Roslagen

File:Folklands.png

Folklands in Svitjod (Uppland and Gästrikland) Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend Template:Legend The coastline has changed considerably in the last millennium due to post-glacial rebound. Originally there was a sea bay coming in from the north all the way into Uppsala. Roslagen is the modern name for the area which roughly corresponds to what was called Roden in the Middle Ages.

Roslagen is a coastal area in eastern Uppland in Sweden. It constitutes the northern part of the Stockholm archipelago and extends north along the coast. The old designation for the area was Roden.

In the Viking Age, Roden was divided into skeppslag ("ship districts"), each responsible for supplying ships and crews when the king issued a call to the leidang, the conscript navy system. Unlike the inland hundreds, Roden lay outside the regular division of the Uppland folklands. It mainly covered the coastal areas of Tiundaland and Attundaland, sometimes reaching into Gästrikland, and in some sources even included islands further south such as Lidingö and Värmdö.<ref name=":0" />

Over time, especially from the 1500s onward, the term Roslagen came to be used more generally for the entire Uppland coast and even some inland areas.<ref name=":0" />

A person from Roslagen is called a Rospigg, a modernized form of rosbyggiar ("inhabitant of Roden").<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The area also gives its name to the endangered domesticated Roslag sheep, which originated from the area centuries ago.

Etymology

The name Roslagen is first attested in 1493 as Rodzlagen.<ref name=":0">Roslagen — från forntid till nutid Template:Webarchive Template:In lang. Vätö-Sörgårdens samfällighetsförening.</ref> Before that, the area was known as Roden (from Old Swedish roðer, "rowing"), which referred to the coastal districts organized for naval defense.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref> The second element -lagen comes from Old Swedish lag, meaning a group or team acting together, the same word that appears in skeppslag ("ship district").<ref name=":1" />

The name Roden itself may be attested already in the 11th century on two Uppland runestones (inscribed i roþ and i ruþi).<ref name=":1" /> It was called roþi by Northmen in the 11th century that wrote down the words on the Uppland Runic Inscription 11. In written medieval sources it appears in the 14th century (Rodhinum 1316, Rodhin 1344).<ref name=":1" /> Roden was later contracted to Ron (attested in 1545 and 1608) before it disappeared from common usage, and Roslagen became the established name.<ref name=":1" />

Ruotsi, Rus' and Russia

Etymologically, Roslagen or Roden is the source of the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden: Template:Lang and Template:Lang.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="RPC">The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text Translated by O. P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor Template:ISBN</ref>

Swedes from the Roslagen area also gave their name to the Rus' people and Russia (see Names of Rus', Russia and Ruthenia).<ref>Harper, Douglas. "Russia". Online Etymology Dictionary.</ref> The scholarly consensus<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> is that the Rus' people originated in what is currently coastal eastern Sweden around the eighth century and that their name has the same origin as Roslagen.<ref>worldhistory.org</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> According to the prevalent theory, the name RusTemplate:', like the Proto-Finnic name for Sweden (*roocci).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> is derived from an Old Norse term for "the men who row" (rods-) as rowing was the main method of navigating the rivers of Eastern Europe, and that it could be linked to the Swedish coastal area of Roslagen.<ref name="Blöndal2007">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="auto">Stefan Brink, 'Who were the Vikings?', in The Viking World, ed. by Stefan Brink and Neil Price (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), pp. 4-10 (pp. 6-7).</ref> The name RusTemplate:' would then have the same origin as the Finnish and Estonian names for Sweden.<ref name="auto" /><ref name="etymonline.com">"Russ, adj. and n." OED Online, Oxford University Press, June 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/169069. Accessed 25 July 2018.</ref>

Communications

The region is served by the Roslagsbanan, a narrow-gauge railway network from Stockholm, going as far north as Kårsta. The motorway E18 goes through Roslagen between Kapellskär and Stockholm.

Nature

The hiking trail Roslagsleden crosses the region starting in Danderyd and ending in Grisslehamn.

See also

• Attundaland
• Fjärdhundraland
• Fälö by
• Tiundaland
• Stones of Mora
• Swedes (Germanic tribe)
• Norrtälje

External links

• Template:In lang http://www.roslagen.se/ Tourism page