History of Scandinavia

THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE HI S T KY o F SCANDINAVIA. HISTOEY OF SCANDINAVIA. gxm tilt €mI% f iiius NORSEMEN AND YIKINGS TO THE PRESENT DAY. BY THE EEV. PAUL C. SINDOG, OF COPENHAGEN. professor of t^e Scanlimafaian fLanguagts anD iLifnaturr, IN THE UNIVERSITY OF THE CITY OF NEW-YORK. Nonforte ac temere humana negotia aguntur atque volvuntur.—Curtius. SECOND EDITION. NEW-YORK: PUDNEY & RUSSELL, PUBLISHERS. 1859. Entered aceordinfj to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, By the rev. PAUL C. SIN DING, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern Distriftt of New-York. TO JAMES LENOX, ESQ., OF THE CUT OF NEW-TOBK, ^ht "^nu of "^ttttxs, THE CHIIISTIAN- GENTLEMAN, AND THE STRANGER'S FRIEND, THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, BY THE AUTHOR PREFACE. Although soon after my arrival in the city of New-York, about two years ago, learning by experience, what already long had been known to me, the great attention the enlightened popu- lation of the United States pay to science and the arts, and that they admit that unquestion- able truth, that the very best blessings are the intellectual, I was, however, soon . aware, that Scandinavian affairs were too little known in this country. Induced by that ardent patriotism peculiar to the Norsemen, I immediately re- solved, as far as it lay in my power, to throw some light upon this, here, almost terra incog- nita, and compose a brief History of Scandinavia, which once was the arbiter of the European sycjtem, and by which America, in reality, had been discovered as much as upwards of five Vlll PREFACE centuries before Columbus reached St. Salvador or Guanahany; without therefore saying that the few traditions about the Western hemisphere, very likely existing in the time of Columbus, have eclipsed that splendor which never will cease to invest the name of this unexampled discoverer. The value of history being too generally appre- ciated to require any comment, I submit, to the forbearing criticism of the American public, this my essay of making the Scandinavian countries, especially Denmark, my fatherland, better known in the United States than before has been the case. Notwithstanding this composition has been a " labor of love," it has, on account of the want of sufficient literary sources, and of a thorough familiarity with the English language, for the stiffness of which I have to ask a kind forbearance, by no means been a short and facile undertaking, but has occupied my whole days and evenings for a long space of time. Nev- ertheless, should the present work, which I only offer as an introduction, be found calculated to promote even a little interest here for the valuable history of the North, my desire and purposes will be fully realized, and the great PREFACE. IX difficulties under which I have lahored, richly- rewarded. May the Great Ruler of the Universe, who has borne me in safety across the ocean, abun- dantly pour blessings down upon each country that loves Him and the power of the atoning blood of His son ; and allow me to express this wish especially 4br the kingdom of Denmark, where I have learned to prize knowledge above rubies, and left dear remembrances, never to be forgotten. THE AUTHOR. New-York, August 1st, 1858. ; REV. PAUL C. BINDING. My Dear Sir : The Scandinavian peninsulas—one hanging down from the mys- terious North, the other jutting forth from the central mass of civilized Europe, to meet its comrade—are emblematic (in their geographical position) of the twofold historic interest with which they are clothed. While the legendary period of other peoples occupies a place subordinate to their clearer history, Scandinavia calls up before us, witli equal power, the mist-robed Odin and the mail-clad Yasa. The strange adventures amid Northern seas, in a primitive age, are as prominent as the leadership of European poli- tics in an age of remarkable light. We oddly mingle the old and the new, the dim and the bright, when we turn to Scandinavia, as we do with no other land. This double character naturally lends peculiar attraction to its history. Yet, wdth all this attraction, the history of no part of Europe is less familiar to the general mind probably because the Scandinavian countries lie somewhat off from the world's great highways, and participate but moderately in the world's chief commerce. This should not be. The ignorance is a fault, especially among us of English descent, whose ancestral history is so intimately and variously associated with that of Den- mark, Sweden, and Norway. The Norsemen have left the memo- rials of their habitation on the coasts and islands of Scotland, where Runic inscriptions tell the story of their prowess, while through much of England the familiar names of towns and hamlets are purely Norse. These are the fruits of the wild adventures of the Vikings. A Danish dynasty once ruled our fatherland, and the Con- queror who founded the present succession of British monarchs, was himself of Scandinavian blood, transplanted to a more southern Xll LETTER FROM PROFESSOR CROSBY. clime. The stalwart men, wlio could venture upon unknown, cold, and stormy seas, in their small barks, on lengthy voyages, until, passing the new-found shores of Iceland, they landed among the green leaves of the Viinland coast, deserve to be known and saluted by every succeeding age. And their posterity, still maintaining the best characteristics of the fathers, invite our regard and claim our encomiums. The names of Tegner, Hans Andersen, Fredericka Bremer, in literature ; of Clausen, Madvig, and Rafn, in theological, philological, and archae- ological research ; of Thorvaldsen in art, and of Ole Bull and Jenny Lind in music, are as household words in our American homes. Our merited regard for these well known worthies of our own day, must render keener our appetite for Scandinavian knowledge. This appetite amounts to a necessity, when we mark, that our ancestral history and mythology, and our composite philology, must be eluci- dated by the light of these chronicles and languages of the Norse- men. It is, therefore, full time that our Universities should have their chairs of Scandinavian literature, as a needful part of the apparatus for a thorough English education, to render more complete the ex- amination of the roots of our speech and race. While this want is felt, we may gladly hail any contribution to American literature, which tends to open this interesting field of research. In your volume, my dear sir, I recognize such a pioneer, and rejoice to give it welcome. In it may many laggards in this lore find an introduction to the old romantic legends of the Skalds, as well as to the more recent but no less romantic stories of the great and magnani- mous Gustavus Vasa, Gustavus Adolphus, and the brilliant comets, Tordenskjold and Charles the Twelfth. HOWARD CROSBY, A. M., Professor of Greek Language and Literature in the University of the City of New-York. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. In the widest sense History must be considered the knowledge, the portraying, or the total sum of all that in nature, amongst men, and in the whole circle of experiences, there is, or comes to pass, was, or came to pass, and which accordingly only can be learnt through experience or instruction. History is, consequently, the opposite of Philosophy, which is the knowledge of all needful and universal truths, comprehensible only by the mere reason. But, nevertheless, if the cultivator of History is not guided by Philosophy, or the rules of reason, History will to liim be only a barren act of memory, without life or nourishment for the under- standing and heart ; in short. History will not be a science to him ; he will not clearly comprehend the consequences of events in their pragmatical connection. " It little concerns us to know," says Rollin, " that there were once such men as Dschengischan, Csesar, 14 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. Alexander, Grustavus Adolphus, Napoleon, Washington, and so on, and that they lived in this or that period, or died in this or that day ; but it highly concerns us to know the steps by which they rose to the exalted pitch of grandeur we cannot but admire, what it was that constituted their glory and felicity, what were the causes of their declension and fall, and how in religious and moral respects they have influenced their own and af^r«iges ; all of which we cannot obtain but by Phi- losophy, or more properly, by the Philosophy of History, through which we ascertain the causes of things or their phenomena. History itself is immense in refer- ence to compass, circumference, and contents. A boundless ocean of facts and events lies behind us, while each day and each hour the stream of time is swelling in new and large billows of events, visions, and names ; all of which, seen in the light of truth and pragmatical connection, are of exceeding interest and use. And of such great interest and use is the His- tory of the Scandinavian Kingdoms, taken, as all His- tory must be, in due connection with the contempora- neous History of other lands. This History is that of a brave and interesting people, which, on a large scale, has influenced the world, and is yet so little known to the United States, where I, however, rejoice at seeing INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 15 SO much interest paid to the culture of science. A talented young American wrote, last summer, an elo- ' quent article in the Journal of Commerce, inscribed " Scandinavian History—a Work Wanted," wherein he " says : There is a nation, even now extant, possess- ing as brave a History as that of the Romans, as poetic as that of the Greeks ; a nation that has con- trolled the World's History in many things, and at many times, and whose achievements in war and in letters, are worthy the most heroic age of Rome and the most finished period of Grreece ; a nation whose Philo- sophy outran their age, and anticipated results that have been slowly occurring ever since.

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