A glance at the map will show that the Scandinavian Peninsula, that immense stretch of land running from the Arctic Ocean to the North Sea, and from the Baltic to the Atlantic, covering an area of nearly three hundred thousand square miles, is, next to Russia, the largest territorial division of Europe. Surrounded by sea on all sides but one, which gives it an unparalleled seaboard of over two thousand miles, it hangs on the continent by its frontier line with Russia in Lapland. Down the middle of this seabound continent, dividing it into two nearly equal parts, runs a chain of mountains not inappropriately called KÖlen, or Keel. The name suggests the image which the aspect of the land calls to mind, that of a huge ship floating keel upwards on the face of the ocean. This keel forms the frontier line between the kingdoms of Norway and Sweden: Sweden to the east, sloping gently from the hills to the Baltic, Norway to the west, running more abruptly down from their watershed to the Atlantic.

Norway (in the old Norse language Noregr, or Nord-vegr, i.e., the North Way), according to archaeological explorations, appears to have been inhabited long before historical time. The antiquarians maintain that three populations have inhabited the North: a Mongolian race and a Celtic race, types of which are to be found in the Finns and the Laplanders in the far North, and, finally, a Caucasian race, which immigrated from the South and drove out the Celtic and Laplandic races, and from which the present inhabitants are descended. The Norwegians, or Northmen (Norsemen), belong to a North-Germanic branch of the Indo-European race; their nearest kindred are the Swedes, the Danes, and the Goths. The original home of the race is supposed to have been the mountain region of Balkh, in Western Asia, whence from time to time families and tribes migrated in different directions. It is not known when the ancestors of the Scandinavian peoples left the original home in Asia; but it is probable that their earliest settlements in Norway were made in the second century before the Christian era.

The Scandinavian peoples, although comprising the oldest and most unmixed race in Europe, did not realize until very late the value of writing chronicles or reviews of historic events. Thus the names of heroes and kings of the remotest past are helplessly forgotten, save as they come to us in legend and folk-song, much of which we must conclude is imaginary, beautiful as it is. But Mother Earth has revealed to us, at the spade of the archaeologist, trustworthy and irrefutable accounts of the age and the various degrees of civilization of the race which inhabited the Scandinavian Peninsula in prehistoric times. Splendid specimens now extant in numerous museums prove that Scandinavia, like most other countries, has had a Stone Age, a Bronze Age, and an Iron Age, and that each of these periods reached a much higher development than in other countries.

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 throughout 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 mead).

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 these islands 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. 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 still preserved in the name of the province of Scania in Sweden. Nerigon stands for Norway, the northern part of which is mentioned as an island by the name of Thule. The classical writers were ignorant of the fact that Scandinavia was one great peninsula, because the northern parts were as yet uninhabited and their physical connection with Finland and Russia unknown. That the Romans were later acquainted with the Scandinavian countries is evidenced from the fact that great numbers of Roman coins have been found in excavating, also vessels of bronze and glass, weapons, etc., as well as works of art, all turned out of the workshops in Rome or its provinces. There, no doubt, existed a regular traffic over the Baltic, through Germany, between the Scandinavian countries and the Roman provinces.

The first settlers probably knew little of agriculture, but made their living by fishing and hunting. In time, however, they commenced to clear away the timber that covered the land in the valleys and on the sides of the mountains and to till the ground. At the earliest times of which the historical tales or Sagas tell us anything with regard to the social conditions, the land was divided among the free peasant-proprietors, or bonde class. Bonde, in English translation, is usually called peasant; but this is not an equivalent; for with the word "peasant" we associate the idea of inferior social condition to the landed aristocracy of the country, while these peasants or bondes were themselves the highest class in the country. The land owned by a peasant was called his udal. By udal-right the land was kept in the family, and it could not be alienated or forfeited from the kindred who were udal-born to it. The free peasants might own many thralls or slaves, who were unfree men. These were mostly prisoners captured by the vikings on their expeditions to foreign shores; the owner could trade them away, or sell them, or even kill them without paying any fine or man-bote to the king, as in the case of killing a free man. As a rule, however, the slaves were not badly treated, and they were sometimes made free and given the right to acquire land.

In early days Norway consisted of a great number of small states called Fylkis, each a little kingdom by itself. The free peasants in a Fylki held general assemblies called Things, where laws were made and justice administered. No public acts were undertaken without the deliberation of a Thing. The Thing was sacred, and a breach of peace at the thing-place was considered a great crime. At the Thing there was also a hallowed place for the judges, or "lag-men," who expounded and administered the laws made by the Thing. Almost every crime could be expiated by the payment of fines, even if the accused had killed a person. But if a man killed another secretly, he was declared an assassin and an outlaw, was deprived of all his property, and could be killed by any one who wished to do so. The fine or man-bote was heavier, the higher the rank of the person killed.

The Thing or Fylkis Thing was not made up of representatives elected by the people, but was rather a primary assembly of the free udal-born peasant-proprietors of the district. There were leading men in the fylki, and each fylki had one or more chiefs, but they had to plead at the Thing like other free men. When there were several chiefs, they usually had the title of herse; but when the free men had agreed upon one chief, he was called jarl (earl), or king. The king was the commander in war, and usually performed the judicial functions; but he supported himself upon his own estates, and the free peasants paid no tax. The dignity of the king was usually inherited by his son, but if the heir was not to the liking of the people, they chose another. No man, however clear his right of succession, would think of assuming the title or power of a king except by the vote of the Thing. There he was presented to the people by a free peasant, and his right must be confirmed by the Thing before he could exert any act of kingly power. The king had a number of free men in his service, who had sworn allegiance to him in war and in peace. They were armed men, kept in pay, and were called hird-men or court-men, because they were members of the king's hird or court. If they were brave and faithful, they were often given high positions of trust; some were made lendermen (liegemen), or managers of the king's estates.

It is but natural that the ancient Norwegians should become warlike and brave men, since their firm religious belief was that those who died of sickness or old age would sink down into the dark abode of Hel (Helheim), and that only the brave men who fell in battle would be invited to the feasts in Odin's Hall. Sometimes the earls or kings would make war on their neighbors, either for conquest or revenge. But the time came when the countries of the north, with their poorly developed resources, became overpopulated, and the warriors had to seek other fields abroad. The viking cruises commenced, and for a long time the Norwegians continued to harry the coasts of Europe.

At first the viking expeditions were nothing but piracy, carried on for a livelihood. The name Viking is supposed to be derived from the word vik, a cove or inlet on the coast, in which they would harbor their ships and lie in wait for merchants sailing by. Soon these expeditions assumed a wider range and a wilder character, and historians of the time paint the horrors spread by the vikings in dark colors. In the English churches they had a day of prayer each week to invoke the aid of heaven against the harrying Northmen. In France the following formula was inserted in the church prayer: "A furore Normannorum libera nos, o Domine!" (Free us, O Lord, from the fury of the Northmen!)

Gradually the viking life assumed a nobler form. There appear to have been three stages or periods in the viking age. In the first one the vikings make casual visits with single ships to the shores of England, Ireland, France or Flanders, and when they have plundered a town or a convent, they return to their ships and sail away. In the second period their cruises assume a more regular character, and indicate some definite plan, as they take possession of certain points, where they winter, and from where they command the surrounding country. During the third period they no longer confine themselves to seeking booty, but act as real conquerors, take possession of the conquered territory, and rule it. As to the influence of the Northmen on the development of the countries visited in this last period, the eminent English writer, Samuel Laing, the translator of the Heimskringla, or the Sagas of the Norse kings, says:

"All that men hope for of good government and future improvement in their physical and moral condition—all that civilized men enjoy at this day of civil, religious, and political liberty—the British constitution, representative legislation, the trial by jury, security of property, freedom of mind and person, the influence of public opinion over the conduct of public affairs, the Reformation, the liberty of the press, the spirit of the age—all that is or has been of value to man in modern times as a member of society, either in Europe or in the New World, may be traced to the spark left burning upon our shores by these northern barbarians."

The authentic history begins with Halfdan the Swarthy, who reigned from the year 821 to 860. The Icelander Snorre Sturlason, who, in the twelfth century, wrote the Heimskringla, or Sagas of the Norse Kings, gives a long line of preceding kings of the Yngling race, the royal family to which Halfdan the Swarthy belonged; but that part of the Saga belongs to mythology rather than to history.

According to tradition, the Yngling family were descendants of Fiolner, the son of the god Frey. One of the surnames of the god was Yngve, from which the family derived the name Ynglings. King Halfdan was a wise man, a lover of truth and justice. He made good laws, which he observed himself and compelled others to observe. He fixed certain penalties for all crimes committed. His code of laws, called the Eidsiva Law, was adopted at a common Thing at Eidsvol, where about a thousand years later the present constitution of Norway was adopted.

One day in the spring of 860, when Halfdan the Swarthy was driving home from a feast across the Randsfjord, he broke through the ice and was drowned. He was so popular that, when his body was found, the leading men in each Fylki demanded to have him buried with them, believing that it would bring prosperity to the district. They at last agreed to divide the body into four parts, which were buried in four different districts. The trunk of the body was buried in a mound at Stien, Ringerike, where a little hill is still called Halfdan's Mound. And this Halfdan became the ancestor of the royal race of Norway.

Halfdan's son, Harald the Fairhaired, at the age of ten years succeeded his father on the throne of Norway, or it afterward proved to be the throne of United Norway. When he became old enough to marry, he sent his men to a girl named Gyda, a daughter of King Erik of Hordaland, who was brought up a foster-child in the house of a rich Bonde in Valders.

Harald had heard of her as a very beautiful though proud girl. When the men delivered their message, she answered that she would not marry a king who had no greater kingdom than a few Fylkis (districts), and she added that she thought it strange that "no king here in Norway will make the whole country subject to him, in the same way that Gorm the Old did in Denmark, or Erik at Upsala." When the messengers returned to the king, they advised him to punish her for her haughty words, but Harald said she had spoken well, and he made the solemn vow not to cut or comb his hair until he had subdued the whole of Norway, which he did, and became sole king of Norway. The decisive battle was a naval one in the Hafrsfjord, near the present city of Stavanger. After this battle, which occurred in 872, when he had been declared King of United Norway, he attended a feast, and the Earl of More cut his hair, which had not been cut or combed for ten years, and gave him the name of Fairhaired. Harald shortly afterward married Gyda.

From this time on, the history of Norway for nearly three hundred years consists mainly in internecine warfare among the various claimants of the throne, and the result of all this warfare was not only to exhaust the material resources of the people, but to drive a large proportion of the population to make viking excursions to win land elsewhere, and also to make peaceable settlements in other countries. Iceland was settled by the leading men of Norway in Harald the Fairhaired's reign because they would not submit to his rule and therefore emigrated to a land where they could rule. In 912 Duke Rollo with a large following conquered Normandy and settled there with many of his countrymen.

As the result of over three centuries of foreign and domestic war, Norway and her people and her industries were prostrate when in 1389 Queen Margaret of Denmark claimed the succession to the throne of Norway for her son Eric of Pomerania. The council of Norway and the people were willing to accept a union with a more populous country under a powerful sovereign in order to obtain peace and reestablish order and prosperity. Norway had not been conquered by Denmark, and the union was supposed to be equal. The Danish sovereigns, however, without directly interfering with the local laws and usages of the people of Norway, filled all the executive and administrative offices in Norway with Danes; the important commands in the army were also given exclusively to them. The result was that the interpretation and execution of the laws of the land were in the hands of foreigners, and Norway became and remained for four hundred years a province of Denmark and unable to throw off the yoke because her army was in the control and command of her oppressor, and her material resources inadequate to wage successful war against him.

Like Norway, the most that we know of prehistoric times in Sweden we gather from the early sagas, which are more or less faulty in their statements, romantic and tragic though they be. Like the Norwegians, the early Swedes are reported to have migrated from Asia under the leadership of a chief who called himself Odin. And for centuries under different kings and queens, the romantic and tragic story of Sweden goes on to form at last her authentic history. In this brief survey we can not go into details, and its history is very much the same as that of Norway, except that Sweden was oftener her own mistress and at longer intervals.

The sources of Swedish history during the first two centuries of the Middle Ages are very meager. This is a deplorable fact, for during that period Sweden passed through a great and thorough development, the various stages of which consequently are not easily traced. Before the year 1060, Sweden is an Old Teutonic state, certainly of later form and larger compass than the earliest of such, but with its democracy and its elective kingdom preserved. The older Sweden was, in regard to its constitution, a rudimentary union of states. The realm had come into existence through the cunning and violence of the king of the Sviar, who made way with the kings of the respective lands, making their communities pay homage to him. No change in the interior affairs of the different lands was thereby effected; they lost their outward political independence, but remained mutually on terms of perfect equality. They were united only through the king, who was the only center for the government of the union. No province had constitutionally more importance than the rest, no supremacy by one over the other existed. On this historic basis the Swedish realm was built, and rested firmly until the commencement of the Middle Ages. In the Old Swedish state-organism the various parts thus possessed a high degree of individualized and pulsating life; the empire as a whole was also powerful, although the royal dignity was its only institution. The king was the outward tie which bound the provinces together; besides him there was no power of state which embraced the whole realm. The affairs of state were decided upon by the king alone, as regard to war, or he had to gather the opinion of the Thing in each province, as any imperial representation did not exist and was entirely unknown, both in the modern sense and in the form of one provincial, or sectional, assembly deciding for all the others. In society there existed no classes. It was a democracy of free men, the slaves and free men enjoying no rights. The first centuries of the Middle Ages were one continued process of regeneration, the Swedish people being carried into the European circle of cultural development and made a communicant of Christianity. With the commencement of the thirteenth century, Sweden comes out of this process as a medieval state, in aspect entirely different to her past. The democratic equality among free men has turned into an aristocracy, with aristocratic institutions, the hereditary kingdom into an elective kingdom, while the provincial particularism and independence have given way to the constitution of a centralized, monopolistic state. No changes could be more fundamental.

The old provincial laws of Sweden are a great and important inheritance which this period has accumulated from heathen times. The laws were written down in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but they bear every evidence of high antiquity. Many strophes are found in them of the same meter as those on the tombstones of the Viking Age and those in which the songs of the Edda are chiefly written. In other instances the texts consist of alliterative prose, which proves its earlier metrical form. The expressions have, in places, remained heathen, although used by Christians, who are ignorant of their true meaning, as, for instance, in the following formula of an oath, in the West Gothic law: Sva se mer gud hull (So help me the gods). In lieu of a missing literature of sagas and poetry, these provincial laws give a good insight into the character, morals, customs, and culture of the heathen and early Christian times of Sweden. From the point of philology they are also of great value, besides forming the solid basis of later Swedish law. How the laws could pass from one generation to another, without any codification, depends upon the fact that they were recited from memory by the justice (lag-man or domare), and that this dignity generally was inherited for centuries, being carried by the descendants of one and the same family.[a]