Kvenland
Sign in to saveKvenland, known in medieval sources by various names including Cwenland, Qwenland, and Kænland, is an ancient region in northern Scandinavia. Kvenland and the ethnonym Kven are only mentioned in a small number of historical accounts and remain a subject of scholarly debate. Kvenland was located somewhere east of Scandinavian Mountains, and is often suggested to have been located at the Bothnian Bay in northern parts of present-day Sweden and Finland.
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Encyclopedic overview
17 sectionsContents
- Medieval and older sources
- Old English Orosius
- ''Hversu Noregr byggdist'' and ''Orkneyinga saga''
- ''Egil's saga''
- Other sources
- Possible other sources
- Different interpretations
- Kvenland and Kainuu
- Kvenland and Pohjola
- Other interpretations
- Woman Land
- Different theories on the origins of the Kvens
- Kvens later in historical time
- ''Caijaners''
- ''Kvenland theory''
- See also
- References
Kvenland, known in medieval sources by various names including Cwenland, Qwenland, and Kænland, is an ancient region in northern Scandinavia. Kvenland and the ethnonym Kven are only mentioned in a small number of historical accounts and remain a subject of scholarly debate. Kvenland was located somewhere east of Scandinavian Mountains, and is often suggested to have been located at the Bothnian Bay in northern parts of present-day Sweden and Finland.
The earliest surviving mention of Kvenland comes from an Old English Orosius, written in the late 9th century. This text is an Old English adaption of Historiae adversus paganos by Paulus Orosius (fl. c. 400), supplemented with information from the Norwegian chieftain and traveler Ohthere of Hålogaland. Ohthere described Cwenland and the conflicts between the Cwenas and the Northmen.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Kvenland” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.