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THE
HISTORY
OF
LAPLAND
WHEREIN
Are shewed the Original, Manners, Habits, Marriages,
Conjurations, &c. of that People.
WRITTEN
By JOHN SCHEFFER, Professor of Law and Rhetoric
at Upsal in Sweden.
At the THEATER in OXFORD.
M. DC. LXXIV.
THE
PREFACE.
The Reader may please to take notice, thatthe diligent and learned Author of this History,(to the writing of which he was commanded, andtherein assisted by the Chancellor of Sweden) hath in thewhole work taken care to justify what he relates, from thefaith of authentic records, the testimony of Historians,and the Discourses of Laplanders themselves, withwhom he had ready opportunities of converse. And thishe hath don so precisely, that having in the contextureof his work, given a full account of what he thought observablein the writings, or narratives to which he refers,he afterwards constantly puts down at length thevery words of his Authors, a great part of which are inthe Swedish Tongue. Now in this Edition we have sparedour selves the labor of such repetition; which we hope will notbe regretted by the Reader, who we suppose would not havebin much edified by them. As to the subject here discours’dof, twill not be needfull to give a character of it. MilitaryAction, and those public murders in which otherHistories triumph, have no share here. Hunger, cold andsolitude are enemies that engage all the fortitude of thisPeople: and where so much passive valor is necessary,we may dispense with the want of Active. Amidst the barbarityand darkness which reign in Lapland,