SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

"LAPLAND SORCERERS'
By R. 1. PAGE
My starting point is Shakespeare's The Comedy of
Errors, Act IV, scene iii. Antipholus of Syracuse is
in Ephesus for the first time in his life. The Ephesians
mistake him for his twin brother (also called Antipholus)
of whose existence he is unaware since the two were
parted as babies. As a result, complete strangers greet
him by name, a woman he has never seen before claims
him as husband, a goldsmith gives him a chain for which
he will take no payment, saying that Antipholus has
ordered it, and so on. As a good Shakespearean hero,
Antipholus has
soliloquy.
no alternative but to take refuge in
"There's not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend,
And everyone doth call me by my name:
Some tender money to me, some invite me,
Some other give me thanks for kindnesses
So the list of strange occurrences continues, ending with:
"Sure these are but imaginary wiles,
And Lapland sorcerers inhabit here."
The last line is immediately striking to anyone who
knows the prose literature of mediaeval Scandinavia, for
Lapland sorcerers play a considerable part in it. The
people called Finnar commonly appear in the role of
magicians. I am not concerned here with the nationality of
these people, whether they were or were not Lapps.'
The sagas show that they dwelt in the mountainous areas
1 There is some disagreement about this. Cleasby-Vigfusson translates
Finnar as "the Finns and Lapps". Fritzner agrees. Zoega claims that they
are "not identical with the modern Lapps or Finns" H. Koht ('Var
"Finnane" alltid Finnar?', Maat og Minne (1923), 161-75) argues that Finnr
came to mean "magician", without distinction of race, because of the eminence
of the Finnr nation in that field. For an up-to-date discussion see K ulturhistorisk
Leksikon for nordisk Middelalder IV (1959), under Finnar,