THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



509 



THE SCANDINAVIANS* 



The Scandinavians, or the Danes, Norwe- 

 gians, and Swedes, Teutonic peoples, are so 

 intimately related in race and history that, ex- 

 cept with frequent repetition, it would be im- 

 possible to discuss them separately. Scandi- 

 navian is a term of unknown origin and mean- 

 ing, long used to include them all. 



The vast, elongated northern peninsula be- 

 tween the Gulf of Bothnia and the Atlantic 

 doubles in breadth towards the south and bi- 

 forks as if to admit the peninsula of Denmark 

 between its extremities. 



West Denmark and Norway look outward 

 upon the ocean, whose shores the Scandinav- 

 ians were to harry and conquer. East Den- 

 mark and Sweden look inward upon the Baltic 

 and Europe. They planted settlers north of 

 the Gulf of Finland, and east of the Gulf of 

 Bothnia, and placed a Varangian Prince on 

 the Russian throne (see page 457). 



From the human hive of Sweden, the Goths 

 swarmed to Germany and southern Russia 

 and thence to Italy and Spain, leaving their 

 name everywhere in Sweden, as at Gothenburg 

 and in the fabulously rich Gotland, where "the 

 women spun with distaffs of gold" (pp. 453-4). 



In like manner, from overcrowded Norway 

 great waves of emigration flowed to the plains 

 of the Rhine and Elbe. The ocean, however, 

 opened larger opportunity. Romance attaches 

 to raids by sea, and the term viking has a 

 lordly sound. But viking, from an old Norse 

 word, means freebooter, or pirate; and nothing 

 more than pirates the heathen vikings were ; 

 brave, looting, kidnapping, burning, and then 

 fleeing in their high-pointed galleys. For two 

 centuries they were the curse of the British 

 Islands and of France. Then they began to 

 remain on the lands they had ravaged and to 

 resist later pirates like themselves. 



The Norwegians today inherit all the bra- 

 very and sea skill of the vikings, without their 

 barbarism and cruelty. In T913 they had a 

 larger tonnage of merchant shipping than any 

 other country except Great Britain, the United 

 States and Germany. The Scandinavian immi- 

 grants into the United States have been nu- 

 merous and welcome. 



In 1864 Prussia seized the Danish provinces 

 of Schleswig and Holstein, thus appropriating 

 over seven thousand square miles of territory 

 and a million and a half people. 



In the Kingdom of Denmark, in 1918, there 

 were about 3,000,000 inhabitants. Denmark 

 possesses Greenland and Iceland. Norway had 

 about 2,400,000 inhabitants in 1910 ; Sweden, 

 5,758,000 in 1916. 



The great majority of the Scandinavians are 

 fair-haired, blue-eyed, light-complexioned and 

 long-headed. In general the Norwegians and 

 Danes are democratic ; the Swedes less so. 



Christianity was definitely established among 



* See also, in National Geographic Maga- 

 zine, "In Beautiful Delecarlia," by Lillian Gore 

 (May, 1909). 



the three nations in the eleventh century after 

 obstinate resistance by the natives. All are 

 now intensely Protestant. 



The ancient Scandinavians had a common 

 Teutonic language known as Donsh Tunga, 

 called by the Norwegians Old Norsk. This 

 the Norwegians, who settled in Iceland in the 

 tenth century, carried with them. Into Nor- 

 way four centuries later Queen Margaret in- 

 troduced Danish, and Norsk or Norse is now 

 used only by the peasantry. But in Iceland 

 the old tongue survives in purity. Danish, 

 spoken with strong Norwegian accent, is 

 readily understood in Sweden, and Swedish, 

 with greater difficulty, by the Danes. 



Thorwaldsen, the sculptor, and Hans Chris- 

 tian Anderson, author of the fairy tales, were 

 Danes; Ole Bull, the violinist; the explorer, 

 Nansen, and Amundsen, the discoverer of the 

 South Pole, Norwegians ; Frederika Bremer, 

 the authoress ; Jenny Lind, the "Swedish Night- 

 ingale," and Linnaeus, father of botany, Swedes. 



The three nations, though sometimes under 

 one sovereign, have often fought one another. 

 Norway in heart if not in arms generally on 

 the side of Denmark. Now the three are not 

 unfriendly. None the less, songs and plays, 

 rehearsing victories over the Danes, are al- 

 ways popular in Swedish theaters. 



THE DUTCH * 



This name, formerly comprehensive of all 

 the Germans and from all its etymology signi- 

 fying popular or national, is now applied in 

 English only to the people and language of the 

 Netherlands. 



Their country being below sea-level, they 

 wrested the land from the ocean by dikes. In 

 the sixteenth century they defeated Philip II 

 of Spain while at the height of his power. In 

 the seventeenth century they checked the there- 

 tofore victorious career of Louis XIV and con- 

 tended on equal terms with England for the 

 mastery of the seas. Such achievements by a 

 people numerically weak attracted the atten- 

 tion of Europe and in England mad: the Neth- 

 erlanders preeminently the Dutch. 



They were the first people to afford an asy- 

 lum for free thought. People, elsewhere ostra- 

 cised, betook themselves to Amsterdam or Rot- 

 terdam as later to London or Geneva. Our 

 Pilgrim Fathers, persecuted at home, found 

 refuge in the Netherlands for twelve years be- 

 fore sailing for the New World in the May- 

 flower. 



The long conflict with Philip II revealed and 

 intensified the character of the people. All the 

 Netherlanders were equal in love of liberty. 

 But the northern provinces were agricultural 



* See also, in National Geographic Maga- 

 zine, "Holland as Seen from a Dutch Win- 

 dow," by James Howard Gore (September, 

 1908) ; "Glimpses of Holland," by William 

 Wisner Chapin (January, 1915), and "The City 

 of Jacqueline," by Florence Craig Albrecht 

 (January, 1915). 



