Vikings brought first native American to Europe

It's an old Celtic curse that I just made up tonight.

It's a good one, too . . . but shouldn't you be usin' bollocks, Darlin' Sir?

You're quite right. Now how did the fuller version of that old curse go again.....

"May the bean-sidhe grab your bollocks in her horny, scaly hand
And twist and twist till all your screams be heard throughout the land. "

Yes, that's it.

That's a fine curse, that is, Captain Darlin' . . . almost as good as "may Ian Paisley marry yer sister" . . .

Or Brad PAisley.

Maybe most people as you say consider Finland to be Scandinavian in common English usage,and also, Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland are sometimes erroneously considered part of Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a region in northern Europe that includes Denmark and two of the Scandinavian Peninsula's nations, Norway and Sweden.
Swedish and Finnish are both accepted languages in Finland. But to say the Finns speak both Swedish and Finnish is not correct. There are many who do not speak Swedish as Swedish has not always been taught in the schools. I know a couple of Finnish ladies who do not speak Finnish.
Then there used to be Swedes who never spoke a word of Finnish, but they can now learn it in school.
5% of the Finns have Swedish as their mother tounge.

The plane I took to Finland had to turn back for a last minute repair. The passengers were returned to the waiting area (this was 1976). Two men struck up a conversation. One had a slight accent, while the other spoke accentless American English.

Both were from Stockholm.

With a name like Saab I'm sure you are more knowledgeable than I - but you are talking in purely geographic terms - in cultural terms wouldn't Iceland be 'Scandinavian' because it was a Danish colony - Greenland too?

The same way Australia is 'anglo'?

I had a Finnish landlady and she was very sweet.

The Finns are great. They are the cleanest, tidiest people I have encountered . . . and, the most nationalistic

They invited me for Christmas many times.

I had a Finnish boss once, a real gentleman. He was a very fine photographer, gave me my first lessons. He was disgusted by the Canadian practice of leaving our flags up until they became rags. Apparently, that's not kosher in Finland, they take them down every night following true flag protocol. He used to rail on this subject endlessly...

When I was in Finland, people would say that something was better because it was Finnish. I was curious about what sort of mushrooms were in the soup. I asked the waitress who told me, "Is a yellow Finnish mushroom." They were chanterelles.

Yes, I am talking in geographical terms when I refer to Scandinavia. In cultural terms Iceland, Greenland and Finland belong to the Nordic countries.
Although the area is linguistically heterogeneous, with three unrelated language groups, the common linguistic heritage is one of the factors making up the Nordic identity.

What does that prove except that they both were from Stockhom? Was one a Finn and the other a Swede or Dane or Norwegian or American or what?

I think that is the same within all Scandinavian countries. We take down the flag at night and up again in the morning. Or we use a streamer, which is allowed to be up day and night. We would never have a flag rag hanging.

A flag that can't handle the cold of the night, the relentless stream of the wind thru 'er threads is no flag at all.

I used to work at a community club (booze, pokies, bingo, snooker) as a doorman and putting out/taking in the flag in at sunrise/sunset was part of the job - very important not to let it touch the ground. I believe we used to do it at school - but Australia must be getting slacker - I'm pretty sure we don't bring this one in at night:

They both spoke English so well that neither recognized the other as a Swede is what it proves. I've told this story for years. No one ever questioned it.

If they did not know they were both Swedish how come you know?