The Firaesi (Latinization) or Phiraisoi (original Greek) are a

people A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...

listed in

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...

's ''

Geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

'' (2.10). Ptolemy’s view of the region is not very precise, but he places them on the east side of what he believed to be an island, Scandia. The presence of the Goutai, or

Goths The Goths ( got, 𐌲𐌿𐍄𐌸𐌹𐌿𐌳𐌰, translit=''Gutþiuda''; la, Gothi, grc-gre, Γότθοι, Gótthoi) were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe ...

, in the center, identifies Scandia fairly certainly as the southern portion of the

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...

n peninsula. As to whether the east of it was the east coast of

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

or the coast of

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 B ...

opposite, the latter is perhaps too remote for detailed knowledge by Ptolemy or his sources. There is in fact a possible Germanic derivation of Phiraisoi. They are in the same region as the Favonae, who may have been residents 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 fo ...

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

and

Old Icelandic Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

firar,

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

firas, are fairly close to Firaesi and mean "men, human beings" or ''

Volk The German noun ''Volk'' () translates to people, both uncountable in the sense of ''people'' as in a crowd, and countable (plural ''Völker'') in the sense of '' a people'' as in an ethnic group or nation (compare the English term ''folk'') ...

'' in German. As it happens,

Uppland Uppland () is a historical province or ' on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic Sea. On the small uninhab ...

was traditionally divided into Folkland – four provinces, which lost their jurisdictional importance in 1296. Koebler's Old Norse Etymological Database in th
Indo-European Etymological Database
online at

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...

gives a

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...

root of *perkwus, becoming Germanic *ferhwioz by Grimm's Law. The root meaning is "oak", but the oak was regarded as a symbol of hardness, toughness and strength (see also Harudes). With regard to people it means "life force" or especially "power", in the sense of the collective power of the folk. It would be a descriptive epithet of the *teuta-, "tribe, people". This connotation is probably not devoid of a military sense, as the root went into Hittite, a very early branch of Indo-European, as "army". Uppland then would have been a densely populated and at the time fairly conservative remnant of Indo-European culture. If the Indo-European penetration of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

can be regarded as a very slow invasion, its Schwerpunkt, or "heavy point", came to rest in Uppland. The Firaesi are not mentioned elsewhere in history, perhaps because of language changes and the preference of folk for firar. More information is undoubtedly to be gleaned from archaeology.

See also