As a part of the Nordic -countries, The Republic of Finland lies at the shores of the Baltic sea. Finland shares a borderline with Russia, Norway and Sweden and is one of the northernmost countries in the world. It lies on the same parallers with the Northern Siberia, Alaska and Southern Greenland. Still, the climate in Finland is more temperate than in those mentioned above, mostly because of the Golf-current and the large amount of water that tempers the winters. The bedrock of Finland is one of the oldest in the whole Eurasia, more than a 3 billion years old. Different fields of science still provide us with a disaccord image of the origins of the Finns. The general point of view is that they didn’t arrive as an united people but an one tribe at a time. Those tribes formed hunting communes and blend into each other as the population spead into the better hunting and fishing grounds. According to the newest archeological studies Finns are accounted as a people of an origin, that began to settle the area of Finland right after the ice age over a 10 000 years ago. What is certain, is that the modern Finns are the descentants of the Finno-Ugric peoples and are currently the second largest Finno-Ugric languages speaking group after the Hungarians. So, we’re not a close relation to the Vikings, who used the runes and scratched the runestones, altough our culture has been influenced (a lot) by the Germanic peoples, and the Germanic folk has blended into our people. For example the use of the animal ornaments on the utensils spread through Finland but runestones haven’t been found from anywhere in the area of Finland. Of course we had our relations with the western viking neighbours. When the Swedish vikings began their eastern expeditions on the Russian waterways (they were often called Varjags) at the 9th century, the commerence at the shores of Finland became more lively and left quite a visible mark to the viking age findings on our country. The largest findings are from the areas of Vakka-Suomi and Ala-Satakunta. From the town of Eura alone, from area under 3 square kilometers has been found more viking age weapons than from the famous merchant town of Birka at the central Sweden. There also the weapon combinations are very similar to those of central Sweden and Gothland, and costume of the men have details that point to these areas as well as to the scandinavic colonies in Russia. It’s not at all impossible idea that up to some measure the Finns took part to the viking campaings or made their own forays or expeditions to the east. Thus it’s possible that also Finns might have been called vikings or varjags at the east. Theories pointing this way have been heard for example from the assistant professor of the university of Helsinki, archeologist Pirkko-Liisa Lehtosalo-Hilander. Tough generally it’s believed that Finns never took part to the viking expeditions, even to the east, the evidence have been found that the Finns forayed east and also fough to defend their homes from the eastern raiders. Still, these Finnish campaings never reached very far and took place after 1000 ad. In addition to the trade we often interacted with our western neighbours not in that friendly terms. The vikings launched some campaigns to Finland (not always that succesful) but the coin also had another side: in the History of the World by Orosius, compiled by Alfred the Great, lies an Ottar’s description of the Kveens (the men of Kainuu), who launched several forays to Norway (the end of the 9th century). The Finns also raided Sweden as late as the 12th century. From the sagas there can be found some interresting writings of the relationship of the Finns and the Vikings. In the Tjodolf of the Hvin’s Ynglingatal (ca. 900 ad.) lies the eldest allusions to the Fornjotr-tale, which tells of the kings of Finland and Kainuu. 1220 ad. Snorri Sturluson tells in his Ynglinga-saga about the wars and marriages of the royal houses of Sweden and Finland. The ca. 1230 ad. written Orkneyinga-saga’s introduction Fundinn Noregr tells about the kings of Finland and Kainuu (which is referred as the land of the Giants) and of that, how the sons of the king of Finland and Kainuu had conquerred Norway, which was named after the son of the king of Finland, Norri. According to the tale the kings of Norway and the earls of the Orkney islands, the dukes of Normandy and thus the royalty of England descent from the kings of Finland and Kainuu. The tales of the ancient Norway tell that the kings of Norway descent from the king of Finland and Kainuu, Thorr’s sons Norri and Gorri. According to the tale these were the ones that conquered Norway at their time. The kings of Sweden on the otherhand descent from Snaer the Old, whose daughter the king of Sweden, Valande married. Thorr’s forefathers were all kings of Finland and Kainuu: Snaer the Old, Frosti (Kuura, Huurre, Pakkanen / Frost, Hoar, Rime), Kari (Ilmarinen, Puhuri / Gale, Gust) and Fornjotr (Kaleva, Ymir, Ikuturso). Also Logi (Liekkiö, Lemminkäinen) and Hler or Aegir (Väinämöinen) were the same kin. Skalds sang about the kings in the estates of Scandinavia and the families were proud of their royal Finnish ancestors (Snorri, 1961). Also an Arabic geographer Al-Idrisi tells (1154) that the kings of Finland (Fymark) have holdings in Norway. Even so, it would be unreasonable to call Finns as a vikings (even tough we share a close history with them), when Finns speak totally different language and belong to totally different people than the rest of Scandinavia. The Finns in fact were the first inhabitants of Scandinavia, a long time before the Germanic people came. But why in the name of hell did we found this guild and began to scratch stones? Tough our veins hold little to none viking blood, we felt a strong craving to bring life this ancient craft and art form. We are proud Finns but we also admire the Viking view of the world and the love of adventure that these Norns possessed. The Guild saw it's first light at the darkest times of the Year 1999 when Pekka and Blackworm gathered to Kankkila and roamed through the web searching information of the runestones. Since Pekka was in the army during that time and the snow covered the ground, the pulse of activation for the Guild was postponed. Our first stone we carved at the first summer of our new millennia. Blackworm and Pekka just bought a quite a bit of booze and went to wander into the woods. When they found a good looking stone (already drunk - at least Blackworm), they carried it into a shit-smelling barn and started to scratch it.  In the next morning, after the long, tiring and liquid night the first runestone saw it's first sunrise. Blackworm and Pekka made another stone a few weeks later (this one given to Blackworms mother), at this time a new member had entered into the inner circle of the guild. He was Kubbe, Master of Arms, whose area was to keep the tools at good condition. At the end of the third meeting the third runestone wasn't yet finished and when we few weeks later gathered to bring our task to an end, another jolly good fellow had joined us. The man was Heikki, an ugly bastard from Karstula. And this, my friend, was how our guild was born.
After a while it came to pass that Kubbe was sentenced to jail for arson. Thus a new Master of Arms was needed and soon after Zacharias the Goth took the hammer in his hand. |