Old Finland, with its glorious recollections

The major was an old Finlander, and loved his country with all the impetuosity and enthusiasm of an ardent temper. Old Finland, with its glorious recollections, that land, intersected by thousands of rivulets and torrents, situated beyond the Baltic, whose sons (the major was one of these) did not cease to hope and to struggle until after a bloody though fruitless battle,—that land was the old man's idol, the only object to which he clung with heart and soul, and from this country he had been compelled to become a voluntary exile. After its lost idol his soul wept and fretted, and his unavailing sorrow frequently vented itself in spleen against his neighbours, for grief often makes us unjust.

The aristocrat and the pauper, from the Swedish of Uncle Adam (Dr. Carl Anton Wetterbergh)

Bentley's miscellany, Volume 57 By Charles Dickens, William Harrison Ainsworth, Albert Smith

Account of a Borsten or the Bristles, very common among Children in Finland

THE Distemper, of which I propose to give a brief Account; is very common to new-born Infants in Finland, and vulgarly called lie Borsten, or the Bristles, from a supposition that a pregnant Woman touching a Hog or eating too much Pork, the Infant contracts the Borste: But as a Fright is always a a Fright, this absurdity we dismiss without any further animadversion.

I am very far from denying the influence of the Imagination on the Foetus; all I insist on is that the Borste is not in all Children owing to their Mothers having run against a Hog, but proceeds from a Cause little thought of, and which after a description of the Disease itself I shall explain. The Borste is a cutaneous Distemper in Children, their Skin appearing full of minute Excrescences like Bristles or Worms, some quite transparent, others blackish at the Tip, some straight, others crooked, whereby the Children are in extreme Pain, without any Sleep, and perpetually trembling and moaning.

Albrecht von Haller: Medical, chirurgical and anatomical cases and experiments

Finns of Finland

The last subject referred to by the lecturer was the Finns of Finland, whose study reveals the fact that they embrace two ethnic types, one of which, the _Tavastlanda_, belongs without doubt to the great Finnish family, spread over Asia as well as in Europe, and a second, the Karelien, whose representatives possessed the poetic instinct, which causes M. Quatrefages to ally them with the Aryan race, "to whom we owe all our epics, from the Ramayana, Iliad, and Eneas to the poems of to-day."

Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884

To Abo, where he was to have a conference with the Emperor Alexander

The defeat of Oudinot at Polotzk, the junction of Begration and Barclay de Tolly with the grand Russian army under Kutusoff, and the battle of Borodino, gave a favourable turn to affairs, but not such as to dispel every apprehension, and it was determined by the Emperor Alexander to send the whole Russian fleet to winter in England. Admiral Crown was expected from Archangel with eight sail of the line, and Admiral Tait with ten, and six frigates from Cronstadt. The former having sailed from Wingo before this had been determined on, it became necessary for Sir James to delay his return. The Aquilon, which had been sent through the Belt to meet Lord Cathcart at Daleroe, and convey his lordship to Abo, where he was to have a conference with the Emperor Alexander, met with some damage and returned to Wingo.

Mr. James Saumarez, eldest son of the Admiral, who had accompanied his lordship, made a tour and visited the Swedish, Finland, and Russian capitals; he returned on board the Victory on the 9th of October, when the afflicting intelligence arrived of the sudden death of his sister, the eldest daughter of the Admiral, whose loss was deeply regretted by all who knew her excellent disposition. The shock, as may be imagined, was deeply felt by Sir James; but it will be seen by the following correspondence that his mind was supported under this severe trial, and much as his presence was required at home he regarded his duty to his country to be paramount to every other consideration, and unflinchingly remained at his post. His son (the present Lord de Saumarez) who had just finished his education for the Established Church, was indeed a great comfort to his suffering parent.

Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II, by Sir John Ross

A lady from Finland asked me to tell her a story in our Negro dialect

Five or six years ago a lady from Finland asked me to tell her a story in our Negro dialect, so that she could get an idea of what that variety of speech was like. I told her one of Hopkinson Smith's Negro stories, and gave her a copy of 'Harper's Monthly' containing it. She translated it for a Swedish newspaper, but by an oversight named me as the author of it instead of Smith. I was very sorry for that, because I got a good lashing in the Swedish press, which would have fallen to his share but for that mistake; for it was shown that Boccaccio had told that very story, in his curt and meagre fashion, five hundred years before Smith took hold of it and made a good and tellable thing out of it.

Mark Twain: The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories

It is so windy and cold, and oh! so wretchedly dull.

And she was undoubtedly English, after all!

"Oh no," she declared in a low, musical voice, in response to a fear I had expressed, "I am not at all cold. This place is so charming, and so warm, to where my father and I have recently been--at Uleaborg, in Finland."

"At Uleaborg!" I echoed. "Why, that is away--out of the world--at the northern end of the Gulf of Bothnia!"

"Yes," she declared, with a light laugh. "It is so windy and cold, and oh! so wretchedly dull."

William Le Queux: Hushed Up. A Mystery of London

Fear and terror along the coast of Finland

Now, turn to your atlases again and look for the large island of Gotland off the southeastern coast of Sweden, in the midst of the Baltic Sea. In the time of Olaf it was a thickly peopled and wealthy district, and the principal town, Wisby, at the northern end, was one of the busiest places in all Europe. To this attractive island the boy viking sailed with all his ships, looking for rich booty, but the Gotlanders met him with fair words and offered him so great a "scatt," or tribute, that he agreed not to molest them, and rested at the island, an unwelcome guest, through all the long winter. Early in the spring he sailed eastward to the Gulf of Riga and spread fear and terror along the coast of Finland. And the old saga tells how the Finlanders "conjured up in the night, by their witchcraft, a dreadful storm and bad weather; but the king ordered all the anchors to be weighed and sail hoisted, and beat off all night to the outside of the land. So the king's luck prevailed more than the Finlander's witchcraft."

E. S. Brooks: THE BOY VIKING--OLAF II OF NORWAY
The Junior Classics — Volume 7 Stories of Courage and Heroism