Finnveden or Finnheden is one of the ancient ''small lands'' of
Småland
Småland () is a historical province () in southern Sweden.
Småland borders Blekinge, Scania, Halland, Västergötland, Östergötland and the island Öland in the Baltic Sea. The name Småland literally means ''Small Lands''. The Latinized f ...
. It corresponded to the hundreds of
Sunnerbo Hundred,
Östbo Hundred and
Västbo Hundred. Finnveden had its own judicial system and laws, as did the other ''small lands''. Finnveden is situated around lake
Bolmen and the river
Lagan. Most runestones in Finnveden describe men who died in England. Finnveden is today divided and is a part of the counties of
Halland,
Kronoberg and
Jönköping
Jönköping (, ) is a city in southern Sweden with 112,766 inhabitants (2022). Jönköping is situated on the southern shore of Sweden's second largest lake, Vättern, in the province of Småland.
The city is the seat of Jönköping Municipa ...
.
It was first mentioned by
Jordanes
Jordanes (), also written as Jordanis or Jornandes, was a 6th-century Eastern Roman bureaucrat widely believed to be of Gothic descent who became a historian later in life. Late in life he wrote two works, one on Roman history ('' Romana'') an ...
when he referred to its population as the ''Finnaithae'' (derived from an old form of ''Finnheden'', ''Finn(h)aith-'') when describing the nations of
Scandza
Scandza was described as a "great island" by Gothic-Byzantine historian Jordanes in his work '' Getica''. The island was located in the Arctic regions of the sea that surrounded the world. The location is usually identified with Scandinavia.
...
in ''
Getica
''De origine actibusque Getarum'' (''The Origin and Deeds of the Getae oths'), commonly abbreviated ''Getica'', written in Late Latin by Jordanes in or shortly after 551 AD, claims to be a summary of a voluminous account by Cassiodorus of th ...
''.
Etymology
The
Scandinavian placename
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''toponyms'' ( proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
s Finnveden,
Finnmark
Finnmark (; se, Finnmárku ; fkv, Finmarku; fi, Ruija ; russian: Финнмарк) was a county in the northern part of Norway, and it is scheduled to become a county again in 2024.
On 1 January 2020, Finnmark was merged with the neighbour ...
and the province of Finland (which gave name to
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bot ...
) are all thought to be derived from ''
finn'', an ancient Germanic word for
nomadic hunter-gatherer
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fung ...
s (cf. ''to find''
).
See also
*
Fenni
The Fenni were an ancient people of northeastern Europe, first described by Cornelius Tacitus in '' Germania'' in AD 98.
Ancient accounts
The Fenni are first mentioned by Cornelius Tacitus in '' Germania'' in 98 A.D. Their location is uncert ...
References
{{reflist
Småland