SOCIAL SCANDINAVIA IN CHAPTER I THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE The Dani and Sueones and the other peoples beyond Dania are called by the Frankish historians Normans, whilst however the Romans similarly call them Hyperboreans, of whom Martianus Capella speaks with much praise. . . . When one has passed beyond the islands of the Danes a new world opens in Sueonia and Nordmannia, which are two kingdoms of wide extent in the north, and hitherto almost unknown to our world. Of them the learned king of the Danes told me that Nordmannia can scarcely be traversed in a month, and Sueonia not easily in two. . . . On the borderland of the Sueones or Nordmanni on the north live the Scritefini, who are said to outrun the wild beasts in their running. Adam of Bremen. THE people of Scandinavian stock, during the surprising activity characterizing them from the close of the eighth century to the middle of the eleventh, Greater spread far beyond the limits of their early Scandinavia base in northwestern Europe. In the New World they established themselves on the west coast of Greenland, and for a brief period they abode upon the mainland of North America, in Vinland the Good; eastward, they extended their sway to the heart of the present Russia, and were not without influence even as far as Constantinople, where they formed the bodyguard of the Byzantine emperor; their movements towards the North Pole were arrested only by the barriers of the Arctic climate; in the balmier regions to the south they made many conquests, setting up victorious standards in Normandy on the French coast, in scores of places in the British Isles, in Sicily and Southern Italy, and they even threatened to gain a foothold in the Iberian Peninsula and Northern Africa, in which places for a short time they occupied territory.1 Such, broadly speaking, were the remotest frontiers of the ethnic empire of Greater Scandinavia, but with the geographic character of the whole of the territory within the boundaries indicated this chapter is not concerned, for non-Scandinavian peoples influenced to a considerable extent the manners and customs of the Northmen in the border population, though the latter often formed the ruling element. Hence, conditions here were less representative of Scandinavian culture than they were in the original swarming groundDenmark, Norway, and Sweden-and in Iceland, the first Scandinavian colony of the Viking Age. The population of these ancient lands was chiefly and fundamentally of Scandinavian blood, and the culture was primarily of Northern origin. Since these countries form the theatre in which took place the events producing and reflecting the social characteristics, a glance at their geography should make more comprehensible not only the Northern culture, but also the actors of the drama, the ancient Scandinavians themselves. The physical features of the units making up inner Scandinavia vary greatly. Denmark, composed of the attenuated peninsula of Jutland and a group Topography of scattered islands to the eastward, is,-except for the high, rocky island of Bornholm, forming the extreme eastern limit of the Danish archipelago,— rather flat and low-lying, and is marked here and there 1 The following works treat of the spread of the Northmen during the Viking period: Gjerset, History of the Norwegian People; Haskins, The Normans in European History; Hovgaard, Voyages of the Norsemen to America; Johnson, Normans in Europe; Kluchevsky, A History of Russia; Larson, Canute the Great; Mawrer, The Vikings; Nansen, In Northern Mists. by white chalky cliffs suggestive of the coasts of France and England. The great rocky peninsula lying northward shows a broad, gradual incline from the sea and gulf limiting it on the east to the crest of the Scandinavian Alps, at the west of which there is a short, rapid drop to the North Sea. In the rugged mountains on the broadest side of the water-shed, rise the long, crooked rivers which expand into the thousands of lakes characterizing the Swedish landscape. Here and there along the coast of Sweden are occasional good harbors, and beyond them are a few isolated islands, closely bound with the early history of the peninsular mainland. In Norway, on the steeper side of the mountain crest, scarcely a river worthy of the name exists. Instead, there are short, rapid, vestigial streams, often originating in the snow-fields and glaciers high up among the mountains and terminating in the countless cataracts and waterfalls which tumble madly over the lofty cliffs, contributing greatly to the majestic beauty of Norway's fiord-indented coast. These fiords, the sheer-walled "drowned valleys," which give the Norwegian coastline its peculiar character, are very deep, and range from one half mile to two miles in width. Many of the largest penetrate from fifty to a hundred miles into the heart of the peninsula. Near the mouths of the fiords, like sentinels guarding the mainland, stand groups of high, rocky islands. These are in long, narrow archipelagoes, and are especially numerous towards the north. With the arms of the sea thus beckoning to every part of the land and offering safe harbors for the mariner, and with the islands just beyond, to serve as stepping stones outward, it was inevitable that the Norwegians, in particular, should become a great sea-faring people. Iceland, on the other side of the North Sea, has, like Norway, a generally uneven shoreline, deeply scored by fiords. The coast of the island is, as a whole, fertile, and some productive valleys are found in the interior, but much of the surface is occupied by sand- and lava-deserts, snow-fields, and glacier-mantled mountains. Some of the mountain peaks are active volcanoes, from which, now and then in times past, have poured forth great rivers of lava, burying farms and homes, and permanently devastating large parts of the island. Hekla is the most famous of these, because of the violence of its eruptions, but Mount Askja is the largest. The volcanic character of Iceland explains the presence there of the numerous mud lakes, hot springs, and geysers, which have increased its attractiveness to modern tourists. Though much of inner Scandinavia lies close beneath the Arctic Circle, and all of it is well to the north of the parallel marking the southern limits of LabClimate rador, the climate of the region as a whole, thanks to the warm ocean- and air-currents from the equatorial belt, is much kindlier than that of the same latitude elsewhere in the world. This important advantage made possible the comparatively high degree of culture found in these far-northern lands a thousand years ago. The Scandinavia of the past and present is just as truly the result of these benevolent natural influences as Egypt is "the gift of the Nile." But distance from the Pole and elevation above sea-level, as well as other lesser agencies, have made the climate in some parts milder than in others. Southern Sweden and Denmark are cooler in summer and warmer in winter than the northern tier of American states in the Mississippi Valley. In fact, they have a climate very similar to the state of Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia. Iceland, on the other mers. hand, and the northern parts of Sweden and Norway have very severe winters, and here for many months there reigns almost continuous night, brightened only by the wan, slant rays of the low-circling sun-when it appears at all—and by the weird splendor of the iridescent aurora borealis. But there are compensations in the brief sumContinuous daylight then reigns in the Far North for several successive weeks; the sun dominates the earth during most of the hours in the twenty-four, scarcely interrupted by the brief, silvery nights formed by the union of twilight and dawn in an ethereal and mystical beauty— nights likely to inspire the visitor, at least for a brief space, with a feeling akin to reverence and awe. At this season the whole vegetable kingdom awakens and responds marvelously to the sun's enchantment. Plants grow with a speed scarcely exceeded in the tropics, and bloom and put forth mature fruit and seed before the deadening winter again closes down. Yet even the climate of Iceland has occasionally in modern times shown striking mildness; and the same variation was not unknown in the olden days, as is evident from the testimony of contemporary accounts, that one winter of the eleventh century was so moderate that it was possible to build houses and fences in January and February.2 On the other hand, these same ancient records state that in the middle of June of a certain year the snow was so deep and frozen so hard that the men of Iceland went a-foot to attend the summer session of parliament.3 A thousand years ago bogs and swamps were more numerous in Scandinavia than now, and the forests were thicker and more extensive. Most of the original fenand swamp-tracts, particularly those in Denmark and 2 Origines Islandicae, I, 270. 3 Ibid. |