L. The Scandinavian Community, t: Diversity and Unity (1 )o ,^o r* ouR AccouNT oF THE scANDTNAVTAN pEopLEs we have assumed that despite a threefold division inro Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, and the internal division ofeach ofthese into tribes and regions, with a more or less constant pattern of neighbourly aggression, dynastic struggle, extra-territbrial con- quest, and folk migration--despite these things we have assumed that Scandinavia is an entity and have talked ofit as such. Before proceeding with the political history of the peoples we had better ask ourselves why. First there is the geographical position ofthe three countries in the north ofEurope. They are grouped together, it is true; but the grouping is less neighbourly than that of the countries of the British Isles, or the city states of Italy. The old Cimbric peninsula, modern Jutland, is an extension of the north German pliin, and a long run of wars from the beginning of the ninth ceniury to the middle of the twentieth has failed to draw what nature left undrawn, a definitive frontier. The flat and Grtile countryside of the Danish isles from Fyn to Z,ealand, of Bornholm, and Skine in Sweden, has more in common with lands south of the Fehmarn Belt and the Baltic than with Norway and Swedish Norrland. On the peninsula itse[ the upturned keel of mountains running south from Finn- mark almost to Stavanger and Vdrmland made vast areas ofeastern and western Scandinavia almost inaccessible to each other through- out the Middle Ages.l Eastwards there is no natural division r The two best lines of land communication between Norway and Sweden vere the Trondheim qap and the area south of Lake Miosa. There are two well-known accounts oTth. hardships to be encountered frtm both natives and 60 A Hittorl of tbe Vikingt between Sweden and Finland: the chief virtue of the Muonio and Torne rivers as a frontier is that they happen to flow into the head of the Gulf of Bothnia. It is arsuable that in terms of mass the Scandinavian peninsula withoui Denmark but with the Kola peninsula and ihe territory west of a line drawn from the head of kandalaks Bay to the head of the Gulf of Finland would be more coherent and-form a more logical entitY than the three-nationed Scandinavia we know. But logil counts for little in the affairs ofmen, and it is unlikely that a grouping of Baltic nations rather than Scandinavian -o,tld ht,r" piesented"the medieval world or posterity with a tidier or more geniil spectacle. And if there is little obviously compulsive to unity-in thJ geographical situation of the viking nations, neither is the nature of theircountries notably similar. The following account of how it looked to a near contemporary is taken from Saxo's Prelace to his Danish History, written shortly after the year I2OO. The extremes, then, of this country [Denmark] are partly bounded by a frontier ofanother land, and partly enclosed by the waters ofthe adlacent sea. The interior is washed and encompassed by the Ocean; and this, through the circuitous winds of the interstices, now straitens into thJnarrows of a firth, now advances into ampler bays, forming a number of islands. Hence Denmark is cut in pieces by the intervening waves of ocean, and has but Gw portions of firm and continuouJterritory; these being divided by the mass ofwaters that break them up, in ways varying with the different angle ofthebend ofthe sea. Ofill theseJutland, being the largest and first settled, holds the chief place in the Danish kinsdom. It both lies foremost and stretches iurthest, reaching to th"e frontiers of Teutonland, from contact rvith which it is severed by the bed of the river Eyder. Northwards it swells somewhat in breadth, and runs out to the shore of the Noric Channel [Skagerrak]. In this part is to be found the terrain on the southern route from Norway by way ofEid forest to Sweden' The first is in Egiii Saga, To-6, the second is the Austtfararnisar, or.Easrern Verses,"o[ the poet Sighvat Thordarson, preserved in 0ltifs Saga "Helga,7rJourney and 79. Sighvai was zeitfully appreciative ofhis experiences, whiih incfitied blistiis, s&es, weariness, hung.r, inhospitality, and heathendom' Egill, whose sense of humour was more formidable, made a troll-like journey through the great snows, and suflered cold, hunger, ambush, and perfidy. Both lccountJare literary set-pieces, beautifully done, and to be taken with a grain ofsalt. ' MAI' I. VIKING SCANDINAVIA \- 6z A History of tbe vikingt The Scand.inapian CommunitJ, I 6l ljord called Lim, which is so full of yield fish that ir seems to the betveen Gandvik and the Southern Sea there lies a short span of nalives as much food as the whole soil . mainland, facing the seas thar,*'ash on either shore; and but that Eastwards, after comes the Isle of Funen Jutland, fFynl, cut off nature had set this as a boundary where the billows almost meet, the from the mainland by a very narrow sound of sea. Thii 6cei Jurland tides of the two seas would have flowed into one, and cut offSweden on the lffesr) and on ih. .ari Zealand, which is famed for its iemark- and Norway into an island. The regions on the east of these lands are able richness in rhe necessaries of liG. This latter island, being*heli by far inhabited by the Skrit-Finns This people is used to an the most delightful of [Lapps]. all the provinces of our country, is to exrraordinary kind of carriage sledge? the Lappish akia?] and o:cupy the hearr ofDenmark, [ski? being divided by equal distances from in its passion for the chase strives to climb untrodden mountains, rhe extreme frontier; on its eastern side the sia breaks through and and attains the coveted ground ar the cost of a slippery circuit. For cuts offthe western side of Skaane; and sea this commonly"vields no crag juts out so high, but they can reach its crest by fetching a each. year an abundant haul to the nets of the fishers. Indied, the cunning compass. For when they first leave the deep valleys, they wh.ole sound is apr to be so thronged with fish that any craft which g.lide twisring and circling among.the bases of the-rocks, thus making strikes on them is with difficulty got off by hard rowing, and the ihe route very roundabout by dint of continually swerving aside, prize is captured no longer by'ta"ckle, bui by simple iie of the until, passing along the winding curves of the tracks, they conquer hands . the appointed summit. This same people is wont to use the skins of But since this country, by irs closeness oflanguage as much as of certain beasts for merchandise with its neighbours. position, includes Sweden and Norway, I will rJcorl their divisions Now Sweden faces Denmark and Norway on the west, but on the and their climates also as I have those bf Denmark. These territories. south and on much ofits eastern side it is skirted by the ocean. Past lying under the norrhern pole, and facing Bocires and the Great Bear, this eastward is to be found a vast accumulation of motley barbarism.l reach with their urmost ou_tlying parrs the latirude of the freezing zone; and bgyond these the extraordinary sharpness of the colJ suffers not human habitation, Of, these t*o, Nor*ay has been Three comments seem called for. In terms of human geography allotted.by 'Craggy the choice of nature a forbidding rocky site. and the Scandinavian axis lies north-south fuhysically it is nearer barren, it is beset all around by cliffs, and tlie hugi desolate b'Juld.., north-east by south-west). The more fertile and level ar€as are all give.it aspect the ofa rugged ind a gloomy landiin its furthest part in the south, most abundantly in Denmark and the Swedish the.day+tar ii not hidden by lven nifht; so rhat t-he sun, scorning the provinces south of Uppsala, in Bornholm, Oland, and Gotland, but vicissitudes ofday and night, ministers in unbroken presence an e*qual also on both sides ofthe Oslofjord and from there round the sea's share of hls radiance to either season . edge to Stavanger, and by way ofthe greatfjords northu/ards to the And now to unfold somevhar more thoroughly our delineation of moun- Norway. It should be known rhat on the eastlr ii coterminous with Trondelag. The northern half of the peninsula is generally Sweden and Gothland, and is bounded on both sides by rhe waters tainous, often inhospitable, and cold. Distances are formidable. It is ofthe neigh.bouring ocean. Also on the north it faces a rlgion whose salutary to be reminded in Malmtj that one is nearer as the crow position and name are unknown, and which lacks all civilLation, but flies to Turkey than to the North Cape, and in Oslo that Rome is teems with peoples.of-monstrous strangeness; and a vast interspace of more accessible than Kirkenes. The coastline of Nor'ilay, not flovingsea severs it from rhe portionlf Norway opposite. This sea counting fjords and bays, is more than r,6oo miles long. Denmark is found hazardous for navigition, and sufferi few thar venture begins at r.JioN., and Norwayends at c.7roN. Such greatdistances, thereon to return in peace. I is. Oliver Elton, but have Moreover, the upper bend of rhe ocean [i.e. the Baltic and the Getta Datnrum: Prelace (the translation by I inlormation of an allied Gulf of Bothnia], vhich cuts through Denmark and flows past it, emended some of the proper names).