 | Kven: Encyclopedia II - Kven - Varangian and other Viking connections
Kven - Varangian and other Viking connections
The historic Viking Age Norse sagas tell about the kings of the Kvens. Egil's saga tells about Nór, "founder of Norway", and his ancestors who lived in Kvenland. The Islandish sagas have thorough descriptions about the life and accomplishments of the Kvens.
The newest archeological research and findings - such as the approximately millennium old jewlery findings made in the Lake Inari district in Northern Finland in the summer of 2005 - seem to support the links that have been offered between the Kvens and the Varangians.
Furthermore, whereas the White Sea and the Varanger Fjord areas have been known to belong to the historic heartland territories of the Kvens - and they still are -, and whereas the Norse and the Kvens are known to have cooperated in these areas in various ways during the Viking Age (and presumably already long before) - importantly, such as in the Viking Age wars against the Finnish Karelians and Slavic groups such as the Novgorodians -, these most recent archeological findings bring yet more understanding to the claimed connections between the Kvens and the Vikings.
The latest findings and research seems to point to the direction that the Kvens indeed did not only fight along with the Vikings - such as the Norse - in the wars within Scandinavia and Fennoscandia - such as in the wars against the Karelians and the Novgorodians, but that they also travelled - either alone or in unison with other Vikings - to distant places outside Scandinavia, likely e.g. to the British Isles and today's south-western Russia.
The above information and further references can be found e.g. from Suomen historia (History of Finland), Jääkaudesta Euroopan unioniin, by Dr. Jouko Vahtola, 2003.
Interestingly, as the known Scandinavian historians and experts on the Kven migration seem to agree - including Dr. Jouko Vahtola - the Tordedalians, who migrated to the Torne Valley region of the modern day Sweden, and whom the historical Scandinavian texts refer to as Kvens, originated from the Tavastland region of Finland.
Several historical historians from the Viking Age period talk about Finnish Viking kings, their wars, contributions and life. Below are a few examples of such references:
870 AD: Ottar from Hålogaland, a Norwegian explorer and leader writes a thorough account about the Kvens who - according to Ottar - rule large territories of the Northern and Northeastern Scandinavia, including the White Sea region of the modern day Russia.
890 AD: The English King, Alfred the Great, writes in the Universal History of Orosius about the Kven kings of Northern Scandinavia and the areas they rule.
1230 AD: In the introduction to the Orkneyinga Saga, Fundinn Noregr discusses the kings of Finland and Kvenland and their conquest of Norway. According to the saga, the ruling families of Sweden, Norway, the Orkney Islands, Normandy, and England descend from these Finnish kings.
'Varangian Finns (Varangin suomalaiset in Finnish) in today's - and in traditional - Finnish writings and terminology, on the other hand, refers to the Finns of the extreme north-eastern Scandinavia, i.e. the Kvens, today referring to the descendants of Finns (Kvens) around the Varangian Fjord, known better in English as Varanger Fjord and in Finnish language as Varangin vuono. Up todate the Varangian Fjord area of Norway has remained the cultural center of the Kven population of Norway.
The following spellings for the Viking Age Kvens can be - most commonly - found in the English historical writings referring to Kvens: "Cwen", "Quen" and "Fin".
Such known cientists - with distinquished international careers - as F.N. Flinck (1899) and Julius Pokorny (1936) were among the first to come out with detailed accounts of their research in these topics. Also, Thomas William Shore already in 1906 published a book, "Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race", where he drew connection between the Kvens and the Brits, including the connection between the Kven people - i.e. Quen in Latin and the English term Queen, etc.
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 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Varangian and other Viking connections", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
