An Introduction to the History of the Principal Kingdoms and States of Europe

Chapter XIII

525 u chapt e r xi i i u Of the Kingdom of Sweden.§1. The Swedish Historians have out of their ancient Monuments shown the World, that the Kingdom of Sweden is the most antient Kingdom in Europe, and that this Country, was, after the Deluge , sooner stored with Inhabitants than the other parts of Europe. Nevertheless it is very uncertain who were the first Inhabitants, and at what time they first settled there, as likewise whether they were immediately governed by Kings, or whether the Fathers of Families had the chief sway among them, till the Regal was grafted on the Paternal Power. The names and deeds of their Kings, and the time of their Reigns are also not easie to be determined, for the List which has been published of these Kings, is not so Authentick, but that it may be called in question; And, as to the transactions of those times, they are most of them taken out of antient Songs and Fabulous Legends , and some of them out of the allegorical Traditions of their antient Poets or Scalders, which have perhaps been wrongly interpreted by some Authors. And Johannes Messenius in his Scandinavia Illustrata, does not stick to say, that the old Swedish Historiographer Johannes Magnus did strive to outdo in his bragging History, the Danish Historian Saxo Grammaticus . Johannes Magnus makes Magog, the Son of Japhet Grandson of Noah, the first Founder of the Schytick [Scythian] and Gothick Nations , and says that from his two Sons Sweno, and Gethar and [or] Gog, 1. Scald or skald is a medieval Scandinavian term for troubadour. Sweden the most ancient Kingdom in Europe. First Founders of the Gothick Nation. 526 chapter xiii the Swedish and Gothish Nations had their names. He relates, that after this Family was extinguished, Sweden was during the space of four hundred years under the Government of certain Judges, and that about eight hundred years after the Deluge, both the Kingdoms of the Swedes and Gothes were uni-ted under Bericus, who in person planted a Colony of the Gothes beyond the Seas, after having Conquered the Ulmirugii, who then inhabited Prussia, from whence he extended his Conquests over the Vandals. A considerable time after, these Nations did settle themselves not far from the Mouth of the River Danube near the Black Sea, from whence having under taken several Expeditions both into Asia and Europe, at last in the third and fourth Centuries after the Birth of Christ, did enter the Roman Provinces on this side of the Danube, and carried their Conquering Arms into Italy and Spain, where they erected two Kingdoms. But the greatest part of this Relation is contradicted by Messenius, who also rejects the List, which Johannes Magnus had given us, of the Kings before our Saviour’s Birth, alledging that the times before Christ’s Nativity, are all involved in fabulous Narrations, as to those Northern parts, and that most of these Kings lived after the Birth of our Saviour. But, since even the Chronology of the first Centuries after Christ’s Nativity, and the Genealogy of those Kings is somewhat uncertain in these Countries, it will suffice to mention here some few of the most famous among them, till the latter times furnish us with an opportunity to relate things with more certainty.§2. Sixty years before the Birth of Christ, the famous Othin or Woden, having been driven by Pompey out of Asia with a great number of people, 2. Johannes Messenius (1579–1636), Scondia illustrata: seu chronologia de rebus Scondiae, hoc est Sueciae, Daniae, Norvegiae, . . . primum edita, et observationibus aucta â Johanne Peringskiöld, 14 vols. (Stockholm, 1700–1705). This was the first complete edition of the work. Johannes Magnus or Johan Månsson (1488–1544), papal legate to Sweden (see §9a, p. 554, below), wrote a Historia de omnibus gothorum sueonumque regibus (Rome, 1554). Saxo Grammaticus (ca. 1150–1220), was author of a sixteen-volume Gesta Danorum on medieval Danish history that appeared in various later editions, including that by Stephan Hansen Stephanius, Saxonis Grammatici Historiae Danicae Libri XVI (Soroe, 1645). On the peculiar self-characterization of Nordic nations as “Gothic,” see Neville (2009). 3. Odin and Wotan were also, respectively, the names of the chief Norse and Anglo-Saxon gods. Othin or Woden. of sweden 527 first Conquered Russia, afterwards the Saxons and Danes, and last of all Norway and Sweden...