I. CHAP. puppet-show'. It was a gay scene: the boats passing to and fro from the isle to the shore, and the crowd assembled upon the little island, afforded a pleasing coup d'œil. The church service had just ended, as we landed. A vast throng of peasants were filling all the boats, to go over to the island. Seeing this, we stepped into one of the boats, and were speedily conducted into the midst of the jovial multitude. Of what nature the church service had been, they were very ill calculated to inform us by much the greater part of the men were very drunk, shouting, singing, and romping with their favourite lasses. Great allowance may be made for the joyous season of this annual festival; but these were almost all of them Finlanders; and the Finns are notoriously of a livelier and more profligate disposition than the Swedes. We (1) `The custom being itself Asiatic, and of Scythian origin, whence the whole costume of a fair may be said to have been derived: witness the form of the booths, and the sort of shows, exhibited at the fairs in the interior of Russia. (2) "The Finlanders of Uleåborg made their appearance, at this fair, in a dress which resembles the habits of the lower order of Jews in England; and is so far Asiatic, that it is common in Russia ;-a long blue coat, fastened in front, by loops of lace, to small round silver or white-metal buttons, and bound about the loins with a coloured sash.” Cripps's MS. Journal. (3) "At Kiemi, we had, for the first time, an example of a person pretending to the power of witchcraft. Our interpreter having told a woman that I. Sunday Ball at the Parsonage. had never seen a drunken mob in Sweden upon CHAP. the Sabbath-day; nor indeed on any day, among the peasants. If intoxication prevail at all in that country, it will be found in the class of society who style themselves their betters. We were told, that, upon the ensuing Sabbath, the Priest intended to give a ball, at his own house, to all his friends in the fair: so much does custom decry or authorise the same thing in different countries. What would be thought, in England, of a ball given by a Clergyman, at his parsonage-house, upon the Sabbath-day? The whole country would be up in arms; and as great a ferment excited, as if a Bishop were seen dancing at a ball upon any other day. We had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with this Clergyman, and found him to be in all respects a worthy member of the pastoral office; bearing an excellent character; respected by his flock; and possessing considerable literary attainments. We received from him much useful information respecting our travels, and many rare plants which he had collected. Of all men, he was one of the least disposed, either to neglect his that she was the only dirty person he had seen at the fair, she answered, with a threatening countenance, "Look to yourself! I will take care that mischief befall you! Whenever you return to your own home, look to yourself!"-Cripps's MS. Journal. I. CHAP. clerical duty, or to be guilty of any violation of the sanctity of the Sabbath. It was, in fact, an annual custom, long established in the place, that the Clergyman of Kiemi should thus receive and treat his friends; and he had conformed to it, as his predecessors had done before. Of the Lapland nish Lan guages. Both the Lapland and Finnish languages are and Fin- pleasing to the ear, and admirably suited to poetry, owing to their plenitude of vowels. They constantly reminded us of the Italian; and we might cite several instances of words common to all the three. Acerbi, as an Italian, sometimes understood the expressions used by the natives of Finland. But how great is the obscurity which involves the origin of the Finnish tongue! The people who speak it have no written character: their language therefore suffers in writing'. Foreigners judge of it by the manner in which it is written either by the Russians or by the Swedes; and both these nations, using their own characters, express the language of the Finns, not merely according to their peculiar notions of its pronunciation, but, what is worse, according to their peculiar method (1)" Une des enterprises les plus utiles aux progrès de l'Archéologie seroit donc un Glossaire Finnois."-Essai sur les Antiquités du Nord, par Charles Pougens, p. 115. Paris, 1779. of expressing that pronunciation. Nothing can be softer, or more harmonious, than the sounds uttered by a Finland peasant, when reciting his Pater Noster. It is full of labials, nasals, open vowels, and diphthongs, and is destitute even of a single guttural. It may be considered, therefore, as having, of all languages, the least resemblance to the Arabic, which, as spoken by the Arabs, is full of the harshest gutturals. We have subjoined a correct copy of the Pater Noster, as published by the Swedes in the Finland tongue'. Judging from sound only, the language of Lapland, supposed to be a remote dialect of the Finnish, resembles that which is spoken by the natives of Japan; yet the same ideas are not expressed by the same sounds, as may be made I. (1) ❝ Isa meidän joka olet taiwaisa. Læhes tulkon sinun Waldakundas. Tapatukon sinun tahtos, niin maasa, kuin taiwasa. Anna meille tænæpaiwænæ meidän joka pæiwæinen leipæmme. Ia anna meille meidän syndimme andexi, niinkuin me kin andexi annamme, meidan wel wollistemme. Sillæ sinun on Waldakunda ja Woima (2) See Thunberg's Travels, Vol. III. Lond. 1796. CHAP. instantly apparent, in the comparison of a few I. The language of the Lapps, in its different dialects, seems to be very extensively dispersed. There seems good reason for believing that it exists, under different modifications, over the north-western parts of Russia, Finland, Lapland, Greenland, and the coasts of Hudson's Bay, and Labrador, inhabited by the people called Esquimaux. The territory of Russian Lapland alone is nearly 700 British miles in diameter', but it does not contain more than 1200 Lappish families; so (1) See Müller's "Description de toutes les Nations de l'Empire de -Russie," p. 3. Petersbourg, 1776. Not that it is intended to point out this work to the reader as containing accurate information with regard to the Laplanders. It is of the same stamp with many other publications that were 66 a wool-gathering" for the Empress Catherine II.; mere hasty compilations, made up according to order, but fitted, in the opinion of the Russian Cabinet, to impress Foreign Nations with high ideas of Russian literature. Thus, in his short chapter of sixteen pages upon the Lapps, we find Müller ascribing to this people the Runic Staves of the SWEDES. "Ils n'ont ni lettres ni écriture, mais bien des hieroglyphes, dont ils se servent dans leurs Rounes, espèce de batons qu'ils appellent Piistawe." Ibid. p. 5. |