Fenni

The Fenni or Germanized Fennen were a people in antiquity , who are mentioned by the Roman historian Tacitus in his Germania and who lived in what is now Finland and northern Scandinavia .

Fennia, on the other hand, is a modern Latin term for Finland . Presumably the fens were the ancestors of today's Finns or other Finno-Ugric peoples like the Sami . In Norwegian , Finn stands for the Sami.

In Old Icelandic , the term fenni means "hard snow", while the verb fennia means "to cover with snow". Other sources suggest that the term Fenni or Finns comes from Germanic and means "to row".

According to Tacitus, the fens lived in utter abstinence, without weapons , horses and a home. While they slept on the ground, they only used furs for clothing and herbs and meat for food . They killed the game with arrows tipped with bones. The only protection against rainstorms and wild animals offered them braids made of branches. Despite these hardships, they found their lives happier than having to laboriously cultivate fields or build houses.

The Fenni are to be distinguished from the Finni who, according to Claudius Ptolemy, lived south of the Gythonen ( Goths ) east of the Vistula and were later subjugated by them according to Jordanes .