114 SCANDINAVIA. 



collected in the museums, bear witness to tlie artistic originality of tlie people of 

 tlie bronze age, although many archaeologists suppose that Etruscan influence 

 inspired the Scandinavian art of this period. But most of the Swedish objects 

 were cast in the country, as is evident from the stone moulds occasionally picked 

 up, though the bronze must have been imported as an alloy, for it contains about 

 one-tenth part of tin, a metal not found in Scandinavia. Nilsson fancies he detects 

 numerous traces of Phocnician industry, attributing to these Semites the tomb- 

 stones on which are figured ships, hatchets, and swords. But the absence of the 

 usual Phoenician inscriptions militates against this view. Nor is Greek art at all 

 represented in Scandinavia, except perhaps ly a few isolated objects found on the 

 east coast of Sweden. 



But Roman influence was strongly felt, though indirectly. Even beyond the 

 limits of the Empire the barbarous nations followed the impulse given by the 

 conquerors of the Mediterranean world. They learnt the use of iron, and began to 

 employ a series of letters akin to the Latin alphabet, and probably derived from that 

 of the Celtic tribes in North Italy. These runes, or " mysteries " {rnnar, riinir), as 

 they were called, are of various forms, and have been greatly modified in the 

 course of ages. The inscriptions run sometimes from right to left, but more 

 commonly from left to right, while several are of the " boustrophedon " class, the 

 order of the letters alternating with each line. Some must even be read 

 Chinese fashion, in vertical columns, and the form of the letters changes 

 with the time and locality, those of the extreme north being especially 

 noted for their originality. At first numbering twenty- four, they were reduced 

 in Scandinavia to sixteen, and were here carved on rocks or bones, or wood, 

 horns, ornaments, and arms. The noî'thern museums contain large collections, 

 which, if throwing little light on the history of the race, have at least illus- 

 trated the successive changes of their language. In mediaeval times whole 

 volumes were composed in runes, as, for instance, the Skànelagcn, or " Law of 

 Scania," dating from the thirteenth century. The gold ornaments known as brac- 

 teates, of which nine times more have been found in Scandinavia than in all the 

 rest of Europe, are mostly covered with Hunic signs. The figures of heroes, horses, 

 birds, dragons, are all referred by Worsaae to Northern legends. 



The age of iron, when the runes were in vogue, blends gradually with the 

 historic epoch, about the time of the great Norse expeditions. But it is difficult to 

 draw a hard-and-fast line between these various epochs. During the Empire, when 

 they exchanged their wares for Italian coins, the Scandinavians used concurrently 

 iron weapons, bronze and gold ornaments, stone implements. The runes them- 

 selves survived in the island of Gotland till the sixteenth century, and Runic 

 calendars continued in use still longer in the peninsula, and even in England. 

 Thus it is that the successive civilisations rather overlap than follow each other 

 abruptly. The rites of the old worship surviving as superstitions are a further 

 evidence of this mingling of epochs, resembling the currents of various streams we 

 sometimes see uniting in one bed. Thus Thursday, in Swedish Thorsdag, or day 

 of Thor, was still kept as a holiday so recently as last century in vaiious parts of 



