NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY, 223 



The famous diftrid Quaenanger, in the manor of Nordland, ^' P S- 

 where the fabulous Rudbeck fuppofes his Northern Amazonian* P le v 

 or female republic to have exifted, and the rock Quinens, or 

 Quenenfheide ; and alfo Quinsfiord Quinens, or Quenens Elv, 

 and Quendal in Lifterlehn; and likewife Quenfhagen in Laerdal, 

 are well known. There is a famous diftrict in Sandhordlehn, 

 now a parim, called Queenherret (corruptly Quindherred, from 

 a groundlefs tradition, that all the men were killed there) which 

 preferves, perhaps, the memory of the name which the ancient 

 Norwegians, or part of them had bore, like their banifhed coun- 

 trymen in the mountains of Kolen, who are ftill called Queener, 

 and the language the Queenifh. If Thore, the father of Nor> 

 who is faid to have given our country the name of Norway, as 

 the Norwegian chronicles tell us, was king of Gothland, Finland, [ 

 and Quenland ; this laft, I think, muft have been Norway, tho' 

 mod authors think this country is fituated near Findland, or at 

 the end of the Bothnic bay. 



It is very juft with regard to the later Finlanders according to 

 Arngrimus's Crymographia, L. 11. fol. 2*14. and particularly by 

 Thorm. Torf's Hift. Norw. p. 1. Lib. 3. Cap. xxiv. p. 160, 

 where he fays, " Naumudatos Halogia in Norvegia provinciam 

 verfus orientem excipit Jamtia & illam Helfingia fequitur Quenja- 

 tum Finnia." We fee by this, that the Queners are placed next 

 to the Heliingers, and Jamters, not far from the borders of Nor- 

 way. It is not improbable therefore, that thofe ancient Queners 

 which were expelled by the Afers, transplanted their name there 

 with their colony, and much later, namely, in King Hagen Mag- 

 nuffens time, by fpreading have ftraggled again back crofs the 

 mountains of KoJen, to vifit the land of their anceftors. They 

 did not come indeed like friends; for the hiftory of the aforefaid 

 king fays, that Quener, and Kyrialer, perhaps Kareler, made an 

 incurfion into Nordland, and particularly into Helyeland, perhaps 

 fpirited up by the tradition of their anceftors being expelled from 

 that country. If this conjecture (for certainty is not to be ex- 

 pected in the hiftory of thofe ancient times) feems as probable as 

 any other, it anfwers to the remark made on their name, by 

 Gerh. Schining, in his treatife lately publifhed, called the Geogra- 

 phy of ancient Norway; where the word Quenes or Quener, ac- 

 cording 



