As you watch on a summer day from the upper deck of the ferry approaching the island of Gotland, about fifty nautical miles off the southeast coast of Sweden, the city of Visby emerges like a dream. First you'll see the rambling medieval walls that still surround this ancient city; next, the red-tiled roofs of its quaint old buildings rising on the horizon; and last, you'll spot the green lawns and flower gardens that are Visby's pride. As the giant ferry docks and its passengers disembark, it seems that an invasion of the island might be taking place--and indeed it is. Because Gotland's climate is milder than the rest of Scandinavia's, the island attracts approximately two hundred thousand tourists every year, virtually quadrupling the island's population of fifty-four thousand. They come to see the roses that bloom in great profusion, especially in Visby, and their ruins that hark back to the medieval splendor of the city. Or, they leave the narrow, winding streets for the white sand beaches and campgrounds all around the island. Gotlanders look upon the summer invasion with the same good-natured humor that has kept their land prosperous throughout most of its history--they know that visitors bring trade and that ultimately, when summer is over, the "invaders" will leave, and the natives can return to their quiet life.
Although the island has belonged to Sweden for the past two hundred years, its people have never quite felt a part of mainland culture. The Gotlander's language is a dialect of Swedish. Their public and religious holidays, like May Day and Christmas, are the same as the rest of the country's but certain events, like the summer Gotland Games and the annual Rose Parade, are unique to the island. Their history, although intertwined with that of Sweden, is also quite distinct from the mainland's and goes back to a time from which only legend has survived.
A merchant past goes way back
Six gravesites dating from the Stone Age (10,000 to 3,000 B.C.) give evidence of early Gotlanders' ways of life. The people seemed to have had a flourishing sea-merchant economy in the Bronze Age (circa 1,500 to 500 B.C.), in an area extending from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean, Arabia, and Asia Minor. With stones imported from the mainland, they built their remarkable skeppsattningar or ship-graves. Among the most interesting archeological features of Gotland, 350 of the large ship like burial sites have survived to this day.
Centuries later, the cries of men, women, and children filled their air as names were drawn in the most unusual lottery in Europe. The lottery is said to have taken place on Gotland sometime between the first and fifth centuries. The story is told in the Gutasaga or "Guta Legend," dating from the thirteenth century. The reason for the lottery was overpopulation: In order to survive, some had to leave.
According to the Gutasaga, a legendary thirteenth-century recounting of Gotland's early history that forms part of a larger body of work, the Guta Lag, or "Gotland law," the first man to come to Gotland was called Tjelvar. At that time Gotland was under a spell that made it sink by day and rise only at night. Once Tjelvar brought fire to the island, Gotland never sank again. Tjelvar had a son called Havde, whose wife's name was Vita Stjarna, meaning "White Star." This young couple was the first to live on the island of Gotland. The first night Havde and Vita slept together, she dreamt that
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