Gandvik (

northern sámi Northern Sámi or North Sámi ( ; ; ; ; ; disapproved exonym Lappish or Lapp) is the most widely spoken of all Sámi languages. The area where Northern Sámi is spoken covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. Geographic distr ...

: ''Juvravuonna,'' kvääni: ''Juuriperä'') is a city in Nesseby. The name is a compound of the words '' gand'', and ''vik,'' meaning bay. In

Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology, is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia as the Nordic folklore of the modern period. The ...

, Gandvík is a dangerous

sea A sea is a large body of salt water. There are particular seas and the sea. The sea commonly refers to the ocean, the interconnected body of seawaters that spans most of Earth. Particular seas are either marginal seas, second-order section ...

, known as the "Bay of Serpents" because of its tortuous shape. The 12th-13th century Dane

Saxo Grammaticus Saxo Grammaticus (), also known as Saxo cognomine Longus, was a Danish historian, theologian and author. He is thought to have been a clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, the main advisor to Valdemar I of Denmark. He is the author ...

stated that Gandvik was an old name for the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

(a name misspelt Grandvik in some translations). The legend presumably refers to the

Gulf of Bothnia The Gulf of Bothnia (; ; ) is divided into the Bothnian Bay and the Bothnian Sea, and it is the northernmost arm of the Baltic Sea, between Finland's west coast ( East Bothnia) and the northern part of Sweden's east coast ( West Bothnia an ...

. However, there are two opposite theories about where Gandvik was situated, based on the 1323

Treaty of Nöteborg The Treaty of Nöteborg, also known as the Treaty of Orehovsk (; ; ), is a conventional name for the peace treaty signed at Shlisselburg Fortress, Oreshek (; ) on 12 August 1323. It was the first agreement between Sweden and the Novgorod Republic ...

: in the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five oceanic divisions. It spans an area of approximately and is the coldest of the world's oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, ...

or the Gulf of Bothnia. Starting from the 1850s, the former received more support, in that Sweden had extended far out to the Arctic Ocean, but since the 1920s the latter has gained more support. However, '' Hversu Noregr byggðist'', dating from the former part of the 13th century, is by most opinions referring to the

White Sea The White Sea (; Karelian language, Karelian and ; ) is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the nort ...

when it uses the term Gandvik."Northern Scandinavia during the Middle Ages", part of ''In honorem Evert Baudou'' (1985), Sven Lundkvist

References

Places in Norse mythology History of the Arctic White Sea {{norse-myth-stub