Who were the Screnfenni people? | AskHistorians Archive Observer

They are a group of people we find in literature from the Antiquity and the Middle Ages. For that reason there are many different versions of the name, and Screnfenni is probably a rare one.

Procopius seems to have been the first person to write about them, and we find them as Skrithiphinoi in book 6 of the Gothic wars. We learn that they live a very different life compared to many other groups. Here's some of what Procopius writes.

" But among the barbarians who are settled in Thule, one nation only, who are called the Scrithiphini, live a kind of life akin to that of the beasts. For they neither wear garments of cloth nor do they walk with shoes on their feet, nor do they drink wine nor derive anything edible from the earth. For they neither till the land themselves, nor do their women work it for them, but the women regularly join the men in hunting, which is their only pursuit...."

There's more, and it is well worth a read. Just before the notes about the Scrithiphinoi, Procopius describes midwinter darkness, and so we can be fairly certain about him having real information from northern Scandinavia, and that what he describes was an existing group.

However, some earlier writers had written about groups that perhaps lived in similar ways, and it is notable that Tacitus mentions a group, Fenni, in his book Germania. That group have some cultural traits in common with the Skrithiphinoi. It is therefore possible to see connections to older groups. The other side of that coin is that a writer like Procopius might have read older texts. For that reason it is possible that he describes a reality that was no longer correct.

Another thing to ponder - if we read what Tacitus says - is that it is difficult to position the Fenni geographically. It could be another group, perhaps living under similar conditions, but far from the Skrithiphinoi.

But why invent a new form like Skrithiphinoi? We can find no particular reason for it, and so it is most probable that Procopius had some kind of new information from Scandinavia.

If we look at the etymology of the word, it is believed that the first part is a Germanic word that has to do with movement. One can find it in modern Swedish as skridskor, skrid-skor, skates. And there was an old English verb, scriðan, to go, that we can find in Beowulf, where the monsters scrithe about :) Presumably the term made sense for Germanic speakers, and a guess is that it described a people on skis. This is what Adam of Bremen - writing in the 1070s - has to say about them.

"And they are said to run faster than wild animals..." Book 4, Ch. 24.

A guess then is that this ethnonym was Germanic in origin, and that we do not know what this group called themselves.

They are also mentioned in the Old English version of Orosius - written at the close of the 9th century. It contains many added ethnonyms, compared to the original. Of special interest is the story of Ohthere, that starts immediately after the mentioning of Scridefinnas. Ohthere says he lives far to the north, and that he has many contacts with Finnas. Interestingly enough, Ohthere says that these Finnas hunted in the winters, and went fishing in the summers. A way of life that seems somewhat similar to other descriptions, and to those of Scrithefinns.

Here's the OE text of Orosius. OE-Orosius

To sum up then, this was an existing group, that seems to have lived in the far north of Scandinavia. Given the information we have of them, it is not unreasonable to imagine that it eventually developed into the Sapmis. The term survived, and was used, for example, by Olaus Magnus in the 16:th century. It is possible that he thought there were living Scrithefinns next to Lapps and people from Finnmark. Still today the word Skridfinnar exists in Swedish, but is only used in a historical context.