY CHRISTIAN ERA--STENKIL’S LINE AND INTERCHANGING DYNASTIES 64
CHAPTER V
THE MEDIÆVAL STATE--THE FOLKUNG DYNASTY 80
CHAPTER VI
UNIONISM VERSUS PATRIOTISM--MARGARET, ENGELBREKT AND CHARLES
KNUTSSON 100
CHAPTER VII
UNIONISM VERSUS PATRIOTISM--UNCROWNED KINGS OF THE STURE
FAMILIES 115
CHAPTER VIII
REVOLUTION AND REFORMATION--GUSTAVUS VASA 130
CHAPTER IX
REFORMATION AND REACTION--THE SONS OF GUSTAVUS I. 161
CHAPTER X
PERIOD OF POLITICAL GRANDEUR--GUSTAVUS II. ADOLPHUS 192
CHAPTER XI
PERIOD OF POLITICAL GRANDEUR--QUEEN CHRISTINE 220
CHAPTER XII
PERIOD OF POLITICAL GRANDEUR--CHARLES X. AND CHARLES XI. 242
CHAPTER XIII
PERIOD OF POLITICAL GRANDEUR--CHARLES XII. 268
CHAPTER XIV
PERIOD OF LIBERTY--THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC 310
CHAPTER XV
GUSTAVIAN PERIOD--GUSTAVUS III. AND GUSTAVUS IV. ADOLPHUS 343
CHAPTER XVI
THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY--CHARLES XIII. AND THE EARLY
BERNADOTTES 365
CHAPTER XVII
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM--CHARLES XV. 391
CHAPTER XVIII
PROGRESS AND PROSPERITY--OSCAR II. 414
INTRODUCTION
The kingdom of Sweden occupies the eastern and larger part of the
Scandinavian peninsula, covering an area of one hundred and seventy
thousand six hundred and sixty square miles, with a population of
somewhat more than five millions. Sweden is of nearly the same width,
from east to west, throughout her whole length. If the country were
divided into four equal parts, the southernmost part would correspond
to the district of Gothaland, the next to the district of Svealand,
consisting of most of what is north of the lakes Venar and Vetter
and what is south of the Dal River, while the two remaining parts
together would make up the district of Norrland. Gothaland, in
ancient times called _Sunnanskogs_ (South of the Woods), consists of
the old provinces Scania, Bleking, Smaland and East Gothland by the
Baltic, Halland and Bohuslæn by the North Sea, and West Gothland of
the interior. Svealand, or _Nordanskogs_, consists of the provinces
Sœdermanland and Upland by the Baltic, south and north of Lake Mælar,
respectively, Dal, Vermland and Dalecarlia on the Norwegian frontier,
and Nerike and Westmanland of the interior. Norrland consists of the
provinces of Gestrikland, Helsingland, Medelpad, Angermanland and
Westerbotten by the Gulf of Bothnia, a branch of the Baltic, and
Herjedal, Jemtland and the Lapmark on the Norwegian frontier. A great
number of islands form part of the kingdom, of which the two largest,
Gothland and Œland, are situated in the Baltic. One-twelfth of the
area, or as much as the whole state of Denmark, consists of water.
Sweden is politically united with Norway and ruled by the same king,
these united kingdoms forming the largest realm in Europe next to
Russia, Sweden herself ranking as the sixth in size.
Sweden is a country which offers striking varieties in scenery and
conditions. In the southernmost province of Scania, an ancient home of
culture, the nightingale and the stork dwell in the fertile plains,
and the walnut, mulberry and chestnut trees render ripening fruit.
Central Sweden is a wooded plateau, rich in rocky hills and inland
seas. Although barren lands occupy large areas, these parts are
characterized by a loveliness and picturesqueness which are still more
pronounced in the northern provinces along the coast. Only in the inner
mountainous regions of Norrland is the scenery of real grandeur where
the white-capped giants appear in vast groups, or in isolated peaks
of six thousand to seven thousand feet in altitude, where a hundred
glaciers with glacier rivers, moraines and erosions cover a surface
almost as large as the glaciers of Tyrol, and where, in the turbulent
course of mighty rivers, are formed tremendous waterfalls, one of them,
The Hare’s Leap, being the largest in Europe.
Geologically considered, Sweden is situated around the centre of the
ancient Scandinavian land-ice, and in the greater part of the country
only two of the geological series, the oldest and the youngest, are
represented. Thus the uneven, undulating surface of the Archæan rocks,
on which almost the whole country is firmly set, is in general covered
with quaternary deposits of gravel and clay. The mountains are rich in
iron ore, the streams and lakes in fish, the woods in game, but the
soil, itself of a good quality, unfortunately rich in stones. This
last-mentioned circumstance, together with the rather severe climate,
which yet is a good deal milder than might be expected, especially in
the southern and western parts of the country, makes agriculture, which
is the most important industry, profitable only on the extensive plains
of Scania, Upland and West and East Gothland. Still barley and rye are
cultivated within the Polar Circle, ripening in remarkably short time
under the nocturnal light of the Midsummer sun. Dense forests cover
Sweden in the very same latitude in which Greenland is clad by eternal
ice. The short summers are of a surpassing loveliness. In Norrland
there is a Swedish _læn_, or governmental district, of the size of
the State of Ohio, on which, between the 5th of June and the 11th of
July, the sun never sets. If the earth was perfectly plain and even
one would be able to see the sun above the horizon continually during
this period. But these northerly regions are very mountainous, and
consequently you will have to climb a high peak in order to see the
wonderful sight of a sun which stands still when it should set, and
which marks the difference between night and day only by a rolling
motion in the horizon. There is no country in the world where so many
places for such observation are reached so easily as in Sweden. One may
travel the whole distance from the southernmost point of the country to
the very base of a mountain, Gellivara, Sweden’s Klondike, from which
the midnight sun can be seen for thirty-seven nights in succession.
But although the sun itself is visible only from the mountain peaks
above the Polar Circle, the nocturnal light steeps the whole realm in
midsummer-night’s dreams of magic colors and reflections.
The Swedish people are of Teutonic stock and have lived in the land
they still inhabit for at least four thousand years, during this entire
period not having assimilated other nationalities, or at least to no
extent worth mentioning, so that the Swedish nation is of an origin far
purer than any other at present existing.
The kingdom of Sweden is the most ancient of the states still extant in
Europe, for all historical monuments prove that the Swedes have kept
to about their present territory, perfectly independent of foreign
nations, probably for a long time divided into lesser communities,
but for the past twelve hundred years united in one single realm. The
languages spoken in the Scandinavian North belong to the Teutonic
family of Indo-European languages, and seem to have been one and almost
homogeneous up to the time of the Viking Age (about 700-1060), when
various dialects commence to be distinguished. The old uniform language
has been preserved in Northern loanwords in the Finnish and Lap
languages and in about one hundred of the oldest Runic inscriptions.
The early Old Swedish, from the Viking Age to somewhat later than
1200, did not differ much from the Old Norse (the Old Norwegian and
Old Icelandic), while the difference from the Old Danish was almost
imperceptible. The sources for the study of this language period are
about two thousand later Runic inscriptions and nearly one hundred Old
Swedish loanwords, almost all proper names, in the Russian language.
The classical period of Old Swedish falls between 1200 and about 1350.
Its most important monuments are the provincial laws and a manuscript
collection of saintly legends, called Codex Bureanus. The language
of this period offers a number of dialects, of which only one, the
Gutnic, is strictly defined. In the next period of Old Swedish, from
1350 to the Reformation, a universal language for the whole country
is distinguished. The so-called Oxenstiern manuscripts and Codex
Bildstenianus are the chief sources of our knowledge of this language
period, mostly of religious contents. Modern Swedish dates from the
Reformation, its later period being counted from the publication of
the state law in 1734. The Swedish language seems to be based chiefly
upon the dialect of Sœdermanland, with influences from other dialects.
Among the Scandinavian languages, Swedish ranks next to the Icelandic
in point of purity, and is the foremost of them all in point of beauty.
The Swedes are a hardworking, industrious and intelligent race, not
fully conscious of their own rich endowment and slow to push their
individual claims. In moments of danger and distress, this people
give evidence of an active heroism, which offers a great contrast to
their usual quiet and peaceful demeanor. The Swedish nation is endowed
with an unusual inventive power, which has placed it in the first
rank of scientific research, having produced a quota of initiative
spirits, as originators, founders and innovators of sciences, which
is considerably larger than that of any other modern country, in
proportion to the population. The national temperament is, like the
soil, composed of extremes. With the serene quiet and almost sullen
tranquillity goes a patience of extraordinary endurance which, when
it gives in, surprises by the passion which takes its place. To the
melancholy trait in the Swedish character is contrasted a great desire
for the pleasures of life and exuberant animal spirits. Under a quiet
surface, the Swede conceals a rapid comprehension and an almost morbid
sensitiveness, sometimes causing people of other nationalities to judge
him slow of intellect or perfidious, when he is only slow of action or
indisposed to show his feelings. The most valuable inheritance from
his ancestors is his moral courage, while the ancient Northern trait
of self-restraint is often carried to an extreme. Akin to both is his
dignity. He possesses great musical and improvisatorial gifts which
complete his lyric-rhetorical temperament.
There are some 6,000 Laplanders and some 20,000 Finns living in the
furthest North, and foreigners to the number of about 20,000 dwell in
Sweden, mostly Norwegians, Finns and Danes. More than 99 per cent of
the population consists of native Swedes, and 99.9 per cent belong to
the Lutheran state church or the Protestant denominations.
The principal towns are Stockholm, the capital, with 300,000
inhabitants, enchantingly beautiful in situation, on the mainland and
islands at the outlet of Lake Mælar into the Baltic; Gothenburg, with
120,000 inhabitants, the chief commercial centre, at the mouth of the
Gotha River, by the North Sea; Malmœ, with 60,000 inhabitants, in
Scania, by the Sound. The university towns of Upsala, in Upland, and
Lund, in Scania, have 25,000 and 17,000 inhabitants, respectively.
HISTORY OF SWEDEN
CHAPTER I
_Sweden in Prehistoric and Early Historic Times--Archæological Finds
and Classical Testimony_
The Swedes, although the oldest and most unmixed race in Europe,
realized very late the necessity of writing chronicles or reviews of
historic events. Thus the names of heroes and kings of the remotest
past are helplessly forgotten, and lost also the history of its
earliest religion and institutions.
But Mother Earth has carefully preserved most of what has been
deposited in her bosom, and has repaid diligent research with
trustworthy and irrefutable accounts of the age and various degrees
of civilization of the race which inhabited Sweden in prehistoric
times. Thus it has been proved that Sweden, like most other countries,
has had a Stone Age, a Bronze Age, and an Iron Age. But there is
absolutely no evidence to prove the now antiquated theories of various
immigrations into Sweden by different races on different stages of
civilization. On the contrary, the graves from the remotest times,
through all successive periods, prove by the form of the skulls of
those buried in them that Sweden has, through all ages, been inhabited
by the same dolichocephalic, or long-headed, race which constitutes the
overwhelming majority of her people to-day.
Sweden, physically considered, is not of as high antiquity as some
countries of Europe. Yet it has been inhabited during the last four
thousand years, at least. In the quaternary period the Scandinavian
peninsula was a centre of a glacial movement which spread its
disastrous influences over Western Russia, Northern Germany and
Holland. In that period no vegetable or animal life was possible in
Sweden. From the fact that the earliest stone celts found in Sweden
and Denmark are not polished, archæologists were led to suppose that
the Stone Age of the North was contemporaneous with the Palæolithic
civilization in Western Europe. But this standpoint has been found
untenable, because it has later become evident that the fauna
surrounding the earliest inhabitants of the Northern countries was ours
and not a quaternary one.
The oldest types of finds of _the Stone Age_ in the North have been
discovered in the refuse-heaps on the Danish coast. These refuse-heaps,
consisting of stone implements, shells, bones, etc., do not occur in
Sweden, but the implements characteristic of them are found scattered
over some parts of the southernmost Swedish province of Scania. The
shape of these earliest finds is exactly the same as of those of the
later Stone Age, the only difference being that the former are not
polished. But there are transitions between the classes, and the act of
polishing must be regarded as an important phase of progress.
The Stone Age of Sweden is quite remarkable. If the remains of the
earlier period are scanty, the finds from the later one are all the
more numerous. With the exception of Denmark and a part of North
Germany, there is no European country which can boast of such rich and
beautiful relics from the later Stone Age as the southern part of
Sweden. The finds in the other countries mentioned are almost exactly
like those of Sweden from the Stone and the Bronze Ages, both as far as
implements and skulls are concerned, proving them to have been settled
by the same race.
The weapons and implements from the Stone Age consist of axes, daggers,
spearheads, arrowheads, saws, and knives of flint; axes, gauges,
handmills of stone; fishhooks and arrowheads of bone; earthenware,
etc., etc. The graves of this period are dolmens, passage-graves, and
stone cists, the last mentioned either uncovered or covered with a
barrow. The different forms of burial places seem to indicate four
successive stages of the period. Through their existence it becomes
probable that the inhabitants of Sweden during the Stone Age had fixed
dwelling places.
A dolmen is a grave-chamber of which the walls are formed of large,
thick stones set up edgewise, covered with one huge block of stone
as a roof, all the stones being rough outside and smooth inside.
The passage-graves are built in the same way, but are larger and
distinguished by a long covered passage leading to it. These graves are
surrounded by a low barrow, upon the top of which the huge roof-stones
were originally visible. Dolmens and passage-graves occur in Sweden in
considerable numbers along the coast of Scania, on the plains of West
Gothland and in Bohuslæn, more sparsely in other parts of West Gothland
and in Halland, with stray cases of graves of a similar construction in
Nerike and Western Sœdermanland. It is important to note the regions in
which these graves have been found, for they must be identical with the
parts of the earliest settlements. Such graves are also very common in
Denmark, while only one has been found in Norway.
The stone cists resemble very much the chamber of a passage-grave.
They are larger and four-sided, and built of somewhat thinner stones.
Stone cists standing partly visible above the barrow constitute a
form peculiar to Sweden, occurring in great numbers in West Gothland,
Bohuslæn, Dalsland and Southwestern Vermland, while the covered stone
cists appear in the same provinces and in Nerike, East Gothland,
Smaland, Bleking and the Island of Gothland.
During the Stone Age the bodies were buried unburned, in a recumbent
or sitting position. By the side of the dead body was usually placed a
weapon, a tool, or some ornaments, sometimes also earthenware vessels,
now filled only with earth. These vessels may once have contained
food. The elaborate graves seem to indicate a belief in a future life.
The food, if any such was placed by the side of the dead, would not
necessarily point to the fact that such a future life was imagined
merely as a continuation of earth life. The heathen Scandinavians of a
later age believed that the dead remained for some time in their burial
place before reaching their ultimate destination. For their possible
wants during this intermediate state food was left with the dead body.
The total number of relics of stone found in Sweden is 64,000. Of these
only 4,000 belong to Svealand and Norrland, while of all the rest found
in Gothaland 45,000 belong to Scania alone.
In a much later age the Scandinavians were regarded as pure barbarians.
For this reason it is important to observe that graves from the Stone
Age show that the Swedes in that remote period had several domesticated
animals, the dog, horse, ox, swine, sheep, and, perhaps, also the goat.
Hence they were certainly a pastoral people, not living exclusively
by hunting and fishing. But whether they practiced agriculture cannot
be decided in the present state of our knowledge. The fact that the
very oldest graves are found in the most fertile districts of Southern
Sweden seems to speak in favor of the supposition that agriculture was
known and appreciated.
Of metals, even of gold, the people of the late Stone Age were entirely
ignorant, also of the art of writing. Hence no monuments of their
language will ever be found. Still it is highly probable that the
Teutonic ancestors of the Swedes began to settle in the land from the
beginning of the Stone Age.
It is true that some skulls, very much like those of the Laps, have
also been found in the graves of the Stone Age; but it must be borne
in mind that these burial places, impressive through their size and
the amount of work and mechanical skill necessary for their erection,
can be believed to have been originally intended only for kings or
chieftains, and their families. It was probably a custom, as in later
heathen times, to bury with such distinguished people a number of
slaves, dead or alive. The presence of skulls of a non-Scandinavian
type can thus be explained, without the necessity of accepting the
theory of an early mixture of two races.
In the northern part of Sweden have been found relics of stone, usually
of slate, which do not appear to have belonged to the people of the
dolmens or passage-graves. They bear a close resemblance to those found
in Finland and in other countries inhabited by Laps, Finns and peoples
related to them. This seems to prove that these so-called Arctic stone
implements are relics of the Laps and belong to the time when this
people was still ignorant of the use of metal. Judging from the number
of relics found on the coast, from Westerbotten to Gestrikland, and
in Dalecarlia, the Laps dwelt also in somewhat more southerly parts
of Sweden than at the present day. So far south as in the middle
provinces, no Arctic stone relics have been found, still less in any of
the southern provinces. This seems to indicate that the Laps and the
Swedes did not dwell in the same parts of the country during the Stone
Age, and their intercourse, if any, must have been of a very accidental
and casual nature.
That the Stone Age lasted a very long time in the North is proved by
the fact that it reached a far higher development there than anywhere
else in Europe. The best authorities think that it must have ended
rather before than after 1500 B.C., or 3,500 years before our time.
_The Bronze Age_ followed upon the Stone Age. Flint exists in Sweden
and was easily found. There are also copper mines, but their working
is of comparatively modern date. The copper of the Bronze Age must
have been brought from abroad, and tin, necessary for the production
of bronze, is foreign to Scandinavia. The knowledge of the working of
any metal proves an immense progress. Yet there are strong grounds
for the opinion that the beginning of the Bronze Age in Sweden was
not connected with any great immigration of a new race, but that the
inhabitants learned the art of working bronze by intercourse with other
nations. The resemblance of the graves during the last part of the
Stone Age and the early part of the Bronze Age points most strongly to
such a conclusion. From Asia the knowledge of bronze, and the higher
civilization dependent on it, had gradually spread itself over the
continent of Europe, in a northerly and northwesterly direction, until
it reached the coasts of the Baltic.
The Bronze Age of Sweden began about 1500 B.C., and lasted for a
thousand years, or until the beginning of the fifth century before
Christ. The period has been divided into an Earlier and a Later
Bronze Age, a division which has been questioned as to its absolute
correctness. The works from the former are decorated with fine spiral
ornaments and zigzag lines. The graves generally contain remains of
unburned bodies. The antiquities of the Earlier Bronze Age, almost
without an exception, appear to be of native workmanship. They are
distinguished by artistic forms and point to a highly developed taste
in the working of bronze. They generally surpass in this respect the
relics of the Bronze Age found in almost all other European countries.
The works belonging to the Later Bronze Age are characterized by a
very different taste and style of ornamentation, though even they are
often the result of great skill. The spiral ornaments are no longer
predominant, but the ends of rings, knife-handles, and the like, are
often rolled up in spiral volutes.
During this period the dead were always burned. Buttons, sword-hilts,
and other works of bronze were sometimes decorated with pieces of amber
and resin inlaid. Objects are also often found overlaid with thin
plates of gold.
Remarkable are the rock-carvings from this period. The Swedes of the
Bronze Age understood, by a kind of picture-writing, how to preserve
the memory of important events, although an alphabet of any kind was
unknown. The rock-carvings have been found abundantly in Bohuslæn
(formerly a part of West Gothland) and East Gothland, but also occur
in Scania and other parts of Sweden. At the time of the arrival of
Cortez in Mexico the Aztecs were exactly on the same standpoint. In
spite of their high civilization, they were in the Bronze Age and
possessed a picture-writing, but were not acquainted with an alphabet.
In Sweden, as in Mexico, there certainly once existed an oral tradition
necessary for its interpretation, which, now lost, leaves little hope
for their present or future explanation. Yet they throw considerable
light on Swedish civilization during this remote period. Thus they
show that horses were already used for riding and driving. Cattle are
represented. In pairs these are harnessed to a plow, which is being
driven by a man. Boats are depicted, generally very large ones, without
masts, but with thirty pairs of oars or more. They are usually unlike
at the two ends, sometimes adorned with an animal’s head in the high
and narrow stem, sometimes with a similar decoration also in the stern.
The rock-carvings tell us nothing of the dwellings or the dress of
the Swedes in the Bronze Age. All the instruments and tools necessary
for the construction of wooden houses existed and appear to have been
in use. The material was ever abundantly supplied by the Swedish
forests, but it was not strong enough to withstand the influence of
time. All the more surprising it is that articles of dress from such a
remote period as the Earlier Bronze Age, 1000 B.C., should have been
preserved to our time. Still such is the case, thanks to a combination
of exceptionally favorable circumstances. These garments are of wool of
a very simple substance; some have been worn by men, others by women.
The man’s dress consisted of an unbrimmed cap of thick woven wool, a
wide circular mantle, a kind of tunic, kept together with a woollen
belt, and some narrow strips of wool which probably covered the legs.
In a man’s grave was found a shawl of wool with fringes. The woman’s
dress consisted then, as it does now, chiefly of two garments, a jacket
with sleeves and a long robe, the latter held together with a belt of
wool, ending in ornamental tassels. Large mantles, of mixed wool and
cow hair, were used as wraps. The women wore splendid bronze ornaments,
such as finger-rings, bracelets, torques and brooches. From the finds
it becomes apparent that many women in those days carried weapons, a
dagger often being found at the side of the body.
Besides swords and axes of beautiful workmanship, fishhooks, sickles
and the different parts of harness have been found; also vessels of
gold or bronze, evidently used for temple service. The Swedes of the
Bronze Age were not acquainted with the art of forging the heated
metal, but they possessed much technical skill in the art of casting.
When the implement was taken out of the mold it was dipped in cold
water, and very often the surface was ornamented by means of punches
made of bronze. Their good taste was as highly developed as their
skill. That the work was done in the North is proven by numerous
finds of the very molds in which weapons and agricultural implements
were cast. During the Stone Age only Gothaland and parts of Svealand
were inhabited. The finds of the Bronze Age prove that the limits of
the population were about the same during this period. The southern
provinces continued to be the more thickly settled. Twenty times as
many finds have been made in the soil of Scania as in the rest of the
country. Norrland was hardly settled to any extent until the Iron Age,
and has offered comparatively few finds from the Bronze Age, the total
of which for the whole of Sweden amounts to about 4,000.
_The Iron Age_ followed upon the Bronze Age. It lasts to this very day,
we ourselves still living in the Iron Age; but the term is generally
applied to that part of the period which commences with the close of
the Bronze Age, and ends with the fall of heathendom. During the Iron
Age, the Swedes first became acquainted with iron, silver, brass, lead,
glass, stamped coins from foreign lands, and learned how to solder
and gild metal. Archæologists have divided the period into two main
parts, the Earlier and the Later Iron Age, both with subdivisions. The
Earlier Iron Age includes the time from the fifth century B.C. to about
the beginning of the fifth century A.D. The first half of the Earlier
Iron Age is characterized by swords with both blades and sheaths made
of iron, thin crescent-shaped knives, brooches of iron, collars, and
decorative plates overlaid with bronze. The graves resemble those from
the end of the Bronze Age, containing burned bones in urns, or laid
together in a heap. This circumstance makes it more than probable that
the first introduction of iron in the North was not connected with any
immigration of a new people. The finds of the earliest Iron Age are not
very rich, but they prove that the people who have left them behind had
been subjected to a very strong influence from the Gallic tribes living
close to the south of the Teutonic area of population. Then came the
second half of the Earlier Iron Age, characterized by a strong Roman
influence. It commences with the extension of the Roman empire toward
the North, about the beginning of the Christian era, and winds up
with the beginning of the fifth century, when Teutonic migrations and
invasions put an end to the power of Rome. In the hostile or friendly
relations between Romans and Teutons the Swedes were not involved.
But by the peaceful ways of commerce the influence of Rome penetrated
to the people of the North. Great numbers of Roman coins have been
found in Sweden, and also vessels of bronze and glass, weapons, etc.,
as well as works of art, all turned out of workshops in Rome or its
provinces. Out of about 4,760 Roman coins of this time found in Sweden,
no less than 4,000 were found in the remarkable Island of Gothland,
in the southern half of the Baltic, 90 in the neighboring island of
Œland, 650 in Scania, but only 23 on the mainland of Sweden, excluding
Scania. About 250 were found in Bornholm, 600 in Denmark, but only 3
in Norway. It becomes evident from these finds that there existed a
regular traffic over the Baltic, through Germany, between the Island of
Gothland and the Roman provinces, from the epoch of the Marcomannic war
down to the time of Septimius Severus. Similar finds have been made on
the southern shore of the Baltic, showing that the traffic came from
the southeast, along the valleys of the Vistula and the Oder.
One of the most important discoveries of this period was the art of
writing, which the inhabitants of the North seem to have acquired soon
after the beginning of the Christian era. The earliest alphabetic
symbols in Sweden, and the only ones used there during the whole of
heathen times, were _runes_. These were probably invented a little
before the Christian era by a South Teutonic tribe, in imitation of
the Roman writing which the Teutons received from one of the Celtic
tribes living just to the north of the Alps. The Roman characters were
adapted for the use of inscriptions in stone and wood, the curves being
changed into straight lines. The Runic characters, in use among all
Teutonic tribes, were twenty-four in number; these older runes were, by
the Scandinavians, later simplified and reduced to sixteen. There is
a number of inscriptions in older runes in Sweden, dating from about
300 to 500 A.D. They are found chiefly on stones and gold bracteates,
also in England, France, Germany, Wallachia and the west of Russia. All
belong to about the same date, and are of Teutonic origin. The early
Runic inscriptions do not contain any accounts of historically known
persons or events. Yet they are of the greatest historical importance,
for they show that during the Earlier Iron Age, in the fourth and fifth
centuries, the language of Sweden, and consequently also the people,
were Teutonic. These inscriptions in Sweden and neighboring countries
give samples of the earliest known form of the Northern language,
which is considerably different from its descendants, the Old Swedish,
Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic, but very much resembling the language
spoken by the Goths on the Danube during the same period.
The Later Iron Age commences with the fifth century and stretches to
the beginning of the eighth century A.D. When Italy had been overrun
by the “barbarians,” the centre of the old civilization shifted to
Byzantium, and there are many traces of an active intercourse with the
capital of the Byzantine rule in the finds made in Swedish soil. Most
of these finds consist of gold coins of the fifth century, the majority
of them having been found in the islands of Œland and Gothland. The
stream of gold coming from Byzantium must have been quite considerable,
having its source in the tribute which many of the Byzantine emperors
had to pay to the Goths on the Danube. They are the very same emperors
whose names appear on the coins found in Sweden. The great number of
costly and beautiful ornaments of gold found in Sweden, and dating from
this period, must have been made out of Roman and Byzantine coins,
melted down. One of the largest hoards of gold ever found in Europe
was discovered in the Swedish province of Sœdermanland. Its weight was
twenty-seven pounds, and it contained several ornaments of consummate
workmanship.
Remarkable are the graves from this period, discovered in the province
of Upland. They are barrows containing the more or less mouldering
remains of a large boat in which the dead man has been buried unburned
with his weapons, horses, and other domestic animals. The swords found
in these graves are of iron with hilts of beautiful designs in gilded
or enamelled bronze. The shields and helmets are often of elaborate
workmanship. Unlike the swords, which mostly, or perhaps always, are of
foreign, generally of Celtic make, these ornaments and weapons are of
domestic origin.
It appears, from the many beautiful and artistic finds in Swedish
soil, as if the inhabitants have benefited by their situation,
aside and outside of the rest of the world. Continual migrations
subjected the tribes of the continent to repeated changes and to a
never-ceasing series of new and heterogeneous impressions. The tribes
of the North remained on the same spot, and their whole development
was slower but more consistent. The foreign influences penetrated
slowly and gradually, without crushing the old civilization. The
industrial arts blossomed not so often in the North as in the South,
but steadier, giving a clearer expression of the national traditions
and peculiarities. These circumstances make the study of Northern
antiquities of absorbing interest.
Before the end of this period, not only Gothaland and Svealand, but
also the coast of Norrland, as far north as the province of Medelpad,
were inhabited. As a whole, the first part of the Later Iron Age forms
a transition between the Earlier Iron Age and the Viking Age, the
archæological finds of which we must leave aside to take up the threads
of the earliest history. The Viking Age is exceedingly rich in stones
with inscriptions in the later runes, some of these inscriptions being
quite lengthy, and containing strophes of alliterative verse in Old
Swedish.
Before entering into an account of early Swedish history, let us
gather what information the classical writers of history have to give
in regard to the countries of the North, or rather whatever of such
information that has been preserved to our day.
The Scandinavian countries are for the first time mentioned by the
historians of antiquity in an account of a journey which Pyteas from
Massilia (the present Marseille) made through Northern Europe, about
300 B.C. He visited Britain, and there heard of a great country, Thule,
situated six days’ journey to the north, and verging on the Arctic Sea.
The inhabitants in Thule were an agricultural people who gathered their
harvest into big houses for threshing, on account of the very few sunny
days and the plentiful rain in their regions. From corn and honey they
prepared a beverage (probably the mead). By Thule is no doubt meant the
Scandinavian peninsula, or rather the western coast of it. Pyteas also
tells of the land of amber, or the southern shores of the Baltic, where
the _guttones_ are dwelling. As the northern and southern shores of the
Baltic from the very earliest period seem to have been inhabited by
the same race which has shared the same development and civilization,
there is every reason to recognize the name _guttones_ as identical
with the one given to the inhabitants of the Swedish Gothaland and
Island of Gothland.
Several centuries pass without any notice of Scandinavia in the
classical literature. In the still preserved manuscripts of the
geographical work by Pomponius Mela, written in the middle of the
first century A.D., is found a reference to Codania, a large and
fertile island inhabited by Teutons. Codania is likely some scribe’s
misspelling of Scandinavia
Pliny the Elder, who himself visited the shores of the Baltic in
the first century after Christ, is the first to mention plainly the
name of Scandinavia. He says that he has received advices of immense
islands “recently discovered from Germany.” The most famous of the
many islands situated in the Codanian Bay was Scandinavia, of as yet
unexplored size; the known parts were inhabited by a people called
_hilleviones_, who gave it the name of another world. When he speaks
of the British isles, Pliny again gives notice of islands, situated
opposite Britain in the Teutonic Sea, without suspecting their identity
with Scandinavia. He mentions Scandia, Nerigon, the largest of them
all, and Thule. Scandia and Scandinavia are only different forms of the
same name, denoting the southernmost part of the peninsula, and is yet
preserved in the name of the province of Scania. Nerigon stands for
Norway, the northern part of which is mentioned as an island by the
name Thule. It is not surprising to find the classical writers ignorant
of the fact that Scandinavia was not a group of large islands, but one
great peninsula, as the northern parts were as yet uninhabited and
their physical connection with Finland and Russia unknown.
Tacitus is the first who mentions the Swedish name. In his work
“Germania,” of such great importance for the knowledge of the ancient
Teutons, their conditions and institutions, and written about 100 years
after Christ, the Baltic is described as an open sea called the Suevian
Sea, shut out from the west by the Danish mainland of Jutland, by the
Romans called the Cimbric Peninsula. The eastern shore is the country
of amber. The Swedes are by Tacitus called Suiones, and he speaks of
them thus:
“Next occur the communities of the Suiones, seated in the very sea,
who, besides their strength in men and arms, also possess a naval
force. The form of their vessels differs from ours in having a prow
at each end, so that they are always ready to advance. They make no
use of sails, nor have they regular benches of oars at the sides: they
row, as is practiced in some rivers, without order, sometimes on one
side, sometimes on the other, as occasion requires. These people honor
wealth; for which reason they are subject to monarchial government,
without any limitations or precarious conditions of allegiance. Nor
are arms allowed to be kept promiscuously, as among the other Teutonic
nations: but are committed to the charge of a keeper, and he, too,
a slave. The pretext is that the sea defends them from any sudden
incursions, and men unemployed, with arms in their hands, readily
become licentious. In fact, it is for the king’s interest not to
intrust a noble, a freeman, or even an emancipated slave, with the
custody of arms.”
These remarks by Tacitus, in all their brevity, are of great
importance. Boats, exactly corresponding to the description as given,
have been found in Swedish graves of this period, and that they were
used for river traffic, to bring the gold and products of Rome and
Byzantium up the Vistula and Oder, is evident. The great opulence
in dress and temple service of which the archæological finds bear
witness, and of which later writers also speak as characteristic of the
Swedes, is a proof of the wealth that at all times has attended naval
dominion. Thus far all the statements being fully corroborated, one
cannot but place great importance upon those that follow. The Roman
historian tells us that, on account of the honor which the Swedes held
for wealth, they were subject to a monarchial government, without any
limitations; that is, the crown was hereditary, not elective. This
coincides in every way with Swedish conditions of political affairs,
such as we know them from later times. The important conclusions to be
gathered from the statements of Tacitus, are that the Swedes already
at the dawn of the Christian era held the political supremacy in the
Scandinavian peninsula, or at least in its eastern and southern parts,
and that the various lesser communities stood in allegiance to the
hereditary king of the Sviar (Svear), or Swedes in a limited sense, the
inhabitants of Svealand.
The psychological conclusions made by Tacitus, on the basis of his own
statements, hold good of the Swedes of to-day as well as of those of
2,000 years ago. They still honor wealth and a monarchial government
and consider the sea their best defence against foreign foes.
Ptolemy, the Alexandrine geographer of the second century after Christ,
speaks of the Scandinavian islands, situated east of the Cimbrian
peninsula. The fourth and most easterly of these is the one originally
called Scandeia. He enumerates six tribes which inhabit it, the names
being unrecognizable, except the one of Gutai, Gauts or Goths, by him
for the first time mentioned as dwelling in Scandinavia.
To this information, gathered from classical authors, nothing is
added for the next four hundred years in regard to the countries of
the North. Only in the sixth century, when Rome has succumbed before
the Gothic invasions, and the Teutonic tribes have divided between
themselves the provinces of the West Roman empire, new information
about Sweden is given by a Byzantine author, Prokopios, a contemporary
of emperor Justinian. He mentions Scandinavia by the name Thule, and
says he bases his statements upon information obtained from people “who
come from there.”
Prokopios says that in the immense island of Thule, in the northern
part of which the midnight sun can be seen, thirteen large tribes
occupy its inhabitable parts, each tribe having its own king. One of
the largest tribes is the Gauts (the Gœtar, or the inhabitants of
Swedish Gothaland). These tribes very much resemble the people of
southern Europe, with the exception of the Skee Finns, who dress in
skins and live from the chase.
Prokopios tells a remarkable story about an immigration to Sweden of
Herulians, a Teutonic tribe closely connected to the Goths on the
Danube. In the beginning of the sixth century, it happened that the
Herulians, after an unsuccessful war with the Longobardians, were
divided into two branches, of which the one received land from the
emperor Anastasius south of the Danube, while the other made a resolve
to seek a home in the Scandinavian peninsula. When they had passed
the Slavs, they came to uninhabited regions, whence they continued
to the country of the Varinians, and later to that of the Danes. The
Danes granted them a free passage and the use of ships, in which they
crossed to the island of Thule. Here the Herulians went to the Gauts
and were well received by them. Some decades later the Herulians in
South Europe were in want of a king. They resolved to send messengers
to their kinsmen who had settled in Sweden, hoping that some descendant
of their old royal family might be found there who was willing to
assume the dignity of king among them. The messengers returned with
two brothers who belonged to the ancient family of rulers, and these
were escorted by two hundred young Herulians from Sweden. That this
immigration really took place there is no doubt. The district of Sweden
where these kinsmen of the Goths settled was early distinguished
from the surrounding ones, inhabited by the Gauts of Sweden, through
the peculiarities of its laws and customs, of which some survived
into the commencement of the nineteenth century. This district forms
the southern part of the province of Smaland, called Værend, its
inhabitants Virdar, and the adjoining province of Bleking.
The Gothic historian Jordanes, or Jornandes, called Master Ardan, who
was a contemporary of Prokopios, has taken upon himself to explain
the reason of the strange resolve of the Herulians to seek a home in
Sweden. He speaks of the traditions of the East Goths, which tell of
their descent from the people of the North. Similar traditions also
have existed among the West Goths, Longobardians, Gepidæ, Burgundians,
Herulians, Franks, Saxons, Swabians and Alemannians. Thus Jordanes: “In
the North there is a great ocean, and in this ocean there is a large
island called Scandza, out of whose loins our race burst forth like a
swarm of bees and spread over Europe.” The island of Scandza, he says,
has been _officina gentium_, _vagina nationum_--the source of races,
the mother of nations. And thence also the Goths have emigrated.
Material is lacking to prove the historical truth of the Teutonic
traditions which point to Scandinavia as the cradle of the Teutonic
tribes. But Jordanes, the first historian of Teutonic birth who speaks
of Scandinavia, stands at the cradle of Swedish history, and, as a
modern historian has expressed it, his shadow throws an umbrage across
the whole field of Swedish historical research. The mistake, based upon
Jordanes’ history, of identifying the Swedish Gauts with the Goths has
caused a great deal of mischief and ridiculous chauvinism, Gothic and
Swedish history and royal lines being mixed up or put in connection
with each other.
In leaving aside the Teutonic traditions of the island of Scandza, or
Scania, as the cradle of the race, let us quote a remark by Tacitus
which seems to point to the conclusion that such traditions were
current already in the first century of the Christian era: “I should
think that the Teutons themselves are aborigines, and not at all mixed
through immigrations or connections with non-Teutonic tribes. For those
desiring to change homes did not in early times come by land, but in
ships across the boundless and, so to speak, hostile ocean--a sea
seldom visited by ships from the Roman world.”
The Old English poem of Beowulf must also be mentioned among the
sources which throw light on early Swedish history. Whether the Geátas
of Beowulf are identical with the Jutes of Denmark, or with the Gauts
of Sweden, is a much disputed question. Although, phonetically, the
Old English name Geátas corresponds to the Old Swedish _Gautar_,
it seems most plausible to suppose that by this term is meant the
Jutes, and not the inhabitants of Swedish West or East Gothland. This
accepted, the poem does not contain much about the Swedes. But the
information, therein given, of the Swedish kings is of great value,
because it renders the service of a firm chronological support to the
facts gathered from another source. This source, of vastly greater
importance, is the Ynglinga Saga, or rather the poem around which it is
spun, in Heimskringla, of which more in the next chapter.
The first information of the religion practiced by the inhabitants of
Scandinavia is given by Prokopios, who says that they worshipped many
gods and spirits of the sky, air, earth, sea, and also some who were
supposed to dwell in springs and rivers. Offerings were constantly
made, the chief ones being of human beings, for which the first
prisoner made in a war was destined. This sacrifice was made to “Mars,”
who was the highest god. The statements of Prokopios without doubt
are correct. The Scandinavian war-god who corresponds to the Mars of
classical mythology was Tyr. Odin, originally the ruler of the wind,
became the highest god during the Viking Age. He is an aristocratic
god, the god of the select few, whose cult succeeded that of Tyr as the
cult of the latter had succeeded that of Thor, the thunderer, as the
highest god. The idea of a supreme God was probably unknown until the
contact with Christianity, or at least not common. Thor, the peasant
god, is probably the oldest of the gods of Teutonic mythology, the
representative of stern power and law-bound order. Thor was the most
popular god of the Swedes, to judge from the great number of ancient
Swedish proper names of which his forms a part. Besides Thor, Odin and
Frey were the most honored. All the other gods and goddesses mentioned
in Old Norse literature were probably known, but few of them much
worshipped in Sweden.