Page:The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July, 1893.djvu/49

 Rh and Ptolemy, this would bring the first historical notice of them to the first century of the Christian era and place them east of the Vistula, somewhere in Poland, a long way to the south and considerably to the west of their present geographical position. Tacitus expressly mentions that their immediate neighbors were Germans. However that may be, the investigations of philologists like Ahlqvist and Thomson have made it quite certain that a large body of words indicating ideas relating to social progress and material civilization have come from two sources: from Gothic or from Scandinavian on the one hand, or from Lithuanian, Lett or Bussian on the other; in other words, from Teubonic or Slav sources. The oldest stratum of the seloan-words is referable to Gothic, and as some of these words exhibit older forms than the Gothic of Ulphilas they must have been borrowed considerably before the fifth century. The Lithuanian loan-words are not much later than the Gothic ones. Hence, we may conclude that a.bout the beginning of the present era, the Finns were in contact with Goths and Lithuanians and had not yet entered Finland. In order to account for the close relationship between the Finnish and Mordvin languages it is believed by G. Koskinen that, at that period, the Finns occupied a position about half way down the Volga on its western bank.

From Asia the Finns brought with them the belief that every tree, plant, rock, river and living being was inhabited by an indwelling spirit or haltia. They also had gods—a thunder-god, a god of the forest, a water-god, etc. To these they made sacrifices either to appease their wrath or to propitiate them beforehand. But, as Prof. D. Comparetti has well remarked, partly owing to the undeveloped state of society among the Finns and their isolated mode of life, the gods never became frankly anthropomorphic. They were conceived of in human shape certainly, but they remained cold and passionless, taking no interest in the affairs of men unless specially invoked by prayer or sacrifice. They had no social intercourse, no place of meeting, every god had a wife, but gods and goddesses never make love, are never moved by jealousy and are little more than a spectral host. In this world of gods and spirits must also be included the evil spirits of disease and sickness, for it is with them the magic songs