How did your country come into existence?

[unmerged(5578)]

But I'm not asking about the true stories but legends.

For example:
There were three brothers: Lech, Czech and Rus.
They lived together but one day they decided to split up.
Rus went east and created Russia.
Czech went south and established Czech's counrty.
Lech went north and after quite long ramble saw an eagle and it's nest. He thought: "Yes, this is a place where I should build a town and stay for the rest of my life". And he did it. This is the beginning of Gniezno (you may say Nestlin ). You know: Berlin - der Bar (a bear); Nestlin (Gniazdo - a nest))- the first Polish capital and the beginning of Poland as a country.
And that's why Poland has an eagle as natonal emblem.


Have you any stories about your countries?

 

[Ebusitanus]

Berlin...?

 

[unmerged(5790)]

I've heard that Korea is a result of the sexual act of a god with a bear.

 

[unmerged(6303)]

Britain was founded by Brutus, a Trojan and a relative of Aeneas. He fled from the Trojan settlement in Italy after killing his father in a hunting accident and came eventually to the island of Albion, which before then had been inhabited by "none but a few giants."

He got rid of the giants, renamed the island after himself, and founded the city of "New Troy" on the site of London.

 

[viper37]

My country is too young to have legends like the others, but here is a myth that Canadians like to spread about the formation of their country:

3 British colonies decided to unite themselves and form Canada with a representative government because they felt distinct from the British and they felt they would be better served by being united on the same continent.

The truth is there was a lot of money to be made with the "iron horse" and quite surpringly our most (if not all) founding fathers were shareholders of the railroad company

 

[Charles VII]

Here's a quick one:

The British fired first

 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

For Belgium there are no legends... we just seceded from Holland becuase of economic and sme other reasons; mainly economic.

For Flanders, that's rather weird from what I've heard.
This is probably historically correct: the first count (English for 'graaf'??)of Flanders got the core of Flanders from a Karolingian Emperor because he wifenapped his daughter and married her (this was done more in that time) making him a relative and thus the recipient of respect and stuff. This core was called the Pagus Flandrensis.

On this piece of land the count, at some point, saw a white bear (don't know if it was doing somethiing or not). Anyways, legend has it that is the place where Brugge, the capital of Flanders and the 'Venice of the North', was built. Hence the reason why you can sometimes find a white bear as avatar for Brugge.

 

[unmerged(6657)]

Here is the American Legend.(not to be confused w/ Harley-Davidson)

In England and France, the big, bad king wouldn't let any one pray the way they wanted to. So a small percentage of upper-middle class people decided to leave the cozy life they led at home, and go west until they hit the promised land. For some reason when they got there, the land was entirely deserted. Well, those people got to pray the way they wanted to, and it didn't hurt that they ended up owning more land than the king himself did.

Eventually, the French people had to become subservient to the English people. They started to call themselves Americans. After about 150 years, they decided that god told them not to pay taxes to England when they could tax the farmers and importers themselves, and make god happy by owning more land than anyone else in the world.

Finally, the Americans looked west again and saw the big, bad, red people again. This time they got mad because they weren't using the land properly, and after being threatened by the red peoples big, bad, bow and arrow, they decided to use biological warfare on the red people, and almost all of them disappeared, except the ones who "wanted" to open up casinos. And that is how America was founded.

THE END

 

[Havard]

Fundinar Noregr

Here's a (summary of) the Norwegian "Fundinar Noregr":

A man was named Fornjot, he had three sons, Hleer, Loge and Kaare; The last one ruled the winds, Loge the fire and Hleer ruled the sea. Kaare was father of Jakul, father of king Snø (=Snow), whos children were Thorre, Fann, Driva and Mjall. Thorre was a famous King who ruled Jotland and Finland; to him the kvæns (a finnish people) made blot (sacrifies) for snow and good skiing conditions. (...) Thorre had three children: his sons Nor and Gor, his daughter Goe.

Goe disappeared and Nor and Gor went looking for her.

Nor fought large battles west of the mountains, and four kings fell to him, their name was Vee and Vei, Hunding and Heming; He conquered all of this land, all the way to the sea. (...) (Then) he travelled through Østerdalene, Vermeland, along Væneren and down to the sea (basically along the old Norwegian-Swedish border); all of the land to the west of these borders he conquered, and it is now called Norge (Norway). (...)


Then followes the story of how Nor found his sister, married the daughter of a Jotun (giant) and how his decendants spread throughout the land

 

[unmerged(4745)]

The first king in ancient Uppland was Yngve Frey, the Viking God.

But the first inhabitants are not mentioned anywhere in the sagas like for Norway.

In 16th and 17th the so called Gothia school told that Sweden was the ancient Atlantis... Rudbeckius, "Atlantican"

 

[unmerged(4217)]

As to my country: it hasn't come into existance yet. But one it does, boy, will I tell a great story.

 

[unmerged(4745)]

Originally posted by Bylandt
As to my country: it hasn't come into existance yet. But one it does, boy, will I tell a great story.

Was not the Flanders a self ruling fief of the French crown during the middle ages ? So the "country" have existed once upon the time.

 

[unmerged(4217)]

Originally posted by Sten Sture d:ä
Was not the Flanders a self ruling fief of the French crown during the middle ages ? So the "country" have existed once upon the time.

You are right. Flanders was for a long time only nominally under the French crown. But in theory it was never independent.

 

[Shadowstrike]

China has existed as long as there was civilization. Ok that stretching the truth, but few civilizations can claim that. Oh and Canada was formed because the Ontarioans and the Quebeckers wanted to take over the Atlantic provinces in a politically correct way.

 

[unmerged(4679)]

Originally posted by Sten Sture d:ä
The first king in ancient Uppland was Yngve Frey, the Viking God.

But the first inhabitants are not mentioned anywhere in the sagas like for Norway.

In 16th and 17th the so called Gothia school told that Sweden was the ancient Atlantis... Rudbeckius, "Atlantican"

I think there is a legend about how Sweden was created. I think I have read it somewhere. It didn't hade to do with the viking Gods (like Oden and Tor), but it can have been in a book with nordic mythology.

 

[unmerged(7151)]

Originally posted by Charles VII
Here's a quick one:

The British fired first

beat me to the punchline, but then again you could do the whole history or the US like that

 

[unmerged(1609)]

Originally posted by Waltan
But I'm not asking about the true stories but legends.

For example:
There were three brothers: Lech, Czech and Rus.
They lived together but one day they decided to split up.
Rus went east and created Russia.
Czech went south and established Czech's counrty.
Lech went north and after quite long ramble saw an eagle and it's nest. He thought: "Yes, this is a place where I should build a town and stay for the rest of my life". And he did it. This is the beginning of Gniezno (you may say Nestlin ). You know: Berlin - der Bar (a bear); Nestlin (Gniazdo - a nest))- the first Polish capital and the beginning of Poland as a country.
And that's why Poland has an eagle as natonal emblem.


Have you any stories about your countries?

Some sources assign eagle's nest finding not to Lech but to Piast Kolodziej. As far as I remember that version of a legend is told in "Stara Basn" by Kraszewski. it is also probably little closer to reality as it seems that Gniezno was not the first capital of Poland (or should I say the country of Polan tribe).

 

[unmerged(5578)]

It's not a question of historical truth but fun, Jan Zamoyski.
You're right, there's no doubt, but legends are the real spirit of nations.

 

[unmerged(4745)]

Originally posted by Galadriel

I think there is a legend about how Sweden was created. I think I have read it somewhere. It didn't hade to do with the viking Gods (like Oden and Tor), but it can have been in a book with nordic mythology.

I've read a lot of Swedish history but never found anything about a Swedish land taking period. But this stories may have been washed out when the modern history science begun in the 19th century. Scientists like Lauritz Weibull was not keen on that stuff.
But I will check in my library.

 

[celedhring]

Northern Catalonia and and Roussillon was a defensive border of the Frankish Empire, known as "Marca Hispanica", liberated by Frankish armies short after Poitiers. With de conquest of Barcelona a firm power base could be established, and soon the Count of Barcelona became predominant and vassallized most of the other counties of the area, while driving the Moors south of the Ebre river. The Count of Barcelona Guifré el Pilós set then his aims into obtain autonomy from the Frank King. So in 988 the Count of Barcelona broke his vassallship with the new Frank King Charles, claiming that he had not fullfilled his duties as overlord (the Moors had sacked Barcelona shortly before). Since the King was occupied in a Normand invasion, there wasn't a punishment. The independence wasn't formally recognized by France until 1280, however.

On a side note, the legendary origin is curiously the opposite (it's a XVI century legend, BTW). The Count of Barcelona, as a vassall, assisted King Charles in that Normand invasion and died in battle (he died actually, but in battle with the Moors near Lleida). As a gratitude, King Charles conceded him independence to his state, and gifted him with the arms of Catalonia putting his fingers on the wounds of the Count and painting the red stripes on a Golden Shield.