Oxenstierna
Oxenstierna is an ancient Swedish noble family from Småland in southern Sweden, can be traced up to the middle of the 14th century. The Oxenstierna family held vast estates in Södermanland and Uppland during the late middle ages and renaissance. In the 15th century, the family at times held the position of Regent of Sweden during the turbulent civil wars of the Kalmar Union; the family began to adopt its armorial designation of Oxenstierna as a personal name towards the end of the 16th century. In the case of earlier members of the family, the name has been applied by historians. Several members of the family, notably the influential Lord High Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna, rose to prominence, high political office and titles during the age of the Swedish Empire in the 17th century; the only male-line branch still in existence today is Oxenstierna af Korsholm och Wasa, the comital branch descended from Gabriel Bengtsson Oxenstierna, 1st Count of Korsholm and Vasa. Other branches of the family, such as Oxenstierna af Croneborg, Oxenstierna af Eka och Lindö, Oxenstierna af Södermöre, are now extinct in the male line.
The family's most notable members include the following: Jöns Bengtsson the Elder, knight. Bengt Jönsson Oxenstierna, Privy Councillor and Lawspeaker of Uppland, Co-regent of Sweden. Nils Jönsson Oxenstierna and Privy Councillor, Co-regent of Sweden, brother of Bengt Jönsson. Jöns Bengtsson Oxenstierna, Archbishop of Uppsala, Privy Councillor, canon law scholar and statesman, Regent of Sweden, son of Bengt Jönsson. Kristiern Bengtsson the Younger, Privy Councillor, executed during the Stockholm Bloodbath. Gabriel Kristiernsson Oxenstierna, Privy Councillor and Lord Lieutenant of Estonia. Gustaf Gabrielsson, Privy Councillor, Lord Lieutenant of Estonia, father of Axel Gustafsson. Axel Gustafsson Oxenstierna, 1st Count of Södermöre, influential statesman and Lord High Chancellor during the age of the Swedish Empire, head of the regency council and de facto regent during Queen Christina's minority. Gabriel Gustafsson Oxenstierna and Lord High Steward of Sweden, brother of Axel Gustafsson. Gabriel Bengtsson Oxenstierna, 1st Count of Korsholm and Vasa, Lord High Admiral and Lord High Treasurer, 1st cousin of Axel Gustafsson.
Bengt Oxenstierna, Count of Eka and Lindö, diplomat and Privy Councillor, Governor-General of Ingria and Livonia. Beata Oxenstierna, Mistress of the Robes to Queen Christina of Sweden. Johan Axelsson Oxenstierna, Count of Södermöre, Governor-General of Swedish Pomerania, Marshal of the Realm, son of Axel Gustafsson. Erik Axelsson Oxenstierna, Count of Södermöre, Lord High Chancellor of Sweden, Governor-General of Prussia, son of Axel Gustafsson. Bengt Gabrielsson Oxenstierna, Count of Korsholm and Vasa, President of the Royal Swedish Chancellery, Military Governor of Warsaw. Christiana Oxenstierna af Korsholm och Vasa and noblewoman, famous for marrying a non-noble vicar. Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna, poet and diplomat, member of the Swedish Academy. Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna, naval officer and pentathlete, Olympic gold medalist in modern pentathlon 1932; the Oxenstierna brought the blood of Agnes Haakonsdatter and Charles VIII of Sweden back into the throne of Denmark and Sweden in the persons of Christian IX of Denmark and Haakon VII of Norway, Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, the current monarch.
All three monarchs today descends from the Oxenstierna through their common ancestor, Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, whose paternal grandmother was Countess Charlotte of Dohna-Schlobitten, great-great-granddaughter of Gabriel Bengtsson Oxenstierna, 1st Count of Korsholma and Vaasa, himself father of Bengt Gabrielsson the aforementioned and first cousin of Axel and Bengt Gustafssöner, as well as great-great-great-great-grandson of regent Bengt Jönsson the aforementioned. Oxenstierna was the distant descendant of the aforementioned Charles VIII of Sweden and Agnes Hákonardottir. A listing of members of the Oxenstierna family Link to the Oxenstierna Family Website
Agnafit
Agnafit or Agnefit was the name of a location where Lake Mälaren met the Baltic Sea. In the 14th century, an addition to the Historia Norwegiae described Agnafit as being where Stockholm had been founded; some say that it was a fishing village located on the island Stadsholmen, before Stockholm was founded in 1252. It is moreover mentioned by Snorri Sturluson in the Heimskringla as the location where the Swedish king Agne was hanged by his captive bride Skjalf in his golden torc, she had been captured by Agne in Finland, after Agne's execution she escaped with her thralls. In the Heimskringla, Snorri writes that king Olaf Haraldsson was captured by the Swedes in Mälaren and had to dig a channel at Agnafit to escape into the Baltic Sea. Snorri attributes the name to king Agne and fit, but toponymists have suggested that Agne- can be derived from the practice of baiting fishing tools at the location; the location is mentioned in Ásmundar saga kappabana and in Orvar-Odd's saga. In the latter saga, it is mentioned in the Swedish hero Hjalmar's deathsong.
He sang that he would never more see his beloved princess whom he bid farewell at Agnafit: When Orvar-Odd returned to Uppsala, the princess committed suicide and was buried with Hjalmar in the same barrow. Nationalencyklopedin A Swedish language article in Dagens Nyheter Heimskringla Orvar-Odd's saga
Finns
Finns or Finnish people are a Finnic ethnic group native to Finland. Finns are traditionally divided into smaller regional groups that span several countries adjacent to Finland, both those who are native to these countries as well as those who have resettled; some of these may be classified as separate ethnic groups, rather than subgroups of Finns. These include the Kvens and Forest Finns in Norway, the Tornedalians in Sweden, the Ingrian Finns in Russia. Finnish, the language spoken by most Finnic people, is related to other Finnic languages, e.g. Estonian and Karelian; the Finnic languages are a subgroup of the larger Uralic family of languages, which includes Hungarian. These languages are markedly different from most other languages spoken in Europe, which belong to the Indo-European family of languages. Native Finns can be divided according to dialect into subgroups sometimes called heimo, although such divisions have become less important due to internal migration. Today, there are 6–7 million ethnic Finns and their descendants worldwide, with majority of them living in their native Finland and the surrounding countries, namely Sweden and Norway.
An overseas Finnish diaspora has long been established in the countries of the Americas and Oceania, with the population of immigrant background, namely Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The Population Register Centre maintains information on the birthplace and mother tongue of the people living in Finland, but does not categorize any as Finns by ethnicity; the majority of people living in the Republic of Finland consider Finnish to be their first language. According to Statistics Finland, of the country's total population of 5,503,297 at the end of 2016, 88.3% considered Finnish to be their native language. It is not known how many of the ethnic Finns living outside Finland speak Finnish as their first language. In addition to the Finnish-speaking inhabitants of Finland, the Kvens, the Tornedalians, the Karelians in the historic Finnish province of Karelia and Evangelical Lutheran Ingrian Finns, as well as Finnish expatriates in various countries, are Finnic people. Finns have been traditionally divided into sub-groups along regional, dialectical or ethnographical lines.
These subgroups include the people of Finland Proper, Tavastia, Savo and Ostrobothnia. These sub-groups express regional self-identity with significance. There are a number of distinct dialects of the Finnish language spoken in Finland, although the exclusive use of the standard Finnish —both in its formal written and more casual spoken form—in Finnish schools, in the media, in popular culture, along with internal migration and urbanization, have diminished the use of regional varieties since the middle of the 20th century. There were three dialects: the South-Western and Karelian; these and neighboring languages mixed with each other in various ways as the population spread out, evolved into the Southern Ostrobothnian, Central Ostrobothnian, Northern Ostrobothnian, Far-Northern and South-Eastern aka South Karelian dialects. The Sweden Finns have emigrated from Finland to Sweden. An estimated 450,000 first- or second-generation immigrants from Finland live in Sweden, of which half speak Finnish.
The majority moved from Finland to Sweden following the Second World War, taking advantage of the expanding Swedish economy. This emigration has been declining since. There is a native Finnish-speaking minority in Sweden, the Tornedalians in the border area in the extreme north of Sweden; the Finnish language has official status as one of five minority languages in Sweden, but only in the five northernmost municipalities in Sweden. The term Finns is used for other Finnic peoples, including Izhorians in Ingria, Karelians in Karelia and Veps in the former Veps National Volost, all in Russia. Among these groups, the Karelians is the most populous one, followed by the Ingrians. According to a 2002 census, it was found that Ingrians identify with Finnish ethnic identity, referring to themselves as Ingrian Finns; the Finnish term for Finns is suomalaiset. It is a matter of debate how best to designate the Finnish-speakers of Sweden, all of whom have migrated to Sweden from Finland. Terms used include Sweden Finns and Finnish Swedes, with a distinction always made between more recent Finnish immigrants, most of whom have arrived after World War II, Tornedalians, who have lived along what is now the Swedish-Finnish border since the 15th century.
The term "Finn" also has the meaning "a member of a people speaking Finnish or a Finnic language". Historical references to Northern Europe are scarce, the names given to its peoples and geographic regions are obscure; such names as Fenni, Phinnoi and Skrithfinni / Scridefinnum appear in a few written texts starting from about two millennia ago in association with peoples located in a northern part of Europe, but the real meaning of these terms is debatable. The ear
Jötunn
In Norse mythology, a jötunn is a type of entity contrasted with gods and other figures, such as dwarfs and elves. The entities are themselves ambiguously defined, variously referred to by several other terms, including risi and troll. Although the term giant is sometimes used to gloss the word jötunn and its apparent synonyms in some translations and academic texts, jötnar are not notably large and may be described as exceedingly beautiful or as alarmingly grotesque; some deities, such as Skaði and Gerðr, are themselves described as jötnar, various well-attested deities, such as Odin, are descendants of the jötnar. Norse myth traces the origin of the jötnar to the proto-being Ymir, a result of growth of asexual reproduction from the entity's body. Ymir is killed, his body dismembered to create the world, the jötnar survive this event by way of sailing through a flood of Ymir's blood; the jötnar dwell in Jötunheimr. In Scandinavian folklore, the ambiguity surrounding the entities gives way to negative portrayals.
Old Norse jötunn and Old English eóten developed from the Proto-Germanic masculine noun *etunaz. Philologist Vladimir Orel says that semantic connections between *etunaz with Proto-Germanic *etanan makes a relation between the two nouns likely. Proto-Germanic *etanan is reconstructed from Old Norse etall'consuming', Old English etol'voracious, gluttonous', Old High German filu-ezzal'greedy'. Old Norse risi and Old High German riso derive from the Proto-Germanic masculine noun *wrisjon. Orel observes that the Old Saxon adjective wrisi-līke'enormous' is also connected. Old Norse þurs, Old English ðyrs, Old High German duris'devil, evil spirit' derive from the Proto-Germanic masculine noun *þursaz, itself derived form Proto-Germanic *þurēnan, etymologically connected to Sanskrit turá-'strong, rich'. For discussion regarding Old Norse troll and its development, see troll. Several terms are used to refer to female entities that fall into this category, including íviðja and gýgr; the jötnar are attested throughout the Old Norse record.
For example, in a stanza of Völuspá hin skamma, a variety of origins are provided: völvas are descended from Viðòlfr, all seers from Vilmeiðr, all charm-workers from Svarthöfði, all jötnar descend from Ymir. List of jötnar in Norse mythology Trollhunter Jeramy; the Poetic Edda. Coach House Books. ISBN 978 1 55245 2967. Bellows, Henry Adams; the Poetic Edda. Princeton University Press. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation. Orel, Vladimir. A Handbook of Germanic Etymology. Brill. ISBN 9004128751 Thorpe, Benjamin. Edda Sæmundar Hinns Frôða: The Edda of Sæmund the Learned. Part I. London: Trübner & Co
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital of Sweden and the most populous urban area in the Nordic countries. The city stretches across fourteen islands. Just outside the city and along the coast is the island chain of the Stockholm archipelago; the area has been settled since the Stone Age, in the 6th millennium BC, was founded as a city in 1252 by Swedish statesman Birger Jarl. It is the capital of Stockholm County. Stockholm is the cultural, media and economic centre of Sweden; the Stockholm region alone accounts for over a third of the country's GDP, is among the top 10 regions in Europe by GDP per capita. It is an important global city, the main centre for corporate headquarters in the Nordic region; the city is home to some of Europe's top ranking universities, such as the Stockholm School of Economics, Karolinska Institute and Royal Institute of Technology. It hosts the annual Nobel Prize ceremonies and banquet at the Stockholm Concert Hall and Stockholm City Hall. One of the city's most prized museums, the Vasa Museum, is the most visited non-art museum in Scandinavia.
The Stockholm metro, opened in 1950, is well known for the decor of its stations. Sweden's national football arena is located north of the city centre, in Solna. Ericsson Globe, the national indoor arena, is in the southern part of the city; the city was the host of the 1912 Summer Olympics, hosted the equestrian portion of the 1956 Summer Olympics otherwise held in Melbourne, Australia. Stockholm is the seat of the Swedish government and most of its agencies, including the highest courts in the judiciary, the official residencies of the Swedish monarch and the Prime Minister; the government has its seat in the Rosenbad building, the Riksdag is seated in the Parliament House, the Prime Minister's residence is adjacent at Sager House. Stockholm Palace is the official residence and principal workplace of the Swedish monarch, while Drottningholm Palace, a World Heritage Site on the outskirts of Stockholm, serves as the Royal Family's private residence. After the Ice Age, around 8,000 BC, there were many people living in what is today the Stockholm area, but as temperatures dropped, inhabitants moved south.
Thousands of years as the ground thawed, the climate became tolerable and the lands became fertile, people began to migrate back to the North. At the intersection of the Baltic Sea and lake Mälaren is an archipelago site where the Old Town of Stockholm was first built from about 1000 CE by Vikings, they had a positive trade impact on the area because of the trade routes they created. Stockholm's location appears in Norse sagas as Agnafit, in Heimskringla in connection with the legendary king Agne; the earliest written mention of the name Stockholm dates from 1252, by which time the mines in Bergslagen made it an important site in the iron trade. The first part of the name means log in Swedish, although it may be connected to an old German word meaning fortification; the second part of the name means islet, is thought to refer to the islet Helgeandsholmen in central Stockholm. According to Eric Chronicles the city is said to have been founded by Birger Jarl to protect Sweden from sea invasions made by Karelians after the pillage of Sigtuna on Lake Mälaren in the summer of 1187.
Stockholm's core, the present Old Town was built on the central island next to Helgeandsholmen from the mid-13th century onward. The city rose to prominence as a result of the Baltic trade of the Hanseatic League. Stockholm developed strong economic and cultural linkages with Lübeck, Gdańsk, Visby and Riga during this time. Between 1296 and 1478 Stockholm's City Council was made up of 24 members, half of whom were selected from the town's German-speaking burghers; the strategic and economic importance of the city made Stockholm an important factor in relations between the Danish Kings of the Kalmar Union and the national independence movement in the 15th century. The Danish King Christian II was able to enter the city in 1520. On 8 November 1520 a massacre of opposition figures called the Stockholm Bloodbath took place and set off further uprisings that led to the breakup of the Kalmar Union. With the accession of Gustav Vasa in 1523 and the establishment of a royal power, the population of Stockholm began to grow, reaching 10,000 by 1600.
The 17th century saw Sweden grow into a major European power, reflected in the development of the city of Stockholm. From 1610 to 1680 the population multiplied sixfold. In 1634, Stockholm became the official capital of the Swedish empire. Trading rules were created that gave Stockholm an essential monopoly over trade between foreign merchants and other Swedish and Scandinavian territories. In 1697, Tre Kronor was replaced by Stockholm Palace. In 1710, a plague killed about 20,000 of the population. After the end of the Great Northern War the city stagnated. Population growth halted and economic growth slowed; the city was in shock after having lost its place as the capital of a Great power. However, Stockholm maintained its role as the political centre of Sweden and continued to develop culturally under Gustav III. By the second half of the 19th century, Stockholm had regained its leading economic role. New industries emerged and Stockholm was transformed into an important trade and service centre as well as a key gateway point within Sweden.
The population grew during this time through immigration. At the end
Old Norse religion
Norse paganism known as Old Norse religion, is the most common name for a branch of Germanic religion which developed during the Proto-Norse period, when the North Germanic peoples separated into a distinct branch of the Germanic peoples. It was displaced by Christianity during the Christianization of Scandinavia. Scholars reconstruct aspects of North Germanic religion by historical linguistics, archaeology and records left by North Germanic peoples, such as runic inscriptions in the Younger Futhark, a distinctly North Germanic extension of the runic alphabet. Numerous Old Norse works dated to the 13th century record Norse mythology, a component of North Germanic religion. Old Norse religion was polytheistic, entailing a belief in various goddesses. Norse mythology divided these deities into two groups, the Æsir and the Vanir, who engaged in an ancient war until realizing that they were powerful. Among the most widespread deities were the gods Odin and Thor; this world was inhabited by various other mythological races, including giants, dwarfs and land-spirits.
Norse cosmology revolved around a world tree known as Yggdrasil, with various realms existing alongside that of humans, named Midgard. These include multiple afterlife realms. Transmitted through oral culture rather than through codified texts, Old Norse religion focused on ritual practice, with kings and chiefs playing a central role in carrying out public acts of sacrifice. Various cultic spaces were used. Norse society contained practitioners of Seiðr, a form of sorcery which some scholars describe as shamanistic. Various forms of burial were conducted, including both inhumation and cremation accompanied by a variety of grave goods. Throughout its history, varying levels of trans-cultural diffusion occurred among neighbouring peoples, such as the Sami and Finns. By the twelfth century Old Norse religion had succumbed to Christianity, with elements continuing into Scandinavian folklore. A revival of interest in Old Norse religion occurred amid the romanticist movement of the nineteenth century, during which it inspired a range of artworks.
It attracted the interest of political figures, was used by a range of right-wing and nationalist groups. Academic research into the subject began in the early nineteenth century influenced by the pervasive romanticist sentiment; the archaeologist Anders Andrén noted that "Old Norse religion" is "the conventional name" applied to the pre-Christian religions of Scandinavia. See for instance Other terms used by scholarly sources include "pre-Christian Norse religion", "Norse religion", "Norse paganism", "Nordic paganism", "Scandinavian paganism", "Scandinavian heathenism", "Scandinavian religion", "Northern paganism", "Northern heathenism", "North Germanic religion", or "North Germanic paganism"; this Old Norse religion can be seen as part of a broader Germanic religion found across linguistically Germanic Europe. Rooted in ritual practice and oral tradition, Old Norse religion was integrated with other aspects of Norse life, including subsistence and social interactions. Open codifications of Old Norse beliefs were either non-existent.
The practitioners of this belief system themselves had no term meaning "religion", only introduced with Christianity. Following Christianity's arrival, Old Norse terms that were used for the pre-Christian systems were forn sið or heiðinn sið, terms which suggest an emphasis on rituals and behaviours rather than belief itself; the earliest known usage of the Old Norse term heiðinn is in the poem Hákonarmál. Old Norse religion has been classed as an ethnic religion, as a "non-doctrinal community religion", it varied across time, in different regions and locales, according to social differences. This variation is due to its transmission through oral culture rather than codified texts. For this reason, the archaeologists Andrén, Kristina Jennbert, Catharina Raudvere stated that "pre-Christian Norse religion is not a uniform or stable category", while the scholar Karen Bek-Pedersen noted that the "Old Norse belief system should be conceived of in the plural, as several systems"; the historian of religion Hilda Ellis Davidson stated that it would have ranged from manifestations of "complex symbolism" to "the simple folk-beliefs of the less sophisticated".
During the Viking Age, the Norse regarded themselves as a more or less unified entity through their shared Germanic language, Old Norse. The scholar of Scandinavian studies Thomas A. DuBois said Old Norse religion and other pre-Christian belief systems in Northern Europe must be viewed as "not as isolated, mutually exclusive language-bound entities, but as broad concepts shared across cultural and linguistic lines, conditioned by similar ecological factors and protracted economic and cultural ties". During this period, the Norse interacted with other ethno-cultural and linguistic groups, such as the Sámi, Balto-Finns, Anglo-Saxons, Greenlandic Inuit, various speakers of Celtic and Slavic languages. Economic and religious exchange occurred between the Norse and many of these other groups. Enslaved individuals from the British Isles were common throughout the Nordic world during the Viking Age. Different elements of Old Norse religion had different origins and his
Dag the Wise
Dag the Wise or Dagr Spaka was a mythological Swedish king of the House of Ynglings. He was the son of the former king. According to legend, he could understand the speech of birds and had a sparrow that gathered news for him from many lands; when the bird was killed on one of these trips, Dag invaded Reidgotaland. There he was killed; the earliest two versions based on Ynglingatal, i.e. Historia Norwegiæ and Íslendingabók say that Dag was succeeded by his sons Alrekr and Eírikr who in their turn were succeeded by Dag's grandson Agne: Historia Norwegiæ: Íslendingabók only lists the line of succession: x Dyggvi. Xi Dagr. xii Alrekr. Xiii Agni. xiiii Yngvi". However, in the Ynglinga saga, Snorri Sturluson gives Agne as Dag's son and successor, the two brothers Alrekr and Eiríkr as his grandsons; this is what Snorri tells of Dag: Then Snorri quoted Ynglingatal: The fact that Skjótansvað/Vápnavað appear both in Ynglinga saga and in Historia Norwegiæ's earlier summary of Ynglingatal but not in Snorri's quotation from it, suggests that all of Ynglingatal was not presented by him.
Ynglingatal Ynglinga saga Historia Norwegiae
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