On swift torrents

Aseemingly countless number of swift torrents may be discovered in northern lands, principally after the end of April, the time when the snow and ice melt, and they bring huge destruction to the inhabitants; for by their wild and catastrophic onrush they snatch and carry away villages, hamlets, houses, and stone bridges, as well as trees planted by man’s skill and those that have taken root in the earth through natural propagation, as I related above how in other circumstances lakes burst their banks. ¹ With their surging violence these torrents stamp their names on cities and other localities where they sweep by. Skánninge, for example, an extremely ancient town in Östergötland, takes the name from its river, or rather torrent, which, because of its very swift current, is called Skenán in the vernacular, as if it were a horse, its reins cast aside, roused to career in any direction. ² Another river, moreover, no great distance away, has taken its name from the perpetual sound of grinding teeth. ³ So, too, a swift torrent in the province of Medelpad, described above, has received the name of the Knot, because in spate it violently tears away and conveys with it trees and even huge rocks embedded in encrusted masses of ice, like knots; and because its alarming progress so swiftly overwhelms provinces and people, it induces still greater fear. ⁴ Those who have passed through Friuli while travelling from Germany to Venice will acknowledge, without this superfluous testimony of mine, what an avalanche of waters like this has done, or is accustomed to do, remembering what they have seen with their own eyes of the mountain passes and their watercourses around Trento. ⁵

Swift torrents

Skänninge

Skenån Tannefors

Knoden

Friuli