156 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



CHAPTER XII. 

 THE LAPPS. 



Their ancient History and Conversion to Christianity. — Self-denial and Poverty of the Lapland Clergy. 

 — Their singular Mode of Preaching. — Gross Superstition of the Lapps. — The Evil Spirit of the 

 Woods. — The Lapland Witches. — Physical Constitution of the Lapps. — Their Dress. — The Fjalllap- 

 pars. — Their Dwellings. — Store-houses. — Reindeer Pens, — Milking the Reindeer. — Migration. — 

 The Lapland Dog. — Skiders, or Skates. — The Sledge, or Pulka. — Natural Beauties of Lapland. — 

 Attachment of the Lapps to their Country. — Bear-hunting. — Wolf-hunting. — Mode of Living of the 

 wealthy Lapps. — How they kill the Reindeer. — Visiting the Fair. — Mammon Worship. — Treasure- 

 hiding. — " Tabak, or Braende." — Affectionate Disposition of the Lapps. — The Skogslapp. — The 

 Fisherlapp. 



^THHE nation of the Lapps spreads over the northern parts of Scandinavia 

 and Finland from about the 63d degree of latitude to the confines of 

 the Polar Ocean ; but their number, hardly amounting to more than twenty- 

 thousand, bears no proportion to the extent of the vast regions in which they 

 are found. Although now subject to the crowns of Russia, Sweden, and Nor- 

 way, they anciently possessed the whole Scandinavian peninsula, until the sons 

 of Odin drove them farther and farther to the north, and, taking possession of 

 the coasts and valleys, left them nothing but the bleak mountain and the deso- 

 late tundra. In the thirteenth century, under the reign of Magnus Ladislas, 

 King of Sweden, their subjugation was completed by the Birkarls, a race 

 dwelling on the borders of the Bothnian Gulf. These Birkarls had to pay the 

 crown a slight tribute, which they wrung more than a hundred-fold from the 

 Lapps, until at length Gustavus I. granted the persecuted savages the protec- 

 tion of more equitable laws, and sent missionaries among them to relieve them 

 at the same time from the yoke of their ancient superstitions. In 1600 Charles 

 IX. ordered churches to be built in their country, and, some years after, his son 

 and successor, the celebrated Gustavus Adolphus, founded a school for the 

 Lapps at Pitea, and ordered several elementary works to be translated into 

 their language. In the year 1602, Christian lY., King of Denmark and ISTor- 

 way, while on a visit to the province of Finmark, was so incensed at the gross 

 idolatry of the Lapps that he ordered their priests or sorcerers to be persecuted 

 with bloody severity. A worthy clergyman, Eric Bredal, of Drontheim, used 

 means more consonant with the spirit of the Gospel, and, having instructed 

 several young Lapps, sent them back again as missionaries to their families. 

 These interpreters of a purer faith were, however, received as apostates and 

 traitors by their suspicious countrymen, and cruelly murdered, most likely at 

 the instigation of the sorcerers. In 1707 Frederic IV. founded the Finmark 

 mission, and in 1716 Thomas Westen, a man of rare zeal and perseverance, 

 preached the Gospel in the wildest districts of the province. Other mission- 

 aries and teachers followed his example, and at length succeeded in converting 

 the Lapps, and in some measure conquering their ancient barbarism. Nothing 



