As we all know, the term viking is a little bit confusing. Most people use it to describe iron age Scandinavians, what is totally wrong. So no, "the Finns" were not vikings in this kind of definition. So when Scandinavians were Swedes, Danes and Norwegians, the Finns were Finns, Tavastians, Barmians, Kvens, Karelians, Lapps and Estonians. And there are huge differences between those tribes, how they lived, behaved etc.. So if we see vikings as raiders on boats from Northern Europe things get different. There are many archeological findings, which can be seen as typical for "vikings". For example the ULFBERTH swords, where todays Finland take the second place in founds after todays Norway. It was a status symbol in viking society, and may originate from Middle Europe (Germany/France). The second view is that people talk about vikings as an ethnic or genetic ancestry which is also wrong. There is no such thing as typical viking DNA. Scientific research has shown that many different ethnic ancestries are included. One Viking skeleton obviously came from Ireland and had typical features of the natives there. Another fact is, that the DNA of the descendants of Rurik shows features that are most typical among todays Finns, so either he was a "Finn" or "Finns" lived on the other side of Ostrobothnia, bevor "the Swedes" went northwards. This also supports a theory called "Kvenland theory". A third view sees vikings as traiders, otherwise the Swedes would not have been real Vikings compared to the mainly raiding Danes and Norwegians. And this is interesting because there is many evidence about trade objects found in Finland also. For example the silver hoard near Mikkeli which includes coins from the middle east at the end of the viking age. Also the whole Austrvegr starts parallel to Finlands coastline. Who controlled the coastline? Who lived there? Wouldn't people join a promising activity such as trading goods, when it's carrying out right in front of their eyes? I doubt it. At the end we don't really know it, but I strongly believe that there will be much more to find out in the future. I mean, why would the warrior of Janakkala for example carry two swords of which one was 200-300 years older and which was clearly a typical viking sword. He must have had a connection to his ancestors and DNA shows, that he was a local man, a Finn. I think after beeing 500 years a part of the Swedish Empire, lots of evidence where carried off, destroyed or were put in the wrong context by the rulers as part of Christianization and ideological agenda to gain control over the native people. A nation without history has no identity. I mean there is also evidence of grave robbing by Swedish elites in former days Finland, so maybe that's also a point. But no hate, lot's of love to our northern brothers and every other one on this planet!
That’s completely wrong. Do you think a Swede from that era cried out Vikings! When they saw Danes or Norwegians coming to raid, but yelled out Kurs! Or Esti! When curonians and Estonians raided? No, they didn’t. It was a generic term for any pirate. And the people of that age didn’t refer to Scandinavians as Vikings, they called them Norse. Want proof? The sagas directly call Estonians and Curonians Vikingr.
@@AxionXIII yes, that‘s what I‘m talking about. So I don’t know what you call totally wrong on my comment. I said the term Viking is a todays term for describing iron age Scandinavians (which I tried to proof wrong). By the way there are archeological findings that show raiding activities on longboats through the Baltic Sea by the Curonians way earlier than those activities by the Scandinavians. My opinion is also that the type of longboat they (Vikings) used must originate from areas with much different waterways, lakes, rivers and the sea. The curios thing is, that these boats are not very deep, they where rowed and sailed parallel. They are kind of allrounder boats. Why would they originate from the Danish or Norwegian coastline where the sea is very deep and the winds are strong? The eastern coastline of the Baltic sea on the other Hand is way more flat and there is a bigger mixture of sea, lake and river water systems.
Finns are Finns. It does not matter how other people have seen things and written down their history. We have a language and a culture of our own - thousands of years old.
I’ve been going crazy trying to learn about Scandinavia / Northern European as a foreigner. I tried looking up histories of Norway, Finland, Denmark… nothing. You can find introductions and hours long lectures on the history of Rome or Germany or France… but with these other countries, there’s little to be had. This channel obviously rocks. Norse Beliefs and Magic is another. Geography Now! does videos on all countries. But what I want is something like Simon Sharma’s series on Britain or Fire of Learning’s videos. I’m actually getting agitated enough to *read books.* I’m even thinking about making my own. What information is available is skewed towards the Viking age, obviously. But what about the Christianization process? I heard that the Protestant reformation happened in northern Europe. What was that about? It’s super interesting and yet the number of good English language videos available are limited.
I came across your channel some days ago. I find the content entretaining and instructive, and the art style is very cool. You have a very Finnish sense of humour. Jatkakaa samaan malliin ja hyvää päivänjatkoa.
No! But... Rurik was a long time in lake Laatokka ( I use original name, it's our lake). Most of Rurik nowadays family lives now Imatra and Lappeenranta.
@@Anttimation actually I have been kinda doing that my whole life. Everytime I changed school, new town. Like ala-aste was near home, ylä-aste was in next village and then ammattikoulu in a little town. So people know me in those places so i sort of conquered them x) or they are more easy to conquer now!
Food for thought, not a single viking ship could have passed through the waterways of Karelian isthmus without the blessing of Karelians. Region had notable population, outnumbering viking expeditions in manpower. Also knowledge of the area ahead would have required a local guide.
Staraja Ladoga, as well as many settlements in modern day Russia, were originally founded by the three main groups: Slavic people, Norse people, and Finnic people. Must have been a lot of cooperation and intercultural friendships, with people going fishing together and enjoying the same beer, breads, and cheeses, but surely there was some tension too..........
This is completely made up, and kind of desperate conjecture, all regions of all rivers in Europe had populations far outnumbering expedition manpower.
Rurik the viking has genealogy where the DNA is closest linked to people in modern Ostrobothnian Coast and eastern coast of Sweden. I was reading a study about it and also speculated the name Russia came from the finnish word for Sweden Ruotsi where Rurik probably spoke a mix of Old Finnish and Swedish dialect.
Also, Nestor's Primary Chronicle describes it. The specifics may or may not be truly accurate, but it's a source we have. Ruslagen is a place today in eastern Sweden, Rus (rower, ruþs) lag (law, lay ie realm) en (the, cognate with yon). Potentially the region Rorekr (Рюрик, Rurik is the slavicised form of his name) was from.
Tavastians call Uppsala area Swedish: Russi. When Rurik come to Novgorod with Swedish they get that name. Nowadays language Russi = Ryssä, Ruotsi = Sweden.
Viking Age wasn't a big change to anything. Iron had become common already centuries before, during the Roman Iron Age. There's hundreds of Bronze Age axes and axe molds from the Ural Mountains found in Finland, so trade network was well established to the east along the Russian water ways millenias before the Viking Age. Also all the Baltic Sea region, including the Baltic Peninsula, southern and western Finland, were part of the Baltic Sea bronze trade network. Scandinavian sagas tell that there were kings in Finland, so they in the 12th and 13th century had such idea. But in Scandinavia too, kings were just elected war chiefs. That's what kings of Sweden were too: there was no kingdom like later in the Medieval Age. All the peoples around the Baltic Sea used similar boats and many practiced piracy. The Saarenmaa people (Estonians) were notorious pirates. The biggest Viking Age Norse settlements also got attacked and raided by foreign non-Norse peoples, that includes Sigtuna in Sweden and Hedeby in Denmark, so also Scandinavia suffered the same as other settlements in Europe. Raids were made into Finland also. What comes to religion, many vikings were actually Christians. Scandinavia and also Finland was heavily invaded by Christianity in the late 9th century onward. Christianity came to Finland from Novgorod around 900AD, and hence Christian words in Finnish are loanwords from Novgorodian dialect of that era. Finnic pagan religion had lots in common with other European pagan religions, with the Germanic, Baltic and Slavic peoples. They all had their prime god this male sky god of smithing (thunder, lightning, fire, axe, hammer are related to him), war, agriculture (fertility). Ukko-Ilmarinen is the same god as our neighboring peoples prime sky god was. Why Viking Age is so poppularized, is obviously because of Britain. It fell under repeated waves of migrations and conquests ever snce the Roman power fell. The Irish and Scotts, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and then the Norse. Britain was fragmented and local lords hired foreign mercenaries and gave them land. With Britain becoming a global colonial empire later, English history and litterature popularized vikings.
Historians have become to conclusion that ships made of planks were used already in Bronze Age in the Baltic Sea region. "Viking ship" didn't suddenly appear in Viking Age, there were similar boats used centuries before. And it's inaccurate to call it a "viking ship" as it was used all around the Baltic and North Sea, by the Continetal Germanic peoples, Slavs, Balts and Finnic peoples also, but that's the popular name for it. But that's the biggest change late Iron Age had compared to early Iron Age. Trade and sea travel existed before, but knowledge of the surrounding countries increased with time. Edit: Karelians (eastern Finnish tribe) and maybe Estonians apparently called the ships with the name "uisko," which means snake. The oldest liiterary mention of the word is Eric's Chronicle (from about 1320AD). The Novgorodian vikings loaned the word for their ships from probably Karelian dialect (Karelians and Novgorodians were allied, and later Karelia was joined into Novgorod), and hence became known as Ushkuyniks. As Finnish oral folklore doesn't know the word "uisko", I don't think it was popularly used in Finland. The Ancient Poems of the Finnish People collection has only one runo where uisko is mentioned, asn it's a snake there. There's several hundred runos with words "vene" (boat) and "laiva" (ship) so I think that's how Finns called them. The other explanation would be as "uisko" usage in language had disappeared long before the runos were written down, all instances in runos had changed into "vene" or "laiva" (unlikely IMHO). Finnish kirkkovene (church boat) is a descendant of Viking ship, still popularly used in Finland. Late Iron Age cemetaries in Finland are littered with boat rivets. Ships or parts of ships were used in burial cremations.
Story of " Viking" start 1945. When all " vikings" has fight like sissyes. They was jellous for Finns who are real fighters. They got to get new natoinal identity. They wash out all Finns from they Sagas. Funny was when Swedish has find river road to Bysant! 😁 That road is from ice age. And they learn it from Finns who used all the time. Best was when they sayd that Rurik, Oleg and Nordensköld are swedish!!!!🤣 How rasistic and stupid they are.
@@Anttimation And the Viking "broadsword" was actually adopted from the Roman spatha cavalry sword, first by the Germanic people in Germany proper and through trade it soon spread to rest of the Scandinavian Germanic people, especially once the Carolingian franks tried to muscle in on the Danish lands around AD700s and the Danevirke defense line was built by early Danish kings and good weapons became very much sought after and prized. incidentally this was also the beginning of the ledung and hundra conscription systems that were precursors to organized Viking war bands and fleets.
Love your videos ❤️Ancient Finnish warriors are one of my favorites after I read Kalevala. Please make video on Finnish warriors, how they dressed and their favourite weapons.
Thanks! There's a good idea actually, alhtough their appearance wasn't too different from Scandinavian Vikings, they did have some distinguishing pieces of fashion
Just a fun language thought.. The word finn comes from norse finnr, which originally meant hunter/gatherers, and referred to the saami people. Many sources from the time called the inhabitants of present day Finland (and also Estonia) "eastern vikings". The term kven is attested, but the usually swedes and geats who travelled eastwards and made runestones (western norse made hardly any stones, for example, zero in Iceland) used the word viking on stones for the raiding and trading amongst themselves, and for those we now call finns and estonians shows they didn't see much more of a difference than they did with their fellow scandinavians.
There is also a strong possibility that Norway got its name from a Finnish son of a king named Norri. Finns ruled most of the area we nowadays know as Norway, Norri's way.
@@FROOBELINKALIKAT-p9z One theory is that the name 'Finland' comes from the Old English word finna, a general term once used to describe people from Scandinavia. The Fenni are first mentioned by Cornelius Tacitus in Germania in 98 A.D. The next ancient mention of the Fenni/Finni is in the Getica of 6th-century chronicler Jordanes. One theory is that Suomi comes from word ‘suomaa’ which means ‘swampland’ in Finnish. 2nd is suomu. A third theory some linguists believe that both ‘Sami’ and ‘Suomi’ derive from the same proto-Baltic word, źemē, which was used to refer to land or territory, and the people living on that land.
Interestingly in Nordic sagas there is definitely several mentions of Víkingr frá Esthland. So it's should be out of questions wether some coastal Estonians were vikings. Especially Oeselians (inhabitants of Saaremaa).
There is more to the history but so much has been destroyed by the foreign rulers we've had. Just like it has happened all around the world. Invaders always get rid of local religion and culture. What we have here is just what was left and spread around in face to face, stories.
So interesting, wonderful designed and informative again! Recently friends of mine made a trip to Finland and were so impressed, excited and amazed about the trip- just to let you know;) I recommend them to watch your videos:)
I've always thought that the former old self serving rhetoric common among the Germanic peoples paints Finns in a good light no matter what. Either they could not stand up to savages and every village strongman was as good and qualified as their royal king, or that Finland had some sort of kingdom or tribal alliance. Tietäjälaitos is a proven concept and it'd be weird to have organized religion without organized state, but then again, if we mudhut dwelling savages could raid Swedes and rebuke many crusades, then i wouldn't say it's impossible. I think Finns might have not been vikings per se, i've read of Merovingian age loot being found in graves in Finland, maybe it was always a sort of option. Watched a documentary which told about Finns being varjagi/varanki/varyag, that they sailed down the volga and sold furs to Iranic peoples and such.
Fornjotr=Kaleva Snaer=Niera Tuura/Torro/Ikutiera Nieranpoika=Thorri Ahti Saarelainen=Aude the Rich. Some of the finnish kings from the sagas are also found from finnic oral poetry. Finns burned city of Birka in viking age. There is Finnic poem kalled "Koiviston palo". Koivisto=Birka. In the poem of Ahti saarelainen it is said that Ahti was "saaren kultainen kuningas" or "golden king of the island". Saari=Insula Finlandais=Suomen saari=Finland=Western finland. According to the sagas and later historians Aude the rich was king of westerm finland and very ritch. In finnic poetry Ahti was king of western finland(saari) and very rich. Aude the rich could have been king of finland during 9th and 10th centuries. In finnic poetry ahti was king of finland(saari) during the burning of Birka(koivisto). Poem of ahti says that ahti was "king of the sea". This does not mean that he was sea god, but it means naval power. He ruled nearby waters with his fleets and even sacked Birka. The poem also says that "muistatko kuin hyvin elimme ja tuhat päätä turmelimme" or "do you remember whet we lived well and slew 1000 men". In finnic oral poetry finnic peoples will remeber the good old days whet they were rich, free and independent before crusades and western imperialism came to their lands. In the poem of marjatta christ child is crowned "kainuhun kuninkaaksi rahasaaren vartiaksi" or "king of Kvenland and warden of the mansion". In western finland(Finland, kvenland and tavastland) byzantine christianity has existed since 6th century according to archeology. Poem of marjatta could have been from the 11th century when western finland was mostly christian. Christianity came to finland from greece(byzantium). Then catholicism came to finland with teutonic order during the crusades in 13th century and lutherianism in 16th century when Gustav Waza took finland from Danmark and Germany. Swedes had only the coast of finland proper in 13th century. Finland was ruled by german hansa traders in 13th and 14th centuries and danmark during 15th century. I think that big part of finnic oral poetry whitch kalevala was made originated from finland and kvenland. In 17th century poet singers were persecuted in finland by the swedish government and many fled to karelia and became part of karelian people. I think that poems of marjatta, ahti and koivisto are from western finland while those mythological väinämöinen poems are mostly from karelia and bjarmaland.
@@Anttimation rosala viking centrum is the closest we can get in Finland to the Viking age Finland 🇫🇮 Im gonna make a trip there next summer as it's been over 10 years since i last visited there
@@Anttimation mee ihmeessä. Ihan törkeen hieno mesta. Kandee yöpyä siellä ja syödä kans. Törkeen siisti mesta jo yli 10v sitten ja nyt varmaan vielä enemmän tullu kaikkea
Kvenland was quite large area. Kaland, satakunta, ostrobothnia, modern day kainuu, Finnmark and northern sweden(helsingland) belonged to kvenland. Finland proper, tavastland and savonia belonged to Finland/Tavaesthland. Finnish population of Finnmark(ruija) is very old. Its at least from the viking age. Finns of finnmark are still called kvens.
I have looked in the old church books, and you find Kvens before 1720 or so... but VERY few of them. It seems that in 1700s, Kven was what Norwegians called Finnish-speaking merchants who had come across the mountains to trade as long as they could remember. Those merchants had long stopped calling themselves Kvens, and the word was never used in Sweden at that time. Those merchants were also often Birkarls, a tiny (maybe 50 families top) caste of merchants who had been deputized by the Swedish king to collect taxes from the Sami. The Birkarls were multiethnic and multilingual as merchants often are, but their common everyday language was Finnish. When their tax-collecting privileges were revoked, some settled in Norway, establishing trade contacts in Bergen as well as Tornio and relying on their (surprisingly?) good relationship with the Sami for overland transport and getting access to land. The non-nomadic Sami had ancient and royally recognized rights to land in Norway, so-called "finneodel", which the Kvens could gain access to by marriage (until the Danish authorities noticed and closed that loophole: You're too good at farming, you pay full tax!)
Many historians bypass the fact of language. When country has being occupied for hundreds of years by not one but two foreign language speaking conquerors it suggests that there has being something to be proud of as foreign languages have not being adopted by the Finns. Finns maintained their own language (even that it has changed over centuries like all other languages as well) and their own religions, stories, mythology. Logically thinking this behavior suggests some sort of greatness in past. And as modern activities show conquerors do tend to rewrite history for their favor it can be presumed that there has being activities to reduce finns national history in the past. Facts are however quite clear from archeology that there has being culture in Finland 10000 years ago and we have rock paintings from stone age, we have viking age findings and then we have our language.
Yes that's an excellent point about language! Unlike for example Ireland and Scotland, we managed to preserve it thanks to our ancestors. Now not speaking native Finnish is such a distant, sad thought.
Most historians agree that Kvenland is derived from the word ”Kainuu”, and you showed this by putting Kvenland into the place of modern Kainuu. But i find it more likely that they were some kind of proto/para ostrobothnians since i read somewhere that the word ”Kainuu” was originally used forthe coast of Ostrobothnia. And unlike the modern area of Kainuu, we have archeological evidence of a rich most likely merchant type tribe in the modern area of Ostrobothnia from the period when Kvenland would’ve been a thing.
@@Anttimation i think so too! But it is understandable that it is overlooked, since there is basically no concrete stuff written about Ostrobothnia except maybe the Kvens.
Thanks! That's a great idea, I will put in the pile of future ideas. Would need some filmed footage of Rapola hillfort for example. Once the video is out though, I won't take responsibility for any deaths ;)
i have been to the hill fort site at Havukkakallio here in Eastern Finland many times, not much of it is plain to see and if i didn't know it was a former hill fort site i dont think i wouldve ever noticed anything peculiar about the place. There are some trenches visible as well as raised ground for walls etc. but its pretty much lost to time. some excavations were made there and they found spear tips and axe tips etc. still, a fascinating place where history really comes to life as you walk in those ancient woods
Since the Baltic was as a fast highway in the Iron Age between that is now Finland and Sweden it must have been a lot of contacts anyway between Finnish and Swedish tribes back then.
@@Anttimation it was part of the early Swedish kingdom policy to give tax exempts to Swedish families that settled in Finland and Estonian coast at least until early 1300s when Kalmar union was formed and Swedish political focus went through an understandable shift in focus. the next large "Swedish wave" was around 1700s when the kings again gave tax exempts to Swedes settling in Finland -this time to Savo region, if you've ever wondered why Kuopio region has surprisingly many noble sounding Swedish surnames.
I can't confirm much further than early 16th century, but I got atleast 400 years of family knowledge. Land area is named by our lastname and is well respected between Tampere and Hämeenlinna area to this very day. :)
Ancient kings of sweden, danmark, norway, britain and orkney isles took their queens from kvenland. Vilhelm the conqueror wrote that he is proud to be descendant of Fornjotr. Still the document can be found in london. In the dynasty lists of england fornjotr is marked as ancestor of first dynasty. Rollo was also descendant of forjotr. Finland and kvenland was called "land of the giants" because the kings were extremely tall. Still the gene that causes people to become giantlike exist in ostrobothnia. Finnic poetry speaks about "kalevan suku" or "family of kaleva" who were giantlike people. David Cajanus was one of the few remaining members of that family in 18th century. He or someone in his family wrote(i dont remember who) that "tästä kalevan suvusta on tässä maassa jäljellä yhä pitkää ja voimakasta väkeä mutta heidän jälkeläisensä jäävät yhä pienemmiksi" or in this kaleva's(fornjotr's) family in this land(finland) still reamains tall and strong people but their descendants are getting even smaller".
Vikings? No. Sea raiders, possibly and probably. You also forgot to mention that a lot of people from modern day eastern Sweden settled along the coast. A lot of finn's along with neighboring slavs would end up taken as slaves to be sold on the markets of Kiev and Constantinople. Aswell as fighting along side the Norse when they would aline themselves! So for better or worse, they got to travel quite far lol
Clearly at least Estonians and Finns interacted with each other quite a lot as the languages are very closely related. That means trading and co operation
The language has the same origin. The abundant similarities are obviously not just due to trade contact. The more interesting questions are elsewhere, in timing of the separation and the development of each.
The whole era is what is that popular definition of a Viking ? Yes there were Finish VIKINGS ! Yes the Fins are a people of quiet strength, until provoked. I am just an American who has some Finish blood. With my auburn hair and cherry red beard. And I a set of lungs that can destroy the silence for miles. And people call me Frank the Screaming Viking.
From what i can tell Finland is half Viking as they share similar characteristics to sea faring and raiding but different from Norse Germanic Vikings to be their own identity
Didn't some of the Norse Sagas state that some vikings married Sami and other female Finn Shaman on purpose? Due to the powers that were often attributed to them in both Finn and Norse mythology?
@@Anttimation Check out the Bock saga. Oldest family in the world. Ior Bock was the last surviving descendant. They fled to Sweden after the third Crusade against Finland. In return made an agreement that they wouldn’t share their Saga with the world for 1,000 years, which expired in 1985.
Christian Finnish Frostiis wow i tought i was only finn talking english on Tube, Christian God bless you and you're family and loved ones Amen Be safe ! Oh i was so waiting if you say the magic words, Finland has the second highest amount of found ulfberht sword's only second to Norway yay you are knowledgeable ! Thank you for this interesting topic ! I am surprised you even suggested to leave a prayer and i did before i heard you say that even ! Subbed ! My 93y old grandma said i should talk about history too on tube, and i do in little bits when it's appropriate for my Tube so it's nice to see a dedicated finnish history channel made by a finn with courage to talk english
@@jakkeledin4645 Christian God Jesus is true, i used to be occultist and casted 3 spells at age of 18y and after that became a christian. I don't recomend doing occultism, i recommend turning to christian since Christian God Jesus has proven himself real as well as Father God, The Holy Spirit, Angels and Satan too
Interesting video. This tends to lead into the world of semantics, though. If the word Viking is an old Norse word meaning "raider from the sea" (and the proof seems a bit inconclusive on this) not even all Swedes, Norwegians or Danes were vikings. They were Norse and some of them went raiding across the seas, so these raiders were vikings. If we assume the word viking means just sea raider, all sea raiders would be sorted under the headline Viking, Arabs, African raiders and so forth. Just as people from the British isles were included in the viking raids, so must there have been a few Finns or other ethnic groups from the Baltic countries, or Slavs being picked up on the way south towards Miklagård. Hmm this leads to the question if we really can refer to the trading Norse as vikings as they didn´t really raid...? We can also say that Vikings stopped to be vikings when they settled down in the British isles and only waged land wars and not raiding from the sea... Question is, why would the Finns want to be vikings, isn´t the local history rich enough to explore anyway? I recommend all interested in this topic to have a look at Welch viking´s video When is the viking age? ruclips.net/video/4O92A6M9LB8/видео.html in the end it is about a modern view on sorting things way in the past, a not too easy thing to do.
Yes, the word Viking is very much misused/misunderstood. While the Finnic and Baltic peoples were in the piracy business as well, I, with the authority given to me by myself, wouldn't refer to iron age Finns as Vikings, as it comes with connotations to culture, beliefs and language that were considerably different. Thanks for your well thought out comment!
@@Anttimation I´d like correct myself a bit. Question is whatever the different people even thought themselves to be. Most probably didn´t go anyplace and if there was any difference at all it would probably be if they came from a region near or far away, what family or local ruler they were under. The Swedish regions of Götaland, Svealand, Gotland, Norrland and Österland were a later Medieval construction as Sweden grew and came to include the Danish northern regions and Finland.
For some odd reason I think I'm a reincarnated high king of the sami Finns I'm full blooded sami Finnish decent which my family has always been proud of. Kahkonen on my moms side and Haataja on my dads side. Both are ancient Finnish bloodlines
Whether there were Vikings in Finland, or whether some Finns had Vikings is a controversial topic. The issue is also related to whether or not Finland is part of Scandinavia. The current Finnish territory was part of the Kingdom of Sweden, depending on the interpretation, for about 600 years. For about 600 years, we were part of Sweden and thus also part of Scandinavia. After Sweden lost its eastern part to Russia, a new era began in Scandinavian history, when Finns wanted to be separated from the Scandinavian community. By measuring the skulls and other nonsense, a distinction was made between the descendants of the real Aryan Vikings and the rest of the Nordic countries. Gradually, there was a desire to fade Finland's share in Swedish history, and the story of the Vikings was part of this systematic activity. As different methods of studying history evolved, numerous Viking-era burial finds increased, and it became increasingly difficult to rule out the influence of the Vikings in Finland, or Finland's contribution to Viking history.
Here in America I was surprised to learn that from the early 1900s all the way to 2010 there was a debate as to whether finns were white.for the longest time we were classified as Russian.as if Russian s r not white.sometime around 2010 there became a concensus that yes finns r white they just r not arryan.i guess u have to know somebody.in somebody.
In my opinion I think we can only use the word Viking to describe Sea-Raiders/Pirates from Scandinavia and other Norse-Settled and occupied territories elsewhere, where the Iron-Age Scandinavian culture, customs, religion and language were dominant. The word "Viking" itself is an old Norse word. It doesnt make sense to describe a people with different beliefs, culture, language and so forth, as "Vikings" even if they participated in similar activities as the Vikings.. Otherwise that would make18th century Pirates like Blackbeard and modern-day Somalian Pirates Vikings too. There is plenty of "Viking" objects found in Estonia and Finland, but that can also siomply mean that they simply traded with Swedes or other Scandinavians or that the Swedes had colonies and settlements there aswell (which I believe we know for a fact that they did). And why should that come as a shock? They are neighbors afterall. I dont think we should call the Finno-Ugric peoples Vikings - I think that is offensive to say about them in a way. They had their own truly epic mythology and traditions like the Kaalevala that should be lifted up and talked about more, not be downplayed and boxed in with the Iron-Age Scandinavians. In large part thanks to their mythology we have things like the Lord of the Rings and modern Fantasy. They had their own interesting tales of raids and battles, the Battle of Herdaler being only one of them.
Good points and that is the general connotation of the word, more or less. Since you mentioned Lord of the Rings and Kalevala, I have videos on both if you'd like to check out.
What about the times other countries like Finland and Estonia were under Sweden? So they were Skandinavian then? Were there vikings there then if they were under Sweden? And if Sweden would’ve KEPT those countries and we’d know them Sweden now? So you see how it’s not that black and white. Cause cultures have mixed nowadays and the mixed then as well. Also. I’m from Estonia myself so I know firsthand how we had to become russian and had to speak the language and forget freedom. If we wouldn’t of fought for freedom then perhaps everyone would think we’re russian. Just like Native Americans are just Americans. They had to give up their culture in a way. I think it’s not that simple anyways. “You’re a skandinavian now” “Wait. No. You’re not.” How does that even work?? You’re a viking cause you’re raiding other countries as a pirate and live under Swedish king and all of a sudden you’re taken by someone else. Confusing af. Does that make sense?? I tried 😂
@@meeriann Well first of all, you can be Scandinavian without being "Viking" aswell, take the Sami people for example. Scandinavia is a geographic place technically, Estonia is a Baltic country. I agree, this can be confusing since Sweden used to own the entire Baltic region during their so called "stormaktstiden" in the 17th century and onwards. Before that, during the Viking age the Swedes had some colonies and trade centers along the Finnish coast and around some Estonian islands like Saarema (Ösel in Swedish). But these isolated viking colonies does not change the geographical location of the area and certainly did not change the very different language and cultures of the native Finnish & Estonian inhabitants very much. There was likely some cultural exchange going on, but clearly not enough that you can say that they are one and the same peoples today. A similar thing happened in Britain but on a much larger scale. The Norwegian and Danish Vikings settled around the British isles in vast numbers and even managed to conquer most of England at one point, but the only places that saw successful cultural integration over there were the Orkney islands and Iceland (which is technically not in Britain). All of the other Viking territories were eventually reabsorbed by the Celtic and Saxon majority that lived there, the Norse settlers adopted the local language & culture. Even though Angles and Saxons came from Denmark and northern Germany and spoke a similar language to old Norse and they worshiped the same gods before converting to christianity, no one seems to claim that they are Vikings, which i think is strange. Perhaps they spent so much time fighting their viking cousins across the sea that they have no desire to be seen as one of them? 😅
Siinäpä sitä onkin ihmettelemistä, kun jotkut tunnetut kertomukset esittää, että Rurik olisi ollut suomalais-ugrilaisen kansan jäsen. Eikä slaavi, kuten venäläiset asian haluaa ilmaistavan.
Jep. Luulin tuota ensin "Suomen muinaiset kuninkaat" -tason meemiksi, mutta siitäpä onkin useampi tutkija puhunut vakavissaan. En tiedä, kuinka paljon asiaan tullaan saamaan selvyyttä (jos ollenkaan), mikä tekee siitä vieläkin kiinnostavamman.
In the Middle Ages it largely resembled Sweden and Germany and the influence of the Hanseatic league. In ports and towns at least. In Karelia and Eastern Finland they continued to dress traditionally for a longer period. During the Iron Age it was somewhat similar, yet the Finnic tribes had their own characteristics. Image search gives a decent idea.
Interesting that there were so many swords found as this would indicate a much more stratified society with a rich warrior aristocracy than is often associated with a "wild and free" Finland. Maybe more swords have survived in Finland than in Sweden for some environmental reason, or maybe the swords were property of the trolls :DD
Trolls have an aversion to iron as iron objects were used to keep them off property so I think it would have to be another reason! :D Of course we can't fully extrapolate the number of swords back then from what's been unearthed and documented, but their strong presence here does suggest something beyond mud-dwelling savages which I find interesting
Yes. We like to think globslization is somehow a very recent thing (of course it is at an unprecedented scale but still) even though there are thousand-year-old artefacts from across the globe.
@@Anttimation best examples is the swastikas migration, plus indus valley seals were found in Mesopotamia lmao, that can mean there were other settlements across the world's that but on smaller scale.
I always enjoy learning more about my father's side of my family; the Finnish side with my mother being of Swedish heritage. Either way, I do have Viking heritage.
hiukan puutteista tietämyksestä..sentäs se meni oikein että oli 5 eri "heimoa" ja se se että 5 klaanin jako sillä erolla että länsi suomessa on yksi noista klaaneista..ja sillon kuin viikinkit haasto ne kaato moniin venesaartoihin..plus nimppeli tietoutta että vanhaimmat riimu kirjoitukset on venältä uralilta ja suomesta..scandille se tuli vasta paljon jälkeen...
The most Vikings swords and ones in the best condition have been found in Finland, we know the Scandinavian Vikings liked to learn magic from the Finn’s and marry their women. I don’t think of “Vikings” as people but to go Viking which is raid. So should the question be were Finn’s Vikings? Or would the better question be did the Finn’s Viking? The answer to that questions is yes, yes they did!
Wasn't someone has pointed out that their skill and mastered in shamanism, animism and the stark beauty of the girl/maiden makes them a sought after for being queen for other northerny rulers? That means, they are being well-respected in the viking age
To the Norse, "Finn" meant Sami. Referring to people who spoke an ancestor of the modern Finnish language (as opposed to an ancestor of the modern Sami languages), they would call them Karelians, Kvens, Tavastians, Shudes etc. but never Finns. It's interesting how a demonym can wander like that. The Norse sagas refer to "Finn kings" both in legends (the master smith Volund/Wayland was supposed to be the son of one), and in history (there's one well-known account of a Finn king who called on Norse aid against tribes further east) but they were likely Sami chieftains. Like the pagan Norse, the pagan Sami also had no proper "priest" caste, it was almost always the chieftains who were the noaides (shamans). The pagan Norse didn't see themselves as having a fundamentally different religion than the pagan Sami. Contrary to what many people believe, they converted to Christianity at roughly the same time too. It's true the Sami kept a ton of superstitions and customs of obviously pagan nature, but so did their Norse neighbors. Viking is the Norse word for pirate. Pirates are almost always multi-ethnic - you have sailors who travel and see the world, and see people with different customs who hold completely different things holy. Then they start wondering if any customs - their own or others' - are really that big a deal, and then the customs that you shouldn't plunder wealthy strangers and be cruel are often first to go. The thing that stopped you was in large part "people just don't DO that", and you've just seen with your own eyes that this ain't necessarily so... Popper called it "the strain of civilization". Meeting people with different customs has many benefits, but both tolerance and cruelty has a tendency to win out by default. So yes, there probably were Finnish people on viking ships, as well as Sami ones, Baltic ones and maybe even a few impious people from Christian Europe. Norse was their common language though.
Thanks for watching and for your thoughtful comment! The question in the title is a bit of a trick question - like you said, it's a Norse word for pirate. There were certainly Finnic pirates but not every single Finnic person who lived during the Viking Age was a Viking, nor was every Norseman. We just often call the Norse/Danes/Swedes of the Viking Age Vikings these days.
Speaking about population of ancient finland, i think that all baltic finnic peoples(finns, karelians, estonians, livonians, votes, chudes and bjarms) combined roughly consisted 1milliom people.
With the map? Tbh the video might be better without it, as the nomenclature of the tribes is not set in stone. Take it as a rough illustration rather than a accurate representation, I guess.
Vikings were people who fore in Vikings, that is plundering. Ordinary Norse people were thus not Vikings, but ordinary people, farmers. The term emanates from the Scandinavian word "Vik", wich means bay or inlet, where boats conviniently could be launched or set into the water, without harsh waves from the ocean or seas. The now unlucky people of Grindavik on Iceland, are called Vikings in Icelandic, but for the only reason, they dwell in a bay or vik. Certainly, some people in modern Finland and the Baltic states, especially Estland, could be regarded as "Viking" in the old times. Some of them even spoke Old-Norse.
1. Finland is Suomi in Finnish 2. Finland was Eastern Sweden for 700 years and Finns was fighting in the Swedish army 3. While Norway, Denmark, and Sweden had several wars between them, Finland has never had a war with Sweden.
The hillforts scattering the southern areas of the country and the archaeological finds relating to weapons prove the culture of the time among the tribes was very much martial in nature. Which isn't surprising since other Baltic Finnic groups, such as the Estonian tribes just across the gulf of Finland, were also martial in nature.
To me viking refers more to way of life than origin of person. It is a disappointing fact that we fins dont have our written history from viking era. Discovery of viking swords, specially how many of them found in finland is interesting and weird fact, ulfbert swords, a lot of those in finland. How did the superweapon of that era got in finland?
Same as they got anywhere else; trade, gifts, loot. But why did so many end up in this supposedly backwards and worthless place? That is indeed the question.
Well, I'm no expert to answer that but my two cents are that they're descendants of Vikings (the term Viking itself is a bit ambiguous) for sure. Referring to William the Conqueror and his forces that invaded England.
@@Anttimation Iron Age Tavastia was great. The Iron Age in Tavastia was great, but not as great as where my ancestors lived near Pori. The absence of articles in Uralic languages creates challenges for Indo-European speakers and vice versa. But, with your language skills you know that.
Finland was there under the Vikings age, together with tha Rus 《Swedes) and to the East. They founded Kiev among other cities in Russia. Dont forget that pll from all Scandinavia also went to England, that means ppl from. todays Finland too Scandinavia also went to England to raid.
They're different... they're not directly related...but there are absolutely 100% many cognates between Suomi and Norse. Lots of linguists like to think the Finnish just popped out of a hole in the ground but that's not the case.
Viking is not an ethnicity nor a language. Finnish and Norse languages are very different. Viking is an "occupation" just like pirate, which is the basis of this video. :)
Considering Estonians and Kuronians are attested to in the Saga’s as Vikingr, and mentioned as being allies, raiding and fighting wars together and against. It’s fair to say any pirate in the Baltic matched the true definition of Viking.
Why do you think the Finnish ppl didnt sail east with the Swedes? Because they did and they were there and founded todays Kiev among other cities in Russia
The Swedes went East to Russia. RUS means Russia. And the Finnish ppl was there to eith the Swedes. How do you think founded Kiev!!Swedish Vikings TOGETHER with Vikings from Todays Finland!
Since Vikings often refer to Scandinavian raiders, I don't think Finns were "vikings." The archaeology points to well connected trade routes and pan-nordic interaction though. I don't think it's too farfetched handful of Finns, hearing of Scandinavian success with raiding, might've went with the Scandinavian Vikings as mercenaries or raiders themselves. It's just speculation though, I could be pretty wrong here.
Would be handy if someone discovered some chronicles explaining the matters of the Finns of the time in great detail... Until then, we, including researchers, can only make theories based on the little evidence there is.
Im sure that especially Swedes on their eastern journeys wouldnt be strangers to hire more muscles, especially if they were hunting for slaves. And im quite sure they would hire finns that lived in or around the vicinity of Svealandic settlements in todays west Coast of Finland. The first byzantine - Rus peace treaty have atleast one very finnish sounding name among the clearly Norse ones.
@@Anttimation the Rus - Byzantine treaty in 911 AD, I think the name Karli sounds finnish, or like a finnish variant of Karl. "The treaty of 911 AD opens with a lengthy enumeration of the Rus' envoys (attested or reconstructed Old Norse forms in parentheses): Farlof (Farulfr), Ver/lemud (Vermu(n)dr), Rulav (Rollabʀ), Fost (*Fastuʀ), Frelavc (Frilleifr), Inegeld (Ingjaldr), Karly (Karli), Karn (Karna, attested in a Swedish runic inscription), Lidul(f) (Lidulif
I believe the giant Pike have immigrated to Canada, we have a number of those guys living in our lakes. They like to eat ducklings; baby muskrats and the painted toe of the girls in my family. We solve the problem of these monsters by eating them. remember You are what you eat!
Being a monstrous pike sounds pretty badass. A very traditional Finnish food is pike meatballs or loaf, eaten with mashed potatoes and sauce. Delicious!
@@Anttimation Pike meatballs would be an excellent way to deal with the fishes Y bones as I am sure the meat must be ground up to produce a meatball. My grandfather’s favourite pike lure was a little yellow duckling. It was carved out of wood by a Finnish woodman. Family legend is while trolling this lure behind his canoe a pike ate it and was so powerful it broke his fishing rod in half!
Vikings were Germanic People. Finnish are not even an European nation as origin and historically. They are accepted as Uralic people . We ( Turks) are even more close to Finnish People than Vikings .
Neither Turkish language nor look is similar to Finns or Estonians. So we maybe came over Ural Mountains but I don’t think it’s our origin 😅 Perhaps our spaceship crashed there and we were used to more colder areas so we came to north 😂 Our language is nothing like anyone’s languages out there ffs. Where did we come from??
Vikings didn't really like Finns because they were poor, didn't have very beautiful women and raiding them was a big threat because Finns were great hunters and were able to ambush raiding vikings in forest
The thumbnail has a warrior with chain mail and helm. Although pagans in Finland put into graves swords, shields, spears, axes and horse bits, they didn't bury metal armors nor helmets. So most likely pagan age Finnish warriors didn't look like that. Sometimes even women were buried with weapons. Burial custom in pagan Finland was cremation: bodies were burned and then ashes was put into stone structures. When people turned into Christian faith, they started to bury bodies, no cremation.
Mullan Alta -blog has an article of Vikings' helmets. It says that surprisingly only one helmet has been found in all the Nordic countries from Viking Age: from Norway. A helmet was found from Finland, but it was sold to a goldsmith who reused the metal so nothing specific can be said of it. Kalmistopiiri has an article saying couple of possible helmet fragments have been found in Finland, at least the other is dated before Viking Age. In Central Sweden helmets were made before Viking Age, but not during. So apparently that thumbnail guy doesn't represent well historical Vikings at all.
Of course they wore helmets, like everyone else at the time. It's the first piece of armour one would get, at any point in history. Why so few have survived, no one knows for sure. Very few scabbards have survived intact either (organic material rots) but we assume they were widespread as it makes sense. There are no surviving paddings/gambesons from the era, but as mail does next to nothing without padding underneath, it would make no sense of it not have been worn.
@@Anttimation Unlike metal helmets, scabbards and their metalparts have been unearthed from Finland. Many scbbards probably didn't have metal parts though. They were made of organic materials which didn't survive in the ground, nor cremation.
There is more exploration of this in the video ;) A small note that it introduces Finland during the Viking Age and is not just about whether the Finns were Vikings or not.
Vikings were Germanic. Finns are not Germanic. ☝️Forest goblins. 😂 The Oeselians are a more interesting question. It has been suggested they were Germanic, despite living off the main coast of what is now Estonia. For people in the know though, the defeat of Oeselians was the true end of Vikings. No one talks about them though.
if you're finn, you could likely have viking blood course in your veins. i myself am a finn born on the wrong side of the atlantic. mother is savolainen n father karajalainen
Cool! I am so happy that these videos reach people over there. What part of the US (or Canada?) are you from if I may ask? If we trace lineages back to the Viking Age, pretty much all Finns are related, haha.
As we all know, the term viking is a little bit confusing. Most people use it to describe iron age Scandinavians, what is totally wrong. So no, "the Finns" were not vikings in this kind of definition. So when Scandinavians were Swedes, Danes and Norwegians, the Finns were Finns, Tavastians, Barmians, Kvens, Karelians, Lapps and Estonians. And there are huge differences between those tribes, how they lived, behaved etc.. So if we see vikings as raiders on boats from Northern Europe things get different. There are many archeological findings, which can be seen as typical for "vikings". For example the ULFBERTH swords, where todays Finland take the second place in founds after todays Norway. It was a status symbol in viking society, and may originate from Middle Europe (Germany/France). The second view is that people talk about vikings as an ethnic or genetic ancestry which is also wrong. There is no such thing as typical viking DNA. Scientific research has shown that many different ethnic ancestries are included. One Viking skeleton obviously came from Ireland and had typical features of the natives there. Another fact is, that the DNA of the descendants of Rurik shows features that are most typical among todays Finns, so either he was a "Finn" or "Finns" lived on the other side of Ostrobothnia, bevor "the Swedes" went northwards. This also supports a theory called "Kvenland theory". A third view sees vikings as traiders, otherwise the Swedes would not have been real Vikings compared to the mainly raiding Danes and Norwegians. And this is interesting because there is many evidence about trade objects found in Finland also. For example the silver hoard near Mikkeli which includes coins from the middle east at the end of the viking age. Also the whole Austrvegr starts parallel to Finlands coastline. Who controlled the coastline? Who lived there? Wouldn't people join a promising activity such as trading goods, when it's carrying out right in front of their eyes? I doubt it. At the end we don't really know it, but I strongly believe that there will be much more to find out in the future. I mean, why would the warrior of Janakkala for example carry two swords of which one was 200-300 years older and which was clearly a typical viking sword. He must have had a connection to his ancestors and DNA shows, that he was a local man, a Finn. I think after beeing 500 years a part of the Swedish Empire, lots of evidence where carried off, destroyed or were put in the wrong context by the rulers as part of Christianization and ideological agenda to gain control over the native people. A nation without history has no identity. I mean there is also evidence of grave robbing by Swedish elites in former days Finland, so maybe that's also a point. But no hate, lot's of love to our northern brothers and every other one on this planet!
Well said!
100%!
Denying, destroying or falsifying history is a standard strategy in ruling nations and tribes.
That’s completely wrong. Do you think a Swede from that era cried out Vikings! When they saw Danes or Norwegians coming to raid, but yelled out Kurs! Or Esti! When curonians and Estonians raided? No, they didn’t. It was a generic term for any pirate. And the people of that age didn’t refer to Scandinavians as Vikings, they called them Norse. Want proof? The sagas directly call Estonians and Curonians Vikingr.
@@AxionXIII yes, that‘s what I‘m talking about. So I don’t know what you call totally wrong on my comment. I said the term Viking is a todays term for describing iron age Scandinavians (which I tried to proof wrong). By the way there are archeological findings that show raiding activities on longboats through the Baltic Sea by the Curonians way earlier than those activities by the Scandinavians.
My opinion is also that the type of longboat they (Vikings) used must originate from areas with much different waterways, lakes, rivers and the sea. The curios thing is, that these boats are not very deep, they where rowed and sailed parallel. They are kind of allrounder boats. Why would they originate from the Danish or Norwegian coastline where the sea is very deep and the winds are strong? The eastern coastline of the Baltic sea on the other Hand is way more flat and there is a bigger mixture of sea, lake and river water systems.
Finns are Finns. It does not matter how other people have seen things and written down their history. We have a language and a culture of our own - thousands of years old.
Факты
Some Finns were Vikings, haha.
Wonderful exposition and I like your sense of humour Thank you from Australia.
Thank you! Always makes my day when these are enjoyed across the world :)
I am interested in any History.
My Prays go out to people .
I enjoyed this podcast and and the knowledge it brings.
Thank You
Thanks for watching. Glad you enjoyed it!
I’ve been going crazy trying to learn about Scandinavia / Northern European as a foreigner. I tried looking up histories of Norway, Finland, Denmark… nothing. You can find introductions and hours long lectures on the history of Rome or Germany or France… but with these other countries, there’s little to be had.
This channel obviously rocks. Norse Beliefs and Magic is another. Geography Now! does videos on all countries. But what I want is something like Simon Sharma’s series on Britain or Fire of Learning’s videos. I’m actually getting agitated enough to *read books.* I’m even thinking about making my own.
What information is available is skewed towards the Viking age, obviously. But what about the Christianization process? I heard that the Protestant reformation happened in northern Europe. What was that about?
It’s super interesting and yet the number of good English language videos available are limited.
I came across your channel some days ago. I find the content entretaining and instructive, and the art style is very cool. You have a very Finnish sense of humour. Jatkakaa samaan malliin ja hyvää päivänjatkoa.
Thanks and welcome to the channel!
Yeah this humor might not resonate with everyone... Nor is it meant to.
@@Anttimation the cardiology joke was a good one, made me chuckle
I heard a story where some Swedish vikings settled in southern Karelia and that way a bunch of people from the Karelian tribes became vikings
Hmm interesting, I haven't heard that
No!
But... Rurik was a long time in lake Laatokka ( I use original name, it's our lake). Most of Rurik nowadays family lives now Imatra and Lappeenranta.
We need High King for Finland!! Im happy to volunteer :)
I think you have to start by subjugating the nearby villages and go from there 👍
@@Anttimation actually I have been kinda doing that my whole life. Everytime I changed school, new town. Like ala-aste was near home, ylä-aste was in next village and then ammattikoulu in a little town. So people know me in those places so i sort of conquered them x) or they are more easy to conquer now!
Food for thought, not a single viking ship could have passed through the waterways of Karelian isthmus without the blessing of Karelians. Region had notable population, outnumbering viking expeditions in manpower. Also knowledge of the area ahead would have required a local guide.
Staraja Ladoga, as well as many settlements in modern day Russia, were originally founded by the three main groups: Slavic people, Norse people, and Finnic people. Must have been a lot of cooperation and intercultural friendships, with people going fishing together and enjoying the same beer, breads, and cheeses, but surely there was some tension too..........
This is completely made up, and kind of desperate conjecture, all regions of all rivers in Europe had populations far outnumbering expedition manpower.
Rurik the viking has genealogy where the DNA is closest linked to people in modern Ostrobothnian Coast and eastern coast of Sweden. I was reading a study about it and also speculated the name Russia came from the finnish word for Sweden Ruotsi where Rurik probably spoke a mix of Old Finnish and Swedish dialect.
Interesting!
theres location names in russia such as smolensk which sound a lot like småland which is part of sweden
Also, Nestor's Primary Chronicle describes it. The specifics may or may not be truly accurate, but it's a source we have. Ruslagen is a place today in eastern Sweden, Rus (rower, ruþs) lag (law, lay ie realm) en (the, cognate with yon). Potentially the region Rorekr (Рюрик, Rurik is the slavicised form of his name) was from.
@@Z3r0XoL Not related in any way though
Tavastians call Uppsala area Swedish: Russi. When Rurik come to Novgorod with Swedish they get that name. Nowadays language Russi = Ryssä, Ruotsi = Sweden.
This is absolutely brilliant. Love the illustrations.
Thanks man! Of the north. Appreciate it!
Great video!
Thanks again!
1:36
1:40 Bird? Bird noises? This tripped me out. I had to take my headphones off and look around. Tricky.
Viking Age wasn't a big change to anything. Iron had become common already centuries before, during the Roman Iron Age. There's hundreds of Bronze Age axes and axe molds from the Ural Mountains found in Finland, so trade network was well established to the east along the Russian water ways millenias before the Viking Age. Also all the Baltic Sea region, including the Baltic Peninsula, southern and western Finland, were part of the Baltic Sea bronze trade network. Scandinavian sagas tell that there were kings in Finland, so they in the 12th and 13th century had such idea. But in Scandinavia too, kings were just elected war chiefs. That's what kings of Sweden were too: there was no kingdom like later in the Medieval Age. All the peoples around the Baltic Sea used similar boats and many practiced piracy. The Saarenmaa people (Estonians) were notorious pirates. The biggest Viking Age Norse settlements also got attacked and raided by foreign non-Norse peoples, that includes Sigtuna in Sweden and Hedeby in Denmark, so also Scandinavia suffered the same as other settlements in Europe. Raids were made into Finland also.
What comes to religion, many vikings were actually Christians. Scandinavia and also Finland was heavily invaded by Christianity in the late 9th century onward. Christianity came to Finland from Novgorod around 900AD, and hence Christian words in Finnish are loanwords from Novgorodian dialect of that era. Finnic pagan religion had lots in common with other European pagan religions, with the Germanic, Baltic and Slavic peoples. They all had their prime god this male sky god of smithing (thunder, lightning, fire, axe, hammer are related to him), war, agriculture (fertility). Ukko-Ilmarinen is the same god as our neighboring peoples prime sky god was.
Why Viking Age is so poppularized, is obviously because of Britain. It fell under repeated waves of migrations and conquests ever snce the Roman power fell. The Irish and Scotts, the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and then the Norse. Britain was fragmented and local lords hired foreign mercenaries and gave them land. With Britain becoming a global colonial empire later, English history and litterature popularized vikings.
Historians have become to conclusion that ships made of planks were used already in Bronze Age in the Baltic Sea region. "Viking ship" didn't suddenly appear in Viking Age, there were similar boats used centuries before. And it's inaccurate to call it a "viking ship" as it was used all around the Baltic and North Sea, by the Continetal Germanic peoples, Slavs, Balts and Finnic peoples also, but that's the popular name for it. But that's the biggest change late Iron Age had compared to early Iron Age. Trade and sea travel existed before, but knowledge of the surrounding countries increased with time.
Edit: Karelians (eastern Finnish tribe) and maybe Estonians apparently called the ships with the name "uisko," which means snake. The oldest liiterary mention of the word is Eric's Chronicle (from about 1320AD). The Novgorodian vikings loaned the word for their ships from probably Karelian dialect (Karelians and Novgorodians were allied, and later Karelia was joined into Novgorod), and hence became known as Ushkuyniks. As Finnish oral folklore doesn't know the word "uisko", I don't think it was popularly used in Finland. The Ancient Poems of the Finnish People collection has only one runo where uisko is mentioned, asn it's a snake there. There's several hundred runos with words "vene" (boat) and "laiva" (ship) so I think that's how Finns called them. The other explanation would be as "uisko" usage in language had disappeared long before the runos were written down, all instances in runos had changed into "vene" or "laiva" (unlikely IMHO). Finnish kirkkovene (church boat) is a descendant of Viking ship, still popularly used in Finland. Late Iron Age cemetaries in Finland are littered with boat rivets. Ships or parts of ships were used in burial cremations.
Yeah Viking ship, Viking sword, Viking shield etc.. that's what we call them even though the designs were universal (in northern Europe) at the time
Story of " Viking" start 1945. When all " vikings" has fight like sissyes. They was jellous for Finns who are real fighters. They got to get new natoinal identity. They wash out all Finns from they Sagas. Funny was when Swedish has find river road to Bysant! 😁
That road is from ice age. And they learn it from Finns who used all the time. Best was when they sayd that Rurik, Oleg and Nordensköld are swedish!!!!🤣
How rasistic and stupid they are.
@@Anttimation And the Viking "broadsword" was actually adopted from the Roman spatha cavalry sword, first by the Germanic people in Germany proper and through trade it soon spread to rest of the Scandinavian Germanic people, especially once the Carolingian franks tried to muscle in on the Danish lands around AD700s and the Danevirke defense line was built by early Danish kings and good weapons became very much sought after and prized. incidentally this was also the beginning of the ledung and hundra conscription systems that were precursors to organized Viking war bands and fleets.
Love your videos ❤️Ancient Finnish warriors are one of my favorites after I read Kalevala. Please make video on Finnish warriors, how they dressed and their favourite weapons.
Thanks! There's a good idea actually, alhtough their appearance wasn't too different from Scandinavian Vikings, they did have some distinguishing pieces of fashion
Just a fun language thought.. The word finn comes from norse finnr, which originally meant hunter/gatherers, and referred to the saami people. Many sources from the time called the inhabitants of present day Finland (and also Estonia) "eastern vikings". The term kven is attested, but the usually swedes and geats who travelled eastwards and made runestones (western norse made hardly any stones, for example, zero in Iceland) used the word viking on stones for the raiding and trading amongst themselves, and for those we now call finns and estonians shows they didn't see much more of a difference than they did with their fellow scandinavians.
Another fun fact is that Norse comes from Norsk, which means Norwegian.
Another funn fact. Finnish ppl cal itself not Finland it is called Suomi . It means moore or less like swamp area or ppl living there.
@@FROOBELINKALIKAT-p9z Varsinais Suomi 😉
There is also a strong possibility that Norway got its name from a Finnish son of a king named Norri. Finns ruled most of the area we nowadays know as Norway, Norri's way.
@@FROOBELINKALIKAT-p9z
One theory is that the name 'Finland' comes from the Old English word finna, a general term once used to describe people from Scandinavia.
The Fenni are first mentioned by Cornelius Tacitus in Germania in 98 A.D. The next ancient mention of the Fenni/Finni is in the Getica of 6th-century chronicler Jordanes.
One theory is that Suomi comes from word ‘suomaa’ which means ‘swampland’ in Finnish. 2nd is suomu.
A third theory some linguists believe that both ‘Sami’ and ‘Suomi’ derive from the same proto-Baltic word, źemē, which was used to refer to land or territory, and the people living on that land.
Nice video! Just found your channel👍
Thanks! Glad you did.
Interestingly in Nordic sagas there is definitely several mentions of Víkingr frá Esthland. So it's should be out of questions wether some coastal Estonians were vikings. Especially Oeselians (inhabitants of Saaremaa).
"See your cardiologist" was great
Haha glad you watched until there! :D
I'm loving this stuff!!
Awesome, thanks!
There is more to the history but so much has been destroyed by the foreign rulers we've had. Just like it has happened all around the world. Invaders always get rid of local religion and culture. What we have here is just what was left and spread around in face to face, stories.
Yup
Bock saga.
I likes this channel, subsribing, so kitos och hej hej till en bra kanal!
Excellent! Tack och vi ses! 😁
So interesting, wonderful designed and informative again! Recently friends of mine made a trip to Finland and were so impressed, excited and amazed about the trip- just to let you know;) I recommend them to watch your videos:)
Awesome, thank you! 😁
You deserve way more likes !
Thank you!
I've always thought that the former old self serving rhetoric common among the Germanic peoples paints Finns in a good light no matter what. Either they could not stand up to savages and every village strongman was as good and qualified as their royal king, or that Finland had some sort of kingdom or tribal alliance. Tietäjälaitos is a proven concept and it'd be weird to have organized religion without organized state, but then again, if we mudhut dwelling savages could raid Swedes and rebuke many crusades, then i wouldn't say it's impossible.
I think Finns might have not been vikings per se, i've read of Merovingian age loot being found in graves in Finland, maybe it was always a sort of option. Watched a documentary which told about Finns being varjagi/varanki/varyag, that they sailed down the volga and sold furs to Iranic peoples and such.
Thanks for sharing 😊
Thanks for watching!
Fornjotr=Kaleva
Snaer=Niera
Tuura/Torro/Ikutiera Nieranpoika=Thorri
Ahti Saarelainen=Aude the Rich.
Some of the finnish kings from the sagas are also found from finnic oral poetry. Finns burned city of Birka in viking age. There is Finnic poem kalled "Koiviston palo". Koivisto=Birka. In the poem of Ahti saarelainen it is said that Ahti was "saaren kultainen kuningas" or "golden king of the island". Saari=Insula Finlandais=Suomen saari=Finland=Western finland. According to the sagas and later historians Aude the rich was king of westerm finland and very ritch. In finnic poetry Ahti was king of western finland(saari) and very rich. Aude the rich could have been king of finland during 9th and 10th centuries. In finnic poetry ahti was king of finland(saari) during the burning of Birka(koivisto). Poem of ahti says that ahti was "king of the sea". This does not mean that he was sea god, but it means naval power. He ruled nearby waters with his fleets and even sacked Birka. The poem also says that "muistatko kuin hyvin elimme ja tuhat päätä turmelimme" or "do you remember whet we lived well and slew 1000 men". In finnic oral poetry finnic peoples will remeber the good old days whet they were rich, free and independent before crusades and western imperialism came to their lands. In the poem of marjatta christ child is crowned "kainuhun kuninkaaksi rahasaaren vartiaksi" or "king of Kvenland and warden of the mansion". In western finland(Finland, kvenland and tavastland) byzantine christianity has existed since 6th century according to archeology. Poem of marjatta could have been from the 11th century when western finland was mostly christian. Christianity came to finland from greece(byzantium). Then catholicism came to finland with teutonic order during the crusades in 13th century and lutherianism in 16th century when Gustav Waza took finland from Danmark and Germany. Swedes had only the coast of finland proper in 13th century. Finland was ruled by german hansa traders in 13th and 14th centuries and danmark during 15th century.
I think that big part of finnic oral poetry whitch kalevala was made originated from finland and kvenland. In 17th century poet singers were persecuted in finland by the swedish government and many fled to karelia and became part of karelian people. I think that poems of marjatta, ahti and koivisto are from western finland while those mythological väinämöinen poems are mostly from karelia and bjarmaland.
Tämä ei etes tunnu ihan perseestä vedetyltä, vaan kiinnostavalta tulkinnalta. Hyvä!
Fantastic visuals
Thanks! Appreciate it!
Fiiiinally! Let's goooo!
To Viking Age Finland? Any time!
@@Anttimation rosala viking centrum is the closest we can get in Finland to the Viking age Finland 🇫🇮
Im gonna make a trip there next summer as it's been over 10 years since i last visited there
@@oddis188 Damn! I have never been but it's definitely on the list!
@@Anttimation mee ihmeessä. Ihan törkeen hieno mesta. Kandee yöpyä siellä ja syödä kans. Törkeen siisti mesta jo yli 10v sitten ja nyt varmaan vielä enemmän tullu kaikkea
Kvenland was quite large area. Kaland, satakunta, ostrobothnia, modern day kainuu, Finnmark and northern sweden(helsingland) belonged to kvenland. Finland proper, tavastland and savonia belonged to Finland/Tavaesthland. Finnish population of Finnmark(ruija) is very old. Its at least from the viking age. Finns of finnmark are still called kvens.
I have looked in the old church books, and you find Kvens before 1720 or so... but VERY few of them. It seems that in 1700s, Kven was what Norwegians called Finnish-speaking merchants who had come across the mountains to trade as long as they could remember. Those merchants had long stopped calling themselves Kvens, and the word was never used in Sweden at that time.
Those merchants were also often Birkarls, a tiny (maybe 50 families top) caste of merchants who had been deputized by the Swedish king to collect taxes from the Sami. The Birkarls were multiethnic and multilingual as merchants often are, but their common everyday language was Finnish. When their tax-collecting privileges were revoked, some settled in Norway, establishing trade contacts in Bergen as well as Tornio and relying on their (surprisingly?) good relationship with the Sami for overland transport and getting access to land. The non-nomadic Sami had ancient and royally recognized rights to land in Norway, so-called "finneodel", which the Kvens could gain access to by marriage (until the Danish authorities noticed and closed that loophole: You're too good at farming, you pay full tax!)
Many historians bypass the fact of language.
When country has being occupied for hundreds of years by not one but two foreign language speaking conquerors it suggests that there has being something to be proud of as foreign languages have not being adopted by the Finns.
Finns maintained their own language (even that it has changed over centuries like all other languages as well) and their own religions, stories, mythology.
Logically thinking this behavior suggests some sort of greatness in past.
And as modern activities show conquerors do tend to rewrite history for their favor it can be presumed that there has being activities to reduce finns national history in the past.
Facts are however quite clear from archeology that there has being culture in Finland 10000 years ago and we have rock paintings from stone age, we have viking age findings and then we have our language.
Yes that's an excellent point about language! Unlike for example Ireland and Scotland, we managed to preserve it thanks to our ancestors. Now not speaking native Finnish is such a distant, sad thought.
It’s the root language. Oldest in the world. Check out the Bock saga. 29 letters, each has a meaning.
Most historians agree that Kvenland is derived from the word ”Kainuu”, and you showed this by putting Kvenland into the place of modern Kainuu. But i find it more likely that they were some kind of proto/para ostrobothnians since i read somewhere that the word ”Kainuu” was originally used forthe coast of Ostrobothnia. And unlike the modern area of Kainuu, we have archeological evidence of a rich most likely merchant type tribe in the modern area of Ostrobothnia from the period when Kvenland would’ve been a thing.
Yeah. The Ostrobothnian region is often overlooked when it comes to Iron Age settlements.
@@Anttimation i think so too! But it is understandable that it is overlooked, since there is basically no concrete stuff written about Ostrobothnia except maybe the Kvens.
Me gustaría que este video estuviera en español, saludos desde Venezuela.
Maybe try the auto translate? Cheers
YES, Us Finns, we are oldest kingdom.
Eeeh... ?
We Savonians are mongrel tribe, mix of Karelians, Tavastians and Lapps/Sámi. Our dialect is eastern one like Karelians.
Please make a video about how the Finns made their hillforts and what they looked like! I’d die to see something like that! 😅
Thanks! That's a great idea, I will put in the pile of future ideas. Would need some filmed footage of Rapola hillfort for example. Once the video is out though, I won't take responsibility for any deaths ;)
@@Anttimation you the man 😎👍
i have been to the hill fort site at Havukkakallio here in Eastern Finland many times, not much of it is plain to see and if i didn't know it was a former hill fort site i dont think i wouldve ever noticed anything peculiar about the place. There are some trenches visible as well as raised ground for walls etc. but its pretty much lost to time. some excavations were made there and they found spear tips and axe tips etc. still, a fascinating place where history really comes to life as you walk in those ancient woods
Since the Baltic was as a fast highway in the Iron Age between that is now Finland and Sweden it must have been a lot of contacts anyway between Finnish and Swedish tribes back then.
No doubt. Some mentions of raids survive in runestones and later texts.
If I'm not mistaken, a lot of Swedes settled on the Finnish coast.
Yes and especially in the next few centuries
@@Anttimation it was part of the early Swedish kingdom policy to give tax exempts to Swedish families that settled in Finland and Estonian coast at least until early 1300s when Kalmar union was formed and Swedish political focus went through an understandable shift in focus.
the next large "Swedish wave" was around 1700s when the kings again gave tax exempts to Swedes settling in Finland -this time to Savo region, if you've ever wondered why Kuopio region has surprisingly many noble sounding Swedish surnames.
Congrats to another video making over a thousand views!
Thanks! Yeah they're getting there, slowly but surely... This one faster than many of the older ones
@@Anttimation Great to see this channel get more attention!
I can't confirm much further than early 16th century, but I got atleast 400 years of family knowledge. Land area is named by our lastname and is well respected between Tampere and Hämeenlinna area to this very day. :)
And the last name must be Toijala? ;)
I really like your art
Thanks!
Ancient kings of sweden, danmark, norway, britain and orkney isles took their queens from kvenland. Vilhelm the conqueror wrote that he is proud to be descendant of Fornjotr. Still the document can be found in london. In the dynasty lists of england fornjotr is marked as ancestor of first dynasty. Rollo was also descendant of forjotr. Finland and kvenland was called "land of the giants" because the kings were extremely tall. Still the gene that causes people to become giantlike exist in ostrobothnia. Finnic poetry speaks about "kalevan suku" or "family of kaleva" who were giantlike people. David Cajanus was one of the few remaining members of that family in 18th century. He or someone in his family wrote(i dont remember who) that "tästä kalevan suvusta on tässä maassa jäljellä yhä pitkää ja voimakasta väkeä mutta heidän jälkeläisensä jäävät yhä pienemmiksi" or in this kaleva's(fornjotr's) family in this land(finland) still reamains tall and strong people but their descendants are getting even smaller".
Interesting!
Vikings? No. Sea raiders, possibly and probably. You also forgot to mention that a lot of people from modern day eastern Sweden settled along the coast. A lot of finn's along with neighboring slavs would end up taken as slaves to be sold on the markets of Kiev and Constantinople. Aswell as fighting along side the Norse when they would aline themselves! So for better or worse, they got to travel quite far lol
PERKELE!!!
Clearly at least Estonians and Finns interacted with each other quite a lot as the languages are very closely related. That means trading and co operation
The language has the same origin. The abundant similarities are obviously not just due to trade contact. The more interesting questions are elsewhere, in timing of the separation and the development of each.
The root language. Check out the Bock saga.
The whole era is what is that popular definition of a Viking ? Yes there were Finish VIKINGS ! Yes the Fins are a people of quiet strength, until provoked. I am just an American who has some Finish blood.
With my auburn hair and cherry red beard.
And I a set of lungs that can destroy the silence for miles. And people call me Frank the Screaming Viking.
From what i can tell Finland is half Viking as they share similar characteristics to sea faring and raiding but different from Norse Germanic Vikings to be their own identity
Yeah, you could say that
Norse is misspoken Norsk, meaning Norwegian
@@CarlosSanchez-my7zg i know and does that make a difference? Unless you are a swede 🌝
Didn't some of the Norse Sagas state that some vikings married Sami and other female Finn Shaman on purpose? Due to the powers that were often attributed to them in both Finn and Norse mythology?
Sounds familiar yeah! Have to look it up.
Harold finehair married a sami witch
@@thomasfloyd3146 Ty.
@@Anttimation Check out the Bock saga. Oldest family in the world. Ior Bock was the last surviving descendant. They fled to Sweden after the third Crusade against Finland. In return made an agreement that they wouldn’t share their Saga with the world for 1,000 years, which expired in 1985.
@@Damn3dYank33 While it may be interesting as fiction, that's all it is
Christian Finnish Frostiis wow i tought i was only finn talking english on Tube, Christian God bless you and you're family and loved ones Amen Be safe ! Oh i was so waiting if you say the magic words, Finland has the second highest amount of found ulfberht sword's only second to Norway yay you are knowledgeable ! Thank you for this interesting topic ! I am surprised you even suggested to leave a prayer and i did before i heard you say that even ! Subbed ! My 93y old grandma said i should talk about history too on tube, and i do in little bits when it's appropriate for my Tube so it's nice to see a dedicated finnish history channel made by a finn with courage to talk english
Thank you! 🙌
@@Anttimation My pleasure ! Thank's again and thanks for the response !
Why anybody believe near east Gods?
I am old time pagan and proud for that!
@@jakkeledin4645 Christian God Jesus is true, i used to be occultist and casted 3 spells at age of 18y and after that became a christian. I don't recomend doing occultism, i recommend turning to christian since Christian God Jesus has proven himself real as well as Father God, The Holy Spirit, Angels and Satan too
"Suomen kieli" These two words already prove the ancient culture of ours.
You will become the high king one day, I just know it in my heart jajaa
Others have also signed up in the comments... This might get ugly 🤓
High king Antti of the Burning Island?
@@js1423 I'll go change my LinkedIn title
@@Anttimation 👍
Interesting video. This tends to lead into the world of semantics, though. If the word Viking is an old Norse word meaning "raider from the sea" (and the proof seems a bit inconclusive on this) not even all Swedes, Norwegians or Danes were vikings. They were Norse and some of them went raiding across the seas, so these raiders were vikings. If we assume the word viking means just sea raider, all sea raiders would be sorted under the headline Viking, Arabs, African raiders and so forth. Just as people from the British isles were included in the viking raids, so must there have been a few Finns or other ethnic groups from the Baltic countries, or Slavs being picked up on the way south towards Miklagård. Hmm this leads to the question if we really can refer to the trading Norse as vikings as they didn´t really raid...? We can also say that Vikings stopped to be vikings when they settled down in the British isles and only waged land wars and not raiding from the sea... Question is, why would the Finns want to be vikings, isn´t the local history rich enough to explore anyway? I recommend all interested in this topic to have a look at Welch viking´s video When is the viking age? ruclips.net/video/4O92A6M9LB8/видео.html in the end it is about a modern view on sorting things way in the past, a not too easy thing to do.
Yes, the word Viking is very much misused/misunderstood. While the Finnic and Baltic peoples were in the piracy business as well, I, with the authority given to me by myself, wouldn't refer to iron age Finns as Vikings, as it comes with connotations to culture, beliefs and language that were considerably different.
Thanks for your well thought out comment!
@@Anttimation I´d like correct myself a bit. Question is whatever the different people even thought themselves to be. Most probably didn´t go anyplace and if there was any difference at all it would probably be if they came from a region near or far away, what family or local ruler they were under. The Swedish regions of Götaland, Svealand, Gotland, Norrland and Österland were a later Medieval construction as Sweden grew and came to include the Danish northern regions and Finland.
For some odd reason I think I'm a reincarnated high king of the sami Finns I'm full blooded sami Finnish decent which my family has always been proud of. Kahkonen on my moms side and Haataja on my dads side. Both are ancient Finnish bloodlines
There were waaaay less finnish vikings when comparing to scandinavia, but there definitely were atleast some thats for sure.
"If Finnish history and mythology is close to your heart, see a cardiologist"
HAHAH. Subscribed; Finns are so funny!
Welcome aboard!
Whether there were Vikings in Finland, or whether some Finns had Vikings is a controversial topic. The issue is also related to whether or not Finland is part of Scandinavia. The current Finnish territory was part of the Kingdom of Sweden, depending on the interpretation, for about 600 years. For about 600 years, we were part of Sweden and thus also part of Scandinavia. After Sweden lost its eastern part to Russia, a new era began in Scandinavian history, when Finns wanted to be separated from the Scandinavian community. By measuring the skulls and other nonsense, a distinction was made between the descendants of the real Aryan Vikings and the rest of the Nordic countries. Gradually, there was a desire to fade Finland's share in Swedish history, and the story of the Vikings was part of this systematic activity. As different methods of studying history evolved, numerous Viking-era burial finds increased, and it became increasingly difficult to rule out the influence of the Vikings in Finland, or Finland's contribution to Viking history.
"Aryan" mmh...
Here in America I was surprised to learn that from the early 1900s all the way to 2010 there was a debate as to whether finns were white.for the longest time we were classified as Russian.as if Russian s r not white.sometime around 2010 there became a concensus that yes finns r white they just r not arryan.i guess u have to know somebody.in somebody.
In my opinion I think we can only use the word Viking to describe Sea-Raiders/Pirates from Scandinavia and other Norse-Settled and occupied territories elsewhere, where the Iron-Age Scandinavian culture, customs, religion and language were dominant. The word "Viking" itself is an old Norse word. It doesnt make sense to describe a people with different beliefs, culture, language and so forth, as "Vikings" even if they participated in similar activities as the Vikings.. Otherwise that would make18th century Pirates like Blackbeard and modern-day Somalian Pirates Vikings too.
There is plenty of "Viking" objects found in Estonia and Finland, but that can also siomply mean that they simply traded with Swedes or other Scandinavians or that the Swedes had colonies and settlements there aswell (which I believe we know for a fact that they did). And why should that come as a shock? They are neighbors afterall.
I dont think we should call the Finno-Ugric peoples Vikings - I think that is offensive to say about them in a way. They had their own truly epic mythology and traditions like the Kaalevala that should be lifted up and talked about more, not be downplayed and boxed in with the Iron-Age Scandinavians. In large part thanks to their mythology we have things like the Lord of the Rings and modern Fantasy. They had their own interesting tales of raids and battles, the Battle of Herdaler being only one of them.
Good points and that is the general connotation of the word, more or less.
Since you mentioned Lord of the Rings and Kalevala, I have videos on both if you'd like to check out.
@@Anttimation Thanks! I will check it out :)
What about the times other countries like Finland and Estonia were under Sweden?
So they were Skandinavian then? Were there vikings there then if they were under Sweden?
And if Sweden would’ve KEPT those countries and we’d know them Sweden now?
So you see how it’s not that black and white.
Cause cultures have mixed nowadays and the mixed then as well.
Also. I’m from Estonia myself so I know firsthand how we had to become russian and had to speak the language and forget freedom. If we wouldn’t of fought for freedom then perhaps everyone would think we’re russian.
Just like Native Americans are just Americans. They had to give up their culture in a way.
I think it’s not that simple anyways.
“You’re a skandinavian now”
“Wait. No. You’re not.”
How does that even work??
You’re a viking cause you’re raiding other countries as a pirate and live under Swedish king and all of a sudden you’re taken by someone else.
Confusing af.
Does that make sense?? I tried 😂
@@meeriann Well first of all, you can be Scandinavian without being "Viking" aswell, take the Sami people for example. Scandinavia is a geographic place technically, Estonia is a Baltic country.
I agree, this can be confusing since Sweden used to own the entire Baltic region during their so called "stormaktstiden" in the 17th century and onwards. Before that, during the Viking age the Swedes had some colonies and trade centers along the Finnish coast and around some Estonian islands like Saarema (Ösel in Swedish). But these isolated viking colonies does not change the geographical location of the area and certainly did not change the very different language and cultures of the native Finnish & Estonian inhabitants very much. There was likely some cultural exchange going on, but clearly not enough that you can say that they are one and the same peoples today.
A similar thing happened in Britain but on a much larger scale.
The Norwegian and Danish Vikings settled around the British isles in vast numbers and even managed to conquer most of England at one point, but the only places that saw successful cultural integration over there were the Orkney islands and Iceland (which is technically not in Britain). All of the other Viking territories were eventually reabsorbed by the Celtic and Saxon majority that lived there, the Norse settlers adopted the local language & culture.
Even though Angles and Saxons came from Denmark and northern Germany and spoke a similar language to old Norse and they worshiped the same gods before converting to christianity, no one seems to claim that they are Vikings, which i think is strange. Perhaps they spent so much time fighting their viking cousins across the sea that they have no desire to be seen as one of them? 😅
There have bee n swedish settlers in south of Finland coast areas maybe 6th century.
Yes and most importantly there were no modern nation states with clearly defined borders
Jag är båda, Suomalainen ja Svensk. Vi har en lång historia tillsammans.
Siinäpä sitä onkin ihmettelemistä, kun jotkut tunnetut kertomukset esittää, että Rurik olisi ollut suomalais-ugrilaisen kansan jäsen. Eikä slaavi, kuten venäläiset asian haluaa ilmaistavan.
Jep. Luulin tuota ensin "Suomen muinaiset kuninkaat" -tason meemiksi, mutta siitäpä onkin useampi tutkija puhunut vakavissaan. En tiedä, kuinka paljon asiaan tullaan saamaan selvyyttä (jos ollenkaan), mikä tekee siitä vieläkin kiinnostavamman.
I would like to know if Middle Ages Finns dressed like their Scandinavian neighbors or if they had their own style.
In the Middle Ages it largely resembled Sweden and Germany and the influence of the Hanseatic league. In ports and towns at least. In Karelia and Eastern Finland they continued to dress traditionally for a longer period.
During the Iron Age it was somewhat similar, yet the Finnic tribes had their own characteristics. Image search gives a decent idea.
Interesting that there were so many swords found as this would indicate a much more stratified society with a rich warrior aristocracy than is often associated with a "wild and free" Finland.
Maybe more swords have survived in Finland than in Sweden for some environmental reason, or maybe the swords were property of the trolls :DD
Trolls have an aversion to iron as iron objects were used to keep them off property so I think it would have to be another reason! :D
Of course we can't fully extrapolate the number of swords back then from what's been unearthed and documented, but their strong presence here does suggest something beyond mud-dwelling savages which I find interesting
Trade network?
I belive the world was more connected by trade then we actually expect.
Yes. We like to think globslization is somehow a very recent thing (of course it is at an unprecedented scale but still) even though there are thousand-year-old artefacts from across the globe.
@@Anttimation best examples is the swastikas migration, plus indus valley seals were found in Mesopotamia lmao, that can mean there were other settlements across the world's that but on smaller scale.
I always enjoy learning more about my father's side of my family; the Finnish side with my mother being of Swedish heritage. Either way, I do have Viking heritage.
Do your heritage justice, go and raid a monastery ot two! ;)
hiukan puutteista tietämyksestä..sentäs se meni oikein että oli 5 eri "heimoa" ja se se että 5 klaanin jako sillä erolla että länsi suomessa on yksi noista klaaneista..ja sillon kuin viikinkit haasto ne kaato moniin venesaartoihin..plus nimppeli tietoutta että vanhaimmat riimu kirjoitukset on venältä uralilta ja suomesta..scandille se tuli vasta paljon jälkeen...
The most Vikings swords and ones in the best condition have been found in Finland, we know the Scandinavian Vikings liked to learn magic from the Finn’s and marry their women. I don’t think of “Vikings” as people but to go Viking which is raid. So should the question be were Finn’s Vikings? Or would the better question be did the Finn’s Viking?
The answer to that questions is yes, yes they did!
Perkele ❤🎉
Perkele!
Wasn't someone has pointed out that their skill and mastered in shamanism, animism and the stark beauty of the girl/maiden makes them a sought after for being queen for other northerny rulers?
That means, they are being well-respected in the viking age
There are such references in the sagas at least off the top of my head, yes
The Finns are known as the lovers of the “Arctic people.” The Bock saga explains how the gene pool there was to create strong healthy men and women.
To the Norse, "Finn" meant Sami. Referring to people who spoke an ancestor of the modern Finnish language (as opposed to an ancestor of the modern Sami languages), they would call them Karelians, Kvens, Tavastians, Shudes etc. but never Finns. It's interesting how a demonym can wander like that.
The Norse sagas refer to "Finn kings" both in legends (the master smith Volund/Wayland was supposed to be the son of one), and in history (there's one well-known account of a Finn king who called on Norse aid against tribes further east) but they were likely Sami chieftains.
Like the pagan Norse, the pagan Sami also had no proper "priest" caste, it was almost always the chieftains who were the noaides (shamans). The pagan Norse didn't see themselves as having a fundamentally different religion than the pagan Sami. Contrary to what many people believe, they converted to Christianity at roughly the same time too. It's true the Sami kept a ton of superstitions and customs of obviously pagan nature, but so did their Norse neighbors.
Viking is the Norse word for pirate. Pirates are almost always multi-ethnic - you have sailors who travel and see the world, and see people with different customs who hold completely different things holy. Then they start wondering if any customs - their own or others' - are really that big a deal, and then the customs that you shouldn't plunder wealthy strangers and be cruel are often first to go. The thing that stopped you was in large part "people just don't DO that", and you've just seen with your own eyes that this ain't necessarily so... Popper called it "the strain of civilization". Meeting people with different customs has many benefits, but both tolerance and cruelty has a tendency to win out by default.
So yes, there probably were Finnish people on viking ships, as well as Sami ones, Baltic ones and maybe even a few impious people from Christian Europe. Norse was their common language though.
Thanks for watching and for your thoughtful comment! The question in the title is a bit of a trick question - like you said, it's a Norse word for pirate. There were certainly Finnic pirates but not every single Finnic person who lived during the Viking Age was a Viking, nor was every Norseman. We just often call the Norse/Danes/Swedes of the Viking Age Vikings these days.
Speaking about population of ancient finland, i think that all baltic finnic peoples(finns, karelians, estonians, livonians, votes, chudes and bjarms) combined roughly consisted 1milliom people.
You didnt mention Bjarmi-tribe?!
With the map? Tbh the video might be better without it, as the nomenclature of the tribes is not set in stone. Take it as a rough illustration rather than a accurate representation, I guess.
Vikings were people who fore in Vikings, that is plundering. Ordinary Norse people were thus not Vikings, but ordinary people, farmers.
The term emanates from the Scandinavian word "Vik", wich means bay or inlet, where boats conviniently could be launched or set into the water, without harsh waves from the ocean or seas.
The now unlucky people of Grindavik on Iceland, are called Vikings in Icelandic, but for the only reason, they dwell in a bay or vik.
Certainly, some people in modern Finland and the Baltic states, especially Estland, could be regarded as "Viking" in the old times. Some of them even spoke Old-Norse.
Indeed Bit of a useless battle to fight against the popular culture influenced idea of Vikings but let's not give up, haha
1. Finland is Suomi in Finnish 2. Finland was Eastern Sweden for 700 years and Finns was fighting in the Swedish army 3. While Norway, Denmark, and Sweden had several wars between them, Finland has never had a war with Sweden.
Sounds about right.
Metsäviikingit veti turpaan tänne tulevia. Ystävällisin terveisin
-Roviorannikko
Tbh we were probably just grumbling in the woods avoiding unnecessary conflict like always
Only necessary conflicts for us Finns.
The hillforts scattering the southern areas of the country and the archaeological finds relating to weapons prove the culture of the time among the tribes was very much martial in nature. Which isn't surprising since other Baltic Finnic groups, such as the Estonian tribes just across the gulf of Finland, were also martial in nature.
but don't f#%k with the finn
To me viking refers more to way of life than origin of person. It is a disappointing fact that we fins dont have our written history from viking era. Discovery of viking swords, specially how many of them found in finland is interesting and weird fact, ulfbert swords, a lot of those in finland. How did the superweapon of that era got in finland?
Same as they got anywhere else; trade, gifts, loot. But why did so many end up in this supposedly backwards and worthless place? That is indeed the question.
Are "Normands" from Normandy (France) viking.? (Majoritary DNA scandinavian)
Well, I'm no expert to answer that but my two cents are that they're descendants of Vikings (the term Viking itself is a bit ambiguous) for sure. Referring to William the Conqueror and his forces that invaded England.
Normans= men from north. Mens who conquest that area. Their leader was Rollo, who was proud for his Finns Royal family.
minj 4:50. "the Viking Age Finland". One needs to leave out the word 'THE'.
That's an incredibly precise observation 😅
@@Anttimation Iron Age Tavastia was great. The Iron Age in Tavastia was great, but not as great as where my ancestors lived near Pori. The absence of articles in Uralic languages creates challenges for Indo-European speakers and vice versa. But, with your language skills you know that.
If you are swimming and being chased by fins, at least you are not being chased by angry Finns!
Finland was there under the Vikings age, together with tha Rus 《Swedes) and to the East. They founded Kiev among other cities in Russia. Dont forget that pll from all Scandinavia also went to England, that means ppl from. todays Finland too Scandinavia also went to England to raid.
The Finns and Russians are the same race.
They're different... they're not directly related...but there are absolutely 100% many cognates between Suomi and Norse. Lots of linguists like to think the Finnish just popped out of a hole in the ground but that's not the case.
Viking is not an ethnicity nor a language. Finnish and Norse languages are very different. Viking is an "occupation" just like pirate, which is the basis of this video. :)
@@Anttimation oh yes, I agree, Vikings were raiding sailors but the fact remains there are cognates in the two languages.
Considering Estonians and Kuronians are attested to in the Saga’s as Vikingr, and mentioned as being allies, raiding and fighting wars together and against. It’s fair to say any pirate in the Baltic matched the true definition of Viking.
Some Finns, some Esti, are partly from Sweden, wich in the old times was called Roslagen, and to this very day. Hence the term "Rus".
Why do you think the Finnish ppl didnt sail east with the Swedes? Because they did and they were there and founded todays Kiev among other cities in Russia
The Swedes went East to Russia. RUS means Russia. And the Finnish ppl was there to eith the Swedes. How do you think founded Kiev!!Swedish Vikings TOGETHER with Vikings from Todays Finland!
Very likely some did, and there are findings of Finnish items in Kiev/Rus
Since Vikings often refer to Scandinavian raiders, I don't think Finns were "vikings." The archaeology points to well connected trade routes and pan-nordic interaction though. I don't think it's too farfetched handful of Finns, hearing of Scandinavian success with raiding, might've went with the Scandinavian Vikings as mercenaries or raiders themselves. It's just speculation though, I could be pretty wrong here.
Would be handy if someone discovered some chronicles explaining the matters of the Finns of the time in great detail... Until then, we, including researchers, can only make theories based on the little evidence there is.
Im sure that especially Swedes on their eastern journeys wouldnt be strangers to hire more muscles, especially if they were hunting for slaves. And im quite sure they would hire finns that lived in or around the vicinity of Svealandic settlements in todays west Coast of Finland. The first byzantine - Rus peace treaty have atleast one very finnish sounding name among the clearly Norse ones.
@@joonte1010 what's the name and can we read about the treaty somewhere? Thanks!
@@Anttimation the Rus - Byzantine treaty in 911 AD, I think the name Karli sounds finnish, or like a finnish variant of Karl.
"The treaty of 911 AD opens with a lengthy enumeration of the Rus' envoys (attested or reconstructed Old Norse forms in parentheses): Farlof (Farulfr), Ver/lemud (Vermu(n)dr), Rulav (Rollabʀ), Fost (*Fastuʀ), Frelavc (Frilleifr), Inegeld (Ingjaldr), Karly (Karli), Karn (Karna, attested in a Swedish runic inscription), Lidul(f) (Lidulif
So Finland was under Sweden for hundreds of years. So were lot of other neighboring countries.
Cultures and people mixed.
That’s the thing here.
Man... the possibility of putting the high king in 4 minutes 20 seconds was there to be used 🤣😉
NOWADAYS IT IS NOT HILLFORTS BUT CAVES (BOMB SHELTERS)
True. Although I don't think they're required in new developments anymore.
I believe the giant Pike have immigrated to Canada, we have a number of those guys living in our lakes. They like to eat ducklings; baby muskrats and the painted toe of the girls in my family. We solve the problem of these monsters by eating them. remember You are what you eat!
Being a monstrous pike sounds pretty badass.
A very traditional Finnish food is pike meatballs or loaf, eaten with mashed potatoes and sauce. Delicious!
@@Anttimation Pike meatballs would be an excellent way to deal with the fishes Y bones as I am sure the meat must be ground up to produce a meatball. My grandfather’s favourite pike lure was a little yellow duckling. It was carved out of wood by a Finnish woodman. Family legend is while trolling this lure behind his canoe a pike ate it and was so powerful it broke his fishing rod in half!
@@reddeercanoe wow! How big do they get over there?
Yes it needs a strong blender/food processor for the bigger fish.
Vikings were Germanic People. Finnish are not even an European nation as origin and historically. They are accepted as Uralic people . We ( Turks) are even more close to Finnish People than Vikings .
Depending on how we define 'viking'. Usually it indeed comes with North Germanic connotations, which excludes Finnic and Estonian peoples.
Neither Turkish language nor look is similar to Finns or Estonians.
So we maybe came over Ural Mountains but I don’t think it’s our origin 😅
Perhaps our spaceship crashed there and we were used to more colder areas so we came to north 😂
Our language is nothing like anyone’s languages out there ffs. Where did we come from??
Vikings didn't really like Finns because they were poor, didn't have very beautiful women and raiding them was a big threat because Finns were great hunters and were able to ambush raiding vikings in forest
How do you know about the women 1000+ years ago? :D
i was in finland last month n saw lots of beautiful women. no, i've not lowered my standards to raise the average
Että mä repesin kun sanoit että ”see a cardiologist” 😂😂😂
The thumbnail has a warrior with chain mail and helm. Although pagans in Finland put into graves swords, shields, spears, axes and horse bits, they didn't bury metal armors nor helmets. So most likely pagan age Finnish warriors didn't look like that. Sometimes even women were buried with weapons. Burial custom in pagan Finland was cremation: bodies were burned and then ashes was put into stone structures. When people turned into Christian faith, they started to bury bodies, no cremation.
It's a reference to the question of whether the Finns were Vikings, hence the Viking warrior. Stock clip of reenactors.
Mullan Alta -blog has an article of Vikings' helmets. It says that surprisingly only one helmet has been found in all the Nordic countries from Viking Age: from Norway. A helmet was found from Finland, but it was sold to a goldsmith who reused the metal so nothing specific can be said of it. Kalmistopiiri has an article saying couple of possible helmet fragments have been found in Finland, at least the other is dated before Viking Age. In Central Sweden helmets were made before Viking Age, but not during. So apparently that thumbnail guy doesn't represent well historical Vikings at all.
Of course they wore helmets, like everyone else at the time. It's the first piece of armour one would get, at any point in history.
Why so few have survived, no one knows for sure. Very few scabbards have survived intact either (organic material rots) but we assume they were widespread as it makes sense.
There are no surviving paddings/gambesons from the era, but as mail does next to nothing without padding underneath, it would make no sense of it not have been worn.
@@Anttimation Unlike metal helmets, scabbards and their metalparts have been unearthed from Finland.
Many scbbards probably didn't have metal parts though. They were made of organic materials which didn't survive in the ground, nor cremation.
@@Anttimation thats not a viking warrior though, when looking at the helmet its Vendel age warrior ( pre- viking) but who cares, details.
Finns were not vikings but there were Scandinavian viking tribes living in what is now Finland.
There is more exploration of this in the video ;)
A small note that it introduces Finland during the Viking Age and is not just about whether the Finns were Vikings or not.
Vikings were Germanic. Finns are not Germanic. ☝️Forest goblins. 😂
The Oeselians are a more interesting question. It has been suggested they were Germanic, despite living off the main coast of what is now Estonia. For people in the know though, the defeat of Oeselians was the true end of Vikings. No one talks about them though.
Viking is not an ethnicity. Come on.
The Cheedite invasion of Europe is never talked about.
The what?
am a mix 😅 half dane and finn 😆 Grow up in Norway
if you're finn, you could likely have viking blood course in your veins. i myself am a finn born on the wrong side of the atlantic. mother is savolainen n father karajalainen
Cool! I am so happy that these videos reach people over there. What part of the US (or Canada?) are you from if I may ask?
If we trace lineages back to the Viking Age, pretty much all Finns are related, haha.
See your cardiologist! ahahahaa
🟢
im half finn
Left or right half?
so then you’re basically an estonian
half finn, quarter hungarian/slovak, quarter Irish/scottish
@@maki1404 oh yes im half finnish too because im also british in the other half. i know that estonians have some finnish dna in them
but they're different no?
We are the ral vikingns