When the twelfth-century Norseman, Sigurd Slembe, with his twenty followers, spent a whole winter with the Lapps or Finns, as stated in the "Heimskringla" (Saga XIV), it is evident that the two sets of men were in intimate association. Their life at that time is thus described in Sigurd's song:

It was at that time, also, that the Lapps made for Sigurd those "sinew-fastened boats," in which he and his party voyaged southward in spring. In these accounts there is no mention made of the Lapp or Finn women, but their presence there must certainly be taken for granted. And there is no reason for supposing that they were less friendly to their guests than the Finn men were. There are evidences, indeed, that the Ugrians and the non-Ugrians of Scandinavia, of either sex, were on a friendly footing two centuries before Sigurd Slembe's day. When Eric, the son of Harald Haarfager, was in Lapland on one occasion, he there found his future wife, Gunhild, living in a hut with "two of the most knowing Laplanders in all Finmark." She had come there, she said, "to learn Lapland-art," in which these two Lapps were deeply versed. The way in which she entrapped her hosts, and went off with Eric, is described in the Saga (Harald Haarfager's, chap. xxxiv), and it argues something for Eric's magnanimity or indifference that he chose this lady to be his bride. However, the point is that in Gunhild we have a presumably non-Ugrian woman, living in the most friendly way with a couple of Lapp "magicians."

Again, we find Harald Haarfager himself actually marrying a Finn woman. We are told (chap. xxv of his Saga) how, one winter, when Harald was moving about Upland "in guest-quarters," he was induced by "the Fin Svase," who announced himself to the king's followers as "the Fin[53] whose hut the King had promised to visit," to not only fulfil the said promise, but then and there to marry Snaefrid, the daughter of the Finn. Whether he took this step by reason of the beauty of the Finn girl, or of the strength of the mead which she poured out to him, or of the "magic" which she and her father exercised upon him, is a matter of little moment. The fact remains that she became his queen, and in course of time bore to him four sons: Sigurd Hrise, Halfdan Haleg, Gudrod Liome, and Rognvald Rettilbeine: who, consequently, were half-bred Finns—that is, assuming that Harald himself was of pure non-Ugrian blood.

These four sons of Harald's Finn wife are subsequently to be met with in this Saga; which tells how "they grew up to be very clever men, very expert in all exercises." When Harald was fifty years of age, he gave to three of them, as to his other sons, "the kingly title and dignity," assigning to them, as their portion of his kingdom, the territories of "Ringerike, Hadeland, Thoten, and the lands thereto belonging." But one of the four, Halfdan, did not live to attain this dignity. Several years before, he, like Harald's many other sons, had resented his exclusion from place and dignity, and the advancement of mere "earls" instead; "for they [Harald's sons] thought earls were of inferior birth to them." Consequently, Halfdan and his brother Gudrod "set off one spring with a great force, and came suddenly upon Earl Rognvald, Earl of MÖre, and surrounded the house in which he was, and burnt him and sixty men in it." Then, leaving his brother in temporary possession of that earldom, "Halfdan took three long-ships, and fitted them out, and sailed into the West Sea." The Earl of Orkney at that time was Einar ("Turf" Einar), and on Halfdan's unexpected appearance he fled. For six months the Finn woman's son ruled over Orkney. But in the autumn, Einar returned, and "after a short battle," totally defeated and put to flight Halfdan and his followers. "Einar and his men lay all night without tents, and when it was light in the morning they searched the whole island, and killed every man they could lay hold of. Then Einar said: 'What is that I see upon the Isle of Ronaldsha?[54] Is it a man or a bird? Sometimes it raises itself up, and sometimes lies down again.' They went to it, and found it was Halfdan Haaleg, and took him prisoner." Einar thereupon killed Halfdan, and he and his men raised a mound of stones and gravel over the corpse; which mound, if not yet opened, will no doubt disclose to some modern craniologist the exact ethnological status of this semi-Finn.[55]

With regard to another brother of Halfdan's, Rognvald Rettilbeine, it is stated that he ruled over Hadeland, and became famous for his skill in witchcraft, in which he was no doubt instructed by his Lapp relatives. This, indeed, was the cause of his death. For, at the instigation of their common father, his half-brother Eric (Bloody-axe) "burned his brother Rognvald in a house along with eighty other warlocks," on account of these same alleged malpractices.

These are only a few recorded instances, which reveal the Finns and the non-Finns as sometimes closely allied not only by association, but by blood. But from them it may be inferred that many other intermarriages between the two races took place, and that the Finns, although eventually conquered as a distinct people, were frequently men of rank and importance among the Scandinavians of eight or nine centuries ago. As an instance of a Finn occupying an official position (certainly much inferior to that of the semi-Finnish kings of Ringerike, Hadeland, and Thoten), we have the "Finn Sauda-Ulfsson," who appears as "engaged in drawing in King Inge's rents and duties" at Viken, Norway, in the twelfth century ("Heimskringla," Saga XIV, chap. vii). And a certain notable Ketill flat-nose,[56] or Ketill Finn, whose memory is doubtless embalmed in Ketill's-sÆter (now Kettlester), in the island of Yell, Shetland, was clearly of Finn blood. When he, and such as he—the semi-Ugrian sons of Harald, for example—held sway in Shetland and Orkney, and when men and women of either race occasionally, perhaps frequently, lived together, a state of things existed that closely resembled that described in Mr. Karl Blind's Shetlandic traditions—when "Finns came ow'r fa Norraway" and practised magic and witchcraft, and domineered over the people of the northern islands.

Of course, it is impossible to say what proportion the Finn blood bore to the other. Yet it is quite evident that the Finns, while often at war with the race that overcame them, were also frequently their allies, and that the two peoples became to some extent blended in blood. Consequently, when one discovers among modern British people physical traces of a race "not unlike the modern Eskimo," in localities famed as the scene of many a Scandinavian raid, these traces may reasonably be attributed to those very inroads.