Early Finnish wars

The earliest historical accounts of conflicts involving Finnish tribes, such as Tavastians, Karelians, Finns proper and Kvens, have survived in Icelandic sagas and in German, Norwegian, Danish and Russian chronicles as well as in Swedish legends and in birch bark manuscripts.

[1] Also the approximately 40 Giant's Churches from the Neolithic period (3500–2000 BCE) found from the northwest coast of Finland may have served as fortifications.

[4] According to the earliest historical documents in the Middle Ages Finnic tribes around the Baltic Sea were often in conflict with each other as well as against other entities in the area.

Several medieval sagas, chronicles and other early historical sources mention wars and conflicts related to Finnish tribes and to Finland.

Finland was probably the same as Terra Feminarum which was attacked by Sweden in the 1050s CE, as described in Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum (transl.

[citation needed] According to the source, the attack ended in the Swedish defeat, and led to the death of the king's son who was in charge of the campaign.

[9] Nothing is known about their results except what can be read from a papal letter[10] from 1209 to the Archbishop of Lund which lets the reader understand the church in Finland be at least partly established by Danish efforts.