118 SCANDINAYIA. 



and idioms ; but certain remote valleys still cherisli the old Norse, forming witli 

 Icelandic a distinct linguistic group. Some Norwegian patriots have endeavoured 

 to re-establish the supremacy of their ancestral tongue, and thus create a new 

 literary language. Societies have been founded, journals and books published in 

 old Norwegian, but the undertaking has not met with general encouragement. 

 Certain writers have, on the other hand, essayed to assimilate the current forms of 

 speech, and thus restore the unity that prevailed in the ninth century. In 1869 

 several Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian men of letters met at Stockholm to adopt 

 a common orthography, but national rivalry has hitherto prevented any concert 

 among the grammarians. 



The Lapps. 



By the side of these Scandinavian peoples, who are amongst cha most homo- 

 geneous in Europe, there live tribes still of a quasi- Asiatic character, few in 

 numbers, but exceedingly interesting for their physical aspect, origin, and manner 

 of life. These are the Lapps, like the Eouminisiil, or Swedish gipsies, partly nomad, 

 and thinly scattered over a vast area, estimated at 80,000 square miles, in the 

 northern extremity of the peninsula, along the upper course of the Swedish rivers 

 flowing to the Gulf of Bothnia, in the Finnish territory ceded by Sweden to Eussia, 

 and in the Kola peninsula. They number scarcely 30,000 altogether, or about 

 1 to every 1,700 acres. 



It is certain that the Lapps formerly reached much farther south than at 

 present. Traces of their language are detected in Swedish, and several southern 

 geographical terms have been referred to them. Some are still found in the heart 

 of Jemtland about the sixty-third parallel, where their domain is clearly limited by 

 the lichens suppl^dng the sustenance of their reindeer herds. But they have been 

 continually pressed northwards by the Norse immigrants, and the legends of 

 dvergar, or " dwarfs," troll, or "magicians," hergfolk, or " highlanders," are mythical 

 records of the internecine strife that raged between the conflicting elements. 



Universally known by their Swedish appellation Lapps, variously interpreted as 

 " Nomads " or " Cave-dwellers," these Sameh, or Samelats, speak a Finnish language 

 said to be more akin to the Mordvinian than any other member of the Ural-Altaic 

 famil}^, and preserving archaic roots and forms that have disappeared from modern 

 Finnish. But though oflicially designated as Fin in Norwegian Finmark, they are 

 clearly distinguished from the Finns proper not only by the contrasts produced by 

 the difierent cultures, but also by their physical features and form of their crania. 

 Hence some anthropologists have regarded them as of a distinct stock, on whom 

 the Finns have imposed their language. Thus, while Virchow considers them to 

 be a branch of the Finns, Schaafhausen takes them for the descendants of Mon- 

 golian tribes driven northwards, and migrating westwards along the shores of the 

 Frozen Ocean. Till recently the Sameh were also supposed to differ from the 

 rest of mankind by an absolute ignorance of song. But the statement of Fetis, 

 that " the Lapps are the only people who do not sing," is erroneous, and although 

 incapable of uttering notes pleasing to the Swedish ear, they are quite capable of 



