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Rh were the Goths, who in the bronze-period seem to have lived along the eastern and north-eastern coast of Sweden, and around the Mœlar lake, it is clear that there must have been later invasions. Both the oldest traditions and the monuments point to that. The whole civilization of the iron-period, which appears so suddenly in Sweden and Norway, that it must have come with a newly invading people, is evidently built upon the Roman civilization; the many Byzantine coins from the fifth and sixth centuries, which are found in the North, besides the imitations of them, the gold bracteates, the constant intercourse which, from that time, existed between the North and Byzantium, where the Northmen so frequently served as life-guards of the emperors, all seem, in a remarkable manner, to confirm the statement, preserved by the renowned Icelandic historian, Suorro Sturleson, that Odin and his followers, at the time of the Roman invasions of the countries of the Black sea, first left their settlement there, and went to the north-eastern part of Sweden, to the country around the Mœlar lake. It is quite natural that then, about a couple of centuries after Christ, new tribes should have entered Scandinavia, as it was at the time of the great "migration of people" (Germ. Völkerwanderung, Dan. Folkevandring), when nearly all the other countries of Europe were filled by new inhabitants.

The Svear, or as tradition says, Odin and his followers, came probably before the Norwegians. They appear to have passed from Russia, through Finland, over the Aoland islands, to the shores of the Mœlar lake, when they made their principal settlement in Upland, which was afterwards also called Mannheim, or the home of the men, or the people, and where the chief temple, or principal place of worship was, (at Upsala). From Upland, they peopled the neighbouring counties, which, from their situation with reference to Upland, were called Södermanland, Westmanland, &c., and which, together with Upland, were called Svithiod. The Norwegians, who came after the Svear, or Swedes, were now obliged to pro-