Swedes (Germanic Tribe)

Swedes (Germanic Tribe)

The Swedes (Swedish: svear; Old Norse: svíar / suar (probably from the PIE reflexive pronominal root *s(w)e, "one's own "; Old English: Sweonas).

The first author who might have written about the tribe is Tacitus, who in his Germania, from 98 CE mentions the Suiones. Jordanes, in the fifth century, mentions Suehans and Sueones.

According to early sources, such as the Norse sagas, and especially Heimskringla, the Swedes were a powerful tribe whose kings claimed descendence from the god Freyr. During the Viking Age they constituted the basis of the Varangian subset, the Vikings that travelled eastwards (see Rus').