i understand that a long thread like this can make you confused but as mentioned before the traditions were mentioned in passing as a reference to common swedish culture today one of the ethnicity criteria the fact that they perhaps build on earlier pagan traditions very likely common within the whole germanic area is merely interesting as for my source i would still say that self identification based on research is much more legitimate than anything you can come up with quoting one sentence from the finnish ministry for foreign affairs webbpage based on some junior civil servants webb editors personal opinion is not more legitimate than creative interpretation of a swedish medical study which actually does'nt support your claim selective quoting out of context in fact seems to be your speciality regardless of the source besides the portion of text you quote regarding a small area of swedish finland you did notice the bold text that forms the summary of the text det svenska omr det omfattar nyland boland land och sterbotten omr det r i stora drag of r ndrat sedan och talet d h gmedeltidens stora bebyggelsev g f rde svenska nybyggare till de obebodda kusttrakterna i finland the swedish area incompasses nyland boland land och sterbotten the area is generally unchanged since the great middle age migration that carried swedish settlers to the uninhabited coastal areas of finland as for the paragraph on movemement that you quote a part of it concludes with flyttning ver den spr kgr nsen har f rekommit i alla tider men har blivit en f reteelse i stor skala f rst i v r tid movement over the language border has taken place in all times but has become a large scale phonomenon only in our time your comparison to ireland is interesting and in your mind perhaps even relevant the irish situation is however different e g the english occupation actively surpressed the irish language culture and heritage something similar did not take place in finland in fact the finnish language was actively developed and promoted by finland swedes initially due to academic interest and in the th century as a bulwark against russification