322 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



clearly shown, in the names of Finn, Suen or Sum, that is, 

 Sweno and Atzel, or Attila, which occur both in the lists of 

 Swedish kings, Lombard chiefs, and in part among the Ger- 

 manic, gods. The physical Jotun (Yeta) appear to have been 

 the giant masters of this people, till they were vanquished by 

 the Gothic Asi, and driven to live in rocks and caverns, afford- 

 ing a foundation of that dualism, afterwards mythologically 

 applied for the national runes, which even do not conceal dislike 

 to the Asi, and felicitously represent them as destined to be 

 ultimately vanquished ; for the basis of Scandinavian mythic 

 lore is Finnic. 



Fornjoter, the King, progenitor of the Finnic people, bears 

 not a proper name, but an appellative of distinction. His altars, 

 overthrown by Thor, show a system of worship destroyed by the 

 Asi, but nothing to disprove that the whole did not come from 

 the east ; that region whence their mythological kindred, the 

 Jotun, are to arrive from, in the ship Nagelfar, at the last day 

 of the world's existence.* 



Immediately on the north of the Suomi, are the tribes of 

 Laps, who speak a dialect of the same language, although they 

 are almost pure Hyperboreans. The somewhat equal inter- 

 mixture of this race with a Gothic people constitutes the real 

 basis of the Finnic sub-typical stem, since others, more to the 

 eastward, with Slavonic, and again with Caucasian Yeta tribes, 

 produce the same result. Thus, it may be assumed, the Hunnic 

 power was likewise generated in Asia from eastern Caucasians 

 mixed with Hyperboreans; for, when interunion occurs, the 

 Caucasian type so readily becomes superior, that it is soon 

 doubtful whether any Mongolic blood can be externally observed 

 to be present. This is in Asia the case with the fair Ostiaks 

 of Siberia — the Wotiaks and Tscheremisses — the Mordwines 

 and Wogules ; and, in a less degree, among the Permeans or 



*The Finns, like the American Savages, have feasts of the bear hunt, 

 mystical notions of his origin, and, like them, give him by-names, believ- 

 ing in his superhuman knowledge. 



