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 fjälllappars.—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.
the 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 norway, 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 desolate 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 protection 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 iv., king of denmark and norway, 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 missionaries and teachers followed his example, and at length succeeded in converting the lapps, and in some measure conquering their ancient barbarism. nothing157 can be more admirable than the self-denial and heroic fortitude of these ministers of christ, for to renounce all that is precious in the eyes of the world to follow nomads little better than savages through the wilds of an arctic country surely requires a courage not inferior to that of the soldier
who seeks preferment at the cannon’s mouth.
