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chariot drawn by cats. Freyja was said to have husband called Od, who
left her to weep tears of red gold at his disappearance. Skadi, the
wife of Njord, came from the mountains to marry the sea god. The
marriage was not a success, because neither was willing to live away
from home, and in the end Skadi went back to the hills, where she went
on skis and hunted with the bow. Bragi's wife was Idun, who had one
important part to play: she guarded the apples of immortality, on
which the gods feasted in order to keep their perpetual youth. Other
goddesses are little more than names. Thor's wife, Skif, had wonderful
golden hair. Balder's wife was Nanna, and Loki's Sigyn, while Gna and
Fulla are mentioned as servants of Frigg. There is also Gefion, to
whom unmarried girls went after death.
... do you want to know more?
The Luleå University has a web-site with more information at
.
[ the sections above are available at the www-page
http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/scn/faq241.html ]
2.4.7 Trolls and other beings
Except for the Gods, who haven't belonged to the Nordic reallity for
centuries, there are some other important beings:
_________________________________________________________________
brownie
Sw: tomte
Fi: tonttu
Sw: gårdbo
Da: nisse
Tomten is a shy, solitary and longlived human-like being, very bound
to the ground of his. Tomten regards the humans as temporary lodgers
in his domain. Tomtar are not known to reside in urban settings, but a
few less reliable reports say that Tomtar might dwell in the Woods as
well.
Tomten is known to form families, but very little is known about the
female tomte, Tomtemor. Tomte-children do not approach humans.
Although he is more keen on the animals than on the humans, his
guardiance can, if he is friendly disposed, be very valuable for the
humans too. In case of fire or other dangers he can take help by the
humans by alarming or wakening up the master of the house. A few less
reliable reports say that Tomtar might dwell in the Woods as well.
To show the tomte appropriate respect is very important. Otherwise he
would get averse and cause misfortune; and the humans could be forced
to move on. Misdeeds from children or negligent employees the tomte
might punish directly. The Nordic version of Sancta Claus is dressed
as a Tomte of human size.
For drawings of tomtar and trolls, you could for instance examine the
drawings by Hasse Bredenberg at
.
_________________________________________________________________
vättar
Vättar are smallish guardians, maybe distantly related to the tomte.
landvättar
Families living under stones, in the ground, guarding a wood, an
island or certain places. They dislike foreigners but are in principle
friendly.
Sw: gårdsvättar
Fi: maahinen
Families living under dwelling-houses or maybe beneath the stable.
Vättar like cleanliness, order and warmth. They are said to move from
a house if abandoned by the people and thereby made cold, but they
might also get angered if rainwater or sink-water leak in to their
dwelling.
When provoked they might cause illness, particularly among the
children.
_________________________________________________________________
dwarfs
Sw: dvärgar
Fi: kääpiö
Dwarfs are social human-like male beings of asexual generation, living
in mountains and mines. They are very fond of metals and beautiful
stones, and can get hostile when disturbed or robbed. It's dubious if
they are seen in recent years.
_________________________________________________________________
gnomes
Gnomes are smallish men who mostly dwells on the European continent
and only rarely visit our northern latitudes. The gnome travels alone
through the earth as fishes swim through water. He guards the
treasures hidden in the earth and mountains.
_________________________________________________________________
rulers
It's unclear whether Huldra, Vittra and Näcken are to group together
or not, but they seem all somehow to support the Nature and its
animals against the dangerous humans.
No: huldra
Sw: skogsrå
Fi: metsänhaltija
Huldror and skogsrån (wood nymphs) are solitary female beings of
extreme beauty, but without a spine (being "empty" in the back).
Skogsrå do mostly approach hunters, probably to defend the animals or
the wood from the sufferings caused by human hands.
The hunter falls in love and forgets his duties toward wife and
family. He can also get allured astray or into a fog and die in the
wood he thought he knew so well.
vittra
Vittror are female invisible beings, probably solitary. Maybe
smallish. Dwelling in Norrland, in the high woods and on the fjeld.
Often with dwellings under earth, but also in abandoned human chalets.
Vittror are experts in milking, getting fatter and more abundant milk
both from own (invisible) cattle and from the humans' cows and goats.
Vittror can be heard sometimes when they milk or when they call for
their cattle. And the bell of their leading cow might be heard too.
The vittror do however not normally seek human company.
It is unclear whether they rule over the fjeld and its woods like the
skogsrå rules over the grand woods. But it is probable.
Sw: Näcken
Fi: Näkki
Sw: Strömkarlen
Sw: Bäckakarlen
Näcken is a very attractive man-like fiddle player or singer.
Appearing at rivers and in waterfalls. He is fond of women, who
sometimes are found drowned at places where he appears. Näcken is said
to dislike clothes.
_________________________________________________________________
follower
fylgja
In old times powerful men were often accompanied by an invisible
animal, fitting to their personality, as for instance a bear or a
bull. The fylgja followed the person throughout life, and they died
together. Occasionally the fylgja might be seen by others, but by the
owner only at the end of his life.
family-fylgja
Some families also had a family-fylgja: a female being who followed
the head of the family, and when he died turned to the heir. She could
assist in battles, and in general cause problems for enemies.
People with a powerful family-fylgja had much luck, and were therefore
often elected as leaders for a village, a ship or a province.
_________________________________________________________________
elfs
Elfs are little known beings who originally were closely related to
the goods. Signs suggest that they in later times have interbred with
the hidden people of the vittror.
alver
Alver are human-like beings of both sexes. They often get very old and
wise but they never look really old. They live their life with minimal
contacts with humans, why we know very little about alver of today.
Sometimes they change infants with humans, with the sad consequence
that the human family gets a very gifted child which however has less
of solidarity with its relatives than one could expect.
In old times people used to sacrifice to the alver. Nowadays this
custom is forgotten, but we guess that such rites could improve the
harvest, the fertility of the cattle or the health of the family.
Sw: älvor
Fi: keiju
fairies
Fairies are beautiful female beings, usually invisible but sometimes
with visible veils. They are fond of pleasures and beauty, and also
very enjoyable to meet. Sometimes they dance, sometimes they sing or
giggle. Often shy for humans. They can be seen or heard at some
distance, but use to disappear, or become invisible, when humans
approach. They dislike to be disturbed, but might fall in love with
beautiful men, and can then be very persistent.
Fairies are rather young - or at least do they behave like
light-hearted teenage girls. Open meadows, shallow tarns and sheltered
water mirrors can sometimes attract great parties of fairies.
_________________________________________________________________
norns
Norns are female beings who at birth determine the fate of the
newborn. The best known has the name Verðandi.
valkyrior
valkyrias
Valkyrias are probably a kind of norns who is responsible for the
collection of the warriors whos time it is to die. One is known under
the name Skuld (of the same root as in "shall").
dis
A dis is a nowadays almost forgotten female being, related to norns
and valkyrias, with the power to protect against ones enemies. In old
times death in late winter was explained by insufficient sacrifice to
the dises. These sacrifices took place at midwinter time or at fall.
_________________________________________________________________
troll
Fi: peikko
No: troll
Sw: troll
Da: troll
Trolls are human-like beings living in families or clans in for
instance woods, mountains and hillocks. Some trolls live in
pre-Christian graves after great kings and chieftains. They are very
interested in jewelry in general and gold, silver and beautiful stones
in particular.
Trolls usually get very old, but not even as young they are
particularly beautiful. Trolls are fertile, but they fancy young
beautiful women and infants seemingly hoping for offspring less ugly
than they are themselves. Human women, and rarely young handsome men,
have now and then been captured. Except for sexual services the humans
have had hard labor as the foreigners they are, and their life at the
trolls is said to be full of sufferings. Trolls don't seem to
understand that humans are not as strong and endurant as they are
themselves.
When trolls rob infants from their mother they usually leave an own
infant, a changeling, in exchange. the changeling has however a hard
time to follow human morals, and is not rarely quite stupid.
For views of trolls you could for instance examine the drawings at
.
_________________________________________________________________
giants
risar
Sw: jättar
Fi: jättiläinen
Giants dwell in caves, mountains and deep woods. Often in harsh
landscape were humans can not survive for longer times. Giants are
said to be insensitive for ice and snow.
Some people (Mots 1984) believe the giants and the trolls to have been
the Gods of the pre-Germanic population.
_________________________________________________________________
ghosts
Sw: gengångare
Fi: haamu
Sw: vålnad
Fi: aave
(Fi: kummitus)
Sw: spöke
ghosts
Deceased persons who live on after death have usually committed an
evil deed in their lifetime. They cause illness, insanity and death.
In medieval times the law punished production of ghosts (i.e. people
who disturbed the dead).
mara
The mara is a female being who likes riding horses in their stable,
and humans in their house, causing unrest, anguish, fear, bad dreams
and feeling of suffocating. The mara is maybe the ghost of an
unfortunate woman who died as a unsatisfied virgin.
[ the sections above are available at the www-page
http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/scn/faq247.html ]
------------------------------
Subject: 2.5 Introduction to the History of Norden
...etcetera, etcetera...
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, as the ice-cap already for
long had continued its slow and irregular retraction up to the North,
Europe was inhabited by mammoths, bears, bisons, reindeers and woolly
rhinos.
...and some hunting families of humans.
The first recognizable event was when a culture in southwestern Europe
seems to have concentrated very much on the reindeers. In the cave
paintings in France and Spain from over 15'000 years ago we can see
the people knew how to use bows and arrows.
After year 9'000 B.C. the climate of Europe changed, and the reindeers
came to remain only in the farthest North, along the ice-cap which
still covered what today is Finland, Norway and the most of Sweden
in-between. Also Scotland had for long time a glacier remnant of the
ice-cap.
The Creator hadn't yet constructed the Danish straits or the English
Channel, and hence there was land connection from Scotland and the
Scandinavian ice-border in Västergötland all the way to the Ural
mountains and beyond.
Most of Europe passed on to the Middle Stone Age (marked for instance
by the invention of saws); in the fertile crescent along River Tigris,
and along the Palestinian coast, crops began to be planted and sown.
As we all know, the Agrarian Revolution in the fertile crescent came
in due time to lead forward to
* domestication of goats, sheep, pigs & cattle
* knowledge to polish the stone tools
* knowledge to produce fired pottery
...and later:
* usage of slash-and-burn (or wood burning) technique
And this latter technique came to be spread from the Black Sea along
River Danube, through Central Europe almost to the coast of
present-day Holland, Germany & Poland. The people utilizing the wood
burning technique could populate the land much more densely than their
hunting and gathering neighbors, thus it is commonly believed that the
migration of the slash-and-burn knowledge represents a real migration
and propagation of a wood-burning people.
These migrants are commonly acknowledged as Indo-Europeans. At the
border of their expanding culture some of the neolithic novelties got
adopted: hence, pottery and polished stone tools were used by the
pre-neolithic cultures along the North Sea and along the southernmost
Baltic shores, as among the Ertebølle folk of Denmark. That's how our
forefathers learned to polish stone tools and to fire pottery
approximately 4,500 B.C.
At this time the coast- and lake-region of Finland was inhabited by
nomadic people using Russian flint-stone, pottery and polished stone
tools.
Two thousand years later the Indo-European culture had made further
progress, approximately to the River Vistula in North-East and in
Scandinavia to the River Dalälven and up along most of the Norwegian
coast.
Meanwhile, high cultures with towns and irrigation had emerged in
Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Indus valley.
Then, around year 2,000 B.C. the know-how of copper-working (which for
thousands of years only slowly had expanded from Turkey and the
fertile crescent) now in a high speed became known in all of the world
inhabited by Indo-Europeans. And Indo-European cultures seem to have
expanded from River Vistula all the way up to Gulf of Finland and
River Volga. Grain and cattle became a complement to hunting for
people living along the waters.
(This was, by the way, the time of the Palace Culture of Crete.)
For the following years, 2,000 B.C. - 200 B.C., the map of cultures in
Northern Europe looks almost static:
* In the North there are proto-Sámis hunting and moving all the way
from the Ural mountains to the Norwegian coast.
* From Gulf of Finland to River Volga there are proto-Finns,
* and south of them Indo-European Balts and Slavs.
* Denmark, Pomerania and the south-western Scandinavian peninsula
were inhabited by proto-Germanic people.
* In the South the domain of the Celts was south of River Elbe,
stretching to the Pyrenées, to the Mediterranean and over the Alps
and the Carpats.
(Despite important ideas continue to spread in the same well known
South-East to North-West direction.)
Bronze working was learned by the Slavs, the Balts, the Germanics, the
Estonian Finns and the Sámis around year 1,500 B.C.
Then around year 1,000 B.C. the new technique of iron-working had
begun to expand out of its original area in Turkey. A process mirrored
in the tales from ancient Greece and in the Old Testament of the
Bible. And the Aryans conquered the Indus valley.
It came, however, to last until year 500 B.C. till this knowledge
reached beyond the Celts' northern border.
The times were turbulent east of the Mediterranean. In the 9th
century B.C. the Assyrians flourished with trade and genocide. Around
year 600 B.C. Egypt falls for Assyria, then Assyria falls for Persia
constituting a realm from Indus to Italy, where they were stooped by
Etruscs and Cartagians. Monotheism is advocated by Zaratustra in
Persia, and by the Prophet Jesaia (the second), during the 6th
century B.C.
During the 4th century Alexander the Great conquers Persia, and then,
after his death, his realm is split in several large parts, whereafter
Rome starts to expand.
Then the Germanic culture began a slow expansion in southern
direction: At year 100 B.C. the woods of Central Europe were home to
both several Germanic tribes as well as to Celtic tribes, but in the
North the Germanics dominated from Trondheim and Åland to the plains
between River Rhine and River Neiße.
The Roman Empire expanded through France; the Celtic area diminished
and disappeared, and Germanic peoples became a major hassle for the
Roman Army. The solution was in the long run that Germanic men came to
take over the administration of the Empire and its armies at the same
time as the Germanics were Romanized in culture, beliefs and language.
As the Celts' dominance over Western Europe dissolved, the influences
from the Mediterranean region again reached the Baltic Sea and
Scandinavia. Trade with the Roman Empire increased, and might have
contributed to the peculiar phase of the European history called the
Migration Period when Germanic tribes and Asian tribes came to move
around on the European continent.
But before that the Slavs had started to expand. First in the East,
along the River Dnieper, at the expense of the Balts, and then to the
River Don and to upper River Volga.
Around the turn of millennium, good iron was produced at the
Oslo-fjord in southern Norway; at the same time, some important
Germanic tribes inhabited the coasts of North Sea and the Baltic Sea,
and the shores of the rivers:
* Gepids around River Vistula
* Goth around River Oder
* Burgundians further south between the rivers Oder & Vistula
* Marcomanni further south, around the upper River Elbe
* Frisians at the North Sea coast between the rivers Elbe and Rhine
Then, around year A.D. 200, the Goths and the Gepids moved down from
the coast, through (?) the Burgundian area, toward River Danube. The
Goths expanded over River Volga to River Don.
Concurrently the Norsemen increased in number also in the very
Scandinavia, expanding along the water routes between Norway and
Jutland.
Jutland was the richest territory as that was the key position from
where all Scandinavian and Baltic trade to and from Rome and the Rhine
valley could be controlled. The people on Gotland, the Guthes (Gutar),
dominated the Baltic sea and its trade. [ We are not(!) taking any
stand in the discussion whether Jutes, Guthes and Goths are
etymologically equivalents. In any case: these people came to inhabit
different areas and to constitute different peoples. ]
The Goths were split in a lesser part, the Visigoths, who later came
to create a kingdom on the Iberian peninsula, and the Ostrogoths who
for a long time came to dominate all of the land between River Don and
River Oder.
Beside the Goths and the Norsemen there existed more than a dozen of
distinguishable Germanic tribes:
* Jutes and Angles on Jutland
* Frisians, Franks, Burgundians and Allemans on the eastern side of
River Rhine
* Saxons, Thuringians, Lombards and Marcomanni on both sides of
River Elbe
* Vandals, Rugians, Gepids and Visigoths north of River Danube
During early 4th century the Goths were Christianized, and from
A.D. 325 the Bible is translated to Gothic. The Goths were however
Arian Christians, and not Catholics as the Franks would become.
Then the Huns came from the East, defeating almost any enemy. In the
370s the Ostrogoths and soon also the Visigoths started a great move.
The Visigoths went through Greece, along the Adriatic Coast to Naples
and Rome and further to Spain where they defeated the Vandals (who had
arrived five years before). The Vandals moved on to what today is
Libya.
As the Ostrogoths and the Huns had moved on, it turned out that the
Slavs popped up as the successors after the abdicated Ostrogothian
lords. While the Baltic languages and culture almost disappeared, the
Slavic area now greatly increased. After the Huns are defeated, Slavic
tribes are identified along the southern Baltic shore, in all of the
area east of River Elbe and (beside Magyars) in the area east of the
Alps.
Examples of these nowadays almost forgotten names are:
Finnic tribes:
* Karelians at lake Ladoga and further north
* Votes at river Narva
* Estonians in present day Estonia
* Livonians at Gulf of Riga
Baltic tribes:
* Curonians (as in Curland/Kurland) at Gulf of Riga
* Lithuanians at the rivers Neman & Dvina
* Notangians at river Pregola
* Prussians at, and east of, River Vistula
(had migrated from the Neman/Dvina area circa 200 A.D.)
* (other Baltic tribes there around had names as
Jotwings/Jatvingians, Lettigallians, Notangians, Samen, Schalauer,
Schamaiten, Selens & Semigallians)
Slavic tribes:
* Novgorods in North-East, at Lake Ilmen.
* Pomeranians between the Rivers Oder & Vistula
* Poles around River Warta (between Vistula & Oder) (actually they
were sooner half a dozen of tribes, united around year 1.000 A.D.
with names as Polanes, Vislanes, Slenzanes, Opolinis and others)
* Wends/Sorbs around the rivers Neiße & Saale (between upper Oder &
Elbe)
* Abodritic/Obodritic tribes at the Baltic coast (between lower Oder
& Elbe)
* Czech tribes south of the Sudeten mountains
* Daleminci at River Elbe in present day Saxony.
During the 6th century the Gutar from Gotland island established
colonies at the eastern shore of the Baltic sea, for instance at the
estuary of River Dvina. Later, in the 9th century, Curland/Courland
was conquered by Swedish Vikings.
In western Europe the Franks conquered all the land from River Rhine
to the Pyrenées; the Angles and a lot of Jutes and Saxons conquered
England; and the Langobards came to conquer the Ostrogothian realm in
today's Yugoslavia and Italy.
In eastern Scandinavia, the Uppland region north of Lake Mälaren
(Roslagen - the Rus people) increased its dominance. ...a dominance
which has been held ever since. Gutar, Götar, Finns and Sámis
constitute contemporary cultures.
In southern Scandinavia the Danes dominated. Saxo Grammaticus tells,
if we ought to confide in his tales, that Saxonians and Slavs from
time to time paid tributes to Danish kings. According to Saxo also
Scania, Gotland, Värmland, Jämtland and Hälsingland in present-day
Sweden were lands of the Danes, although usually not under a common
king.
Then, during the 8th century Muslims conquered the Germanic realms on
Africa's northern coast and on the Iberian peninsula. Left was the
region of Franks, which after a split in the 9th century came to
constitute the states of France and Germany.
At this time trade through Russia to the muslim Persia became
important. The Russian waterways are dominated by Svear and Gutar
(Svenonians and Guths) called Varyagi or Varangians by the Slavs, and
according to written sources present at the Sea of Azov in 739 A.D.
The castles in Russia evolve to separate kingdoms and get
Christianized.
With Christianity (if not before) Germanic lords began to conquer many
lands inhabited by Slavs, Balts and Estonians/Finns claiming supremacy
- but as constituting a minute minority often soon assimilated.
...but with the arrival of Christian religion, the prehistoric era
ends, and so does this tale.
[ the sections above are available at the www-page
http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/scn/faq25a.html ]
2.5.1 Norden in prehistoric times
Ice has covered almost all of Norden most of the last 500,000 years.
Exceptionally there have been four inter glacial periods, each
extending 10,000-15,000 years. The latest period of ice-withdrawal
started some 13,000 years ago. (And hence we can expect most of Norden
to again become covered with ice within some 2,000 years.)
The pre-history of Norden literally starts when the ice withdrew. Very
little has been found from earlier interglacial periods. (Actually a
piece of south eastern Jutland never got covered by the ice during the
last ice-time, and there traces of human living have been found and
dated to an approximate age of a hundred thousand years - but that was
The Exception until a recent finding of a cave in Finland used as a
human dwelling some 100,000 years ago.) Iceland seems not to have been
populated before Viking time - but mind you! The first colonizer then
arrived from Ireland and not from Scandinavia.
13,000 years ago hunting and fishing people left traces along rivers
and lakes in Denmark and Scania. And from around 8,000 B.C. hunters
have dwelled also in western and northern Scandinavia; and in Finland
which started to pop up through the sea.
Up to this time there had been a continuous land connection from
Britain to Scania, but now (5,500 B.C.) Norden develops into a huge
archipelago. Finland emerged as the archipelago on the coast of
northern Russia and keeps culturally connected with Russia.
Like-wisely Denmark and the southern Scandinavian peninsula keeps
connected with western and central Europe. Along the coast of Norway
hunters persist more or less isolated.
Around 5,000 B.C. pottery came into use, indicating new methods to
store food (Ertebølle culture); and marks of wheat in the pottery
suggest the beginning of agriculture, however established archaeology
defines the Ertebølle culture as a hunter/gatherer culture which came
to persist for centuries beside the agricultural villages of the
Pit-pottery (trattbägar) culture.
Agriculture is believed to have reached Denmark and the southern
Scandinavian peninsula approximately 4,200 B.C. with wood-burning
technique, wheat, barley, sheep, goats, pigs and cows. [ This, and
many other datings, is disputed. A recent Danish scholarly work says
4,000 B.C. while a recent Swedish work says agriculture was introduced
in southernmost Scandinavia around 3,000 B.C. ]
The megalithe graves are the most visible trace of our prehistoric
ancestors, erected 3,700-2,300 B.C. in Denmark and on the southern
Scandinavian peninsula. During this period of over a thousand years
the agricultural megalithe societies seem to have co-existed with
coastal hunters and fishers; obvious at least in Denmark, Scania,
along the Swedish west coast, and at lake Mälaren west of Stockholm.
These hunters/fishers stood in contact with Gotland and Eastern
Europe, agriculture was not entirely unknown to them and they had
domesticated swine. In other words: It is important not to take these
classifications and datings too literally. [ A large recent Swedish
work dates the megalithe graves to 2,500-1,500 B.C. ]
Agriculture was introduced along the fjords of southern Norway about
year 2,500 B.C. At the same time a new mode for burying was introduced
in southern Scandinavia and southern Finland. Unburned corpses in
sleeping position, always followed by the battle-axe, and without
stones or similar signs on the ground above. The battle-axe culture
followed rivers and lakes, where before the Ertebølle and the
Pit-pottery people had dwelled.
We do not take a position in the dispute whether a change of pottery
type or burying technique indicate a migration of people or only of
ideas.
The battle-axes of stone were initially made after the model of bronze
axes, very true imitation indeed including the seam of the mould in
which the bronze axe was cast. The agricultural districts preserved
their megalithe culture for some time, and then it seems as the
cultures merged. It is believed that this change in the archaeological
findings more likely represents a true immigration of people instead
of a diffusion of ideas and beliefs. If so, it also seems plausible
that horses and the wheel were introduced by these battle-axe people.
Around year 2,000 B.C. trade increased. Copper and bronze items
followed dead chieftains into their graves. With increasing trade it
didn't last long until bronze (the alloy of copper and tin) was
produced in Denmark and on the Scandinavian peninsula. The metals
themselves must however be imported. In exchange for the imported
copper and tin export of amber and furs and maybe slaves must be
assumed.
The Bronze age is dated to the years 1,800-500 B.C. in Denmark, and
1,500-500 B.C. in Sweden and Finland. Bronze age did barely reach
Norway or the central parts of Scandinavia and Finland, where the life
seems to have continued as before.
2.5.2 Iron Age
Around year 100 B.C. Lombards are believed to have migrated from
Scania to Jutland and then further to the area of lower River Elbe,
from where they attacked Roman Provinces for the following hundreds of
years, ...until it was time for the great re-settlement of the
Migration Period. The Lombards finally came to find a warmer sun in
Lombardy in Italy.
Western Scandinavia 3rd to 5th century
Around the turn of millennium, good iron was produced at the
Oslo-fjord in southern Norway. During the 3rd century A.D. the Iron
Age Culture begins to spread from the Oslo fjord region, expanding
along the water routes between Norway and Jutland. (Some scholars
propose that a tribe with good knowledge of Iron-making thus gained
military advantages and expanded to the south from the Oslo-fjord
area. Basing their theories on place names, some even propose that
these were the Danes, and that the Danes finally reached to
present-day Svealand in their expansion along the Baltic Sea. In late
5th century the Lake Mälaren region was reported to be subordinate to
Danish kings.)
In any case: at the 5th century it seems as the area from Southern
Norway to Jutland is dominated by related tribes, the "Danes"
- the flatlanders.
Eastern Scandinavia 5th to 8th century
In late 5th century the Lake Mälaren region was reported to be
subordinate to Danish kings, but then Svenonians (Svear) emerge as
dominating tribe north of Lake Mälaren. Guths (Gutar on Gotland),
Goths (Götar west and south of Lake Mälaren), Finns (in the East) and
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