"She crossed to Finland in a storm"

Princess number two is the daughter of a king of Sweden, who had trouble in finding a husband for Princess Cecily, inasmuch as she would marry no one who would not promise to take her to England within a year from the wedding day; for the great desire of her life was to see Queen Elizabeth. A marquis of Baden accepted the condition, and on November 12, 1564, they started, by which time she had spent four years learning English and could speak it well. The voyage took ten months, the winter was a severe one, and much of their way lay through countries whose kings were hostile to her father and the inhabitants to every stranger. Leaving Stockholm while her relatives expressed their opinion about her journey by lamentations and fainting-fits, she crossed to Finland in a storm, in which the pilot lost heart to the extent of pointing out the rock on which they were going to be shipwrecked. Finland they left in four days, to escape starvation, during another storm; crossed to Lithuania; thence by land through Poland, North Germany, and Flanders, to Calais. Even from here it was not plain sailing, in any sense of the words; the sea was high when she started; all were sick ("with the cruel surges of the water and the rolling of the unsavoury ship"), except herself, standing on the hatches, looking towards England. But it proved impossible to get into Dover and they had to turn back. "'Alas!' quoth she, 'now must I needs be sick, both in body and in mind,' and therewith taking her cabin, waxed wonderful sick." A second time they tried; and again all were sick but herself; "she sitting always upon the hatches, passed the time in singing the English psalms of David after the English note and ditty." But again they had to turn back and again that made her sick, so sick that they thought she was going to be confined, for she had become pregnant about the time of her starting. A third attempt was successful; and on September 11, 1565, she arrived at Bedford House, Strand; on the 14th Queen Elizabeth arrived there, too, to see her; and on the 15th came the baby. This story ought to end like Della Valle's, that she lived happy ever after; but that cannot truthfully be said, because of what is recorded about Princess Cecily and certain unpaid London tradesmen. Much more would there be to say of her as a tourist, had she written an autobiography; for the rest of her life she continued travelling, spending all her own money on it and much of other people's.

Ernest Stuart Bates: Touring in 1600

Much lake-ore is smelted in peculiar furnaces called "harkhyttor"

In the north and north-west of Finland, especially in the country of Wiborg and the neighbouring parts of Kuopio, much lake-ore is smelted in peculiar furnaces called "harkhyttor", a name derived from the Finnish word harkko, meaning piece, lump, and from the Swedish word hytta, meaning furnace. These furnaces are described as consisting of a shaft about 3 ells, or 6 English feet, in height; and the mass of reduced iron, it is stated, may be malleable, though more frequently it is only a mixture of raw and malleable iron, and must be remelted in a refining hearth.

John Percy: Metallurgy: The Art of Extracting Metals from Their Ores, and ..., Volume 2

Redolent of butter, cheese, beeves, and oxen

... I took my place on board a wretched little commercial steamer, redolent of butter, cheese, beeves, and oxen, bound for Finland. Our passengers were few, and not over select, but the charms of the scenery atoned for the discomforts of the voyage.

John Reynell Morell: The Neighbours of Russia: And History of the Present War to the Siege of Sebastopol.

The Finlanders call a bear Karu

Those who inhabit the frontiers of Finland, have adopted some of the expressions of their neighbours, as happens to every people: but when two nations give to things of common use, to objects which are continually before their eyes, names absolutely different, it affords a strong presumption, that one of them is not a colony from the other. The Finlanders call a bear Karu, the Laplanders Muriet: the sun in the Finnish language is called Auringa, in the Lapland tongue Beve. Here is not the least analogy. The inhabitants of Finland, and Swedish Lapland, formerly worshipped an idol whom they called Iumalac, and since the reign of Gustavus Adolphus, to whom they are indebted for the appellation of Lutherans, they call Jesus Christ the son of Iumalac. The Muscovite or Russian Laplanders, are at present thought to be of the Greek church; but those who wander about the mountains of the North Cape, are satisfied with adoring one God under certain rude forms, as has been the ancient custom of all the nations called Nomades, or wandering nations.

The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia, by Voltaire

Those Finns who fired guns after a dead man

Unhappily all ghosts are not open to persuasion, and see through the designs of the mourners, and with them severer measures have to be resorted to. Among the Sclavs of the Danube and the Czechs, the bereaved, after the funeral, on going home turn themselves about after every few steps and throw sticks, stones, mud, even hot coals in the direction of the churchyard, so as to frighten the spirit back to the grave so considerately provided for it. A Finnish tribe has not even the decency to wait till the corpse is covered with soil; they fire pistols and guns after it as it goes to its grave, and lies in it.

[...] Those Finns who fired guns after a dead man had another expedient for holding him fast, and that was to nail him down in his coffin. The Arabs tie his legs together. The Wallacks drive a long nail through the skull; and this usage explains the many skulls that have been exhumed in Germany thus perforated. The Icelanders, when a ghost proved troublesome, opened the grave, cut off the dead man’s head, and made the body sit on it. That, they concluded, would effectually puzzle it how to get about.

Curiosities of Olden Times, by S. Baring-Gould

Bombs and other explosives were to be used in Finland

Christiania, June 24, 1917. The police on Saturday arrested a certain Baron von Rautenfels, who declares that he was born in Finland, but is now a German subject, and two Finlanders. At their lodgings and in the luggage of these persons the police found nearly a ton of explosives of a very powerful variety. Part of these explosives was made up to resemble coal briquettes, and was all ready to be mixed with the coal in ships' bunkers. The baron's luggage also contained cigarettes and tobacco mixed with carborundum, which can be used to ruin engines or machinery. The baron and the other arrested persons declare that the bombs and other explosives were to be used in Finland.

Raemaekers' Cartoon History of the War, Volume 3, by Louis Raemaekers

He ascended Mount Avasaxa, in Finland

Mr. Mickley set sail on the 5th of June, 1869, being at that time a few months past his seventieth year. He remained abroad for three years, visiting every country in Europe, ascending the Nile to the first cataract, passing through the Suez Canal, and across a portion of Asia Minor and Palestine. He made two trips to Northern Sweden to behold the spectacle of the midnight sun. Being a week too late on the first season, he tried it again the following year. Passing through the entire length of the Gulf of Bothnia, and ascending the Tornea River, he entered Lapland, crossing the Arctic circle and penetrating the Arctic zone in a sledge-journey of seventy miles. The indomitable old traveller pushed on until he reached a small lumber-village named Pajala. On the night of June 23, 1871, crossing the river with a small party of Swedes and Finns, he ascended Mount Avasaxa, in Finland. At this altitude, he says, "the sky happened to be clear in the direction of the sun, and he shone in all his glory as the clock struck twelve."

JOSEPH J. MICKLEY. Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36--New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885