times. The name Rus' would then have the same origin as the Finnish, Estonian, Võro and Northern Sami names for Sweden: Ruotsi, Rootsi, Roodsi and Ruoŧŧa. The local Finnic and Permic peoples in northern Russia proper use the same (Rus-related) name both for Sweden and Russia (depending on the language): thus the Veps name for Sweden and Swedish is Ročinma / Ročin, while in the Komi language spoken further east the etymologically corresponding term Roćmu / Roć means already Russia and Russian instead. The Finnish scholar Tor Karsten has pointed out that the territory of present-day Uppland, Södermanland and East Gothland in ancient times was known as Roðer or roðin. Thomsen accordingly has suggested that Roðer probably derived from roðsmenn or roðskarlar, meaning seafarers or rowers. Ivar Aasen, the Norwegian philologist and lexicographer, noted proto-Germanic root variants Rossfolk, Rosskar, Rossmann. George Vernadsky theorized about the association of Rus and Alans. He claimed that Ruxs in Alanic means "radiant light", thus the ethnonym Roxolani could be understood as "bright Alans". He theorized that the name Roxolani a combination of two separate tribal names: the Rus and the Alans. Early evidence In Old East Slavic literature, the East Slavs refer to themselves as "[muzhi] ruskie" ("Rus' men") or, rarely, "rusichi." The East Slavs are thought to have adopted this name from the Varangian elite, which was first mentioned in the 830s in the Annales Bertiniani. The Annales recount that Louis the Pious's court at Ingelheim am Rhein in 839 (the same year as the first appearance of Varangians in Constantinople), was visited by a delegation from the Byzantine emperor. The delegates included two men who called themselves "Rhos" ("Rhos vocari dicebant"). Louis inquired about their origins and learned that they were Swedes. Fearing that they were spies for their brothers the Danes, he jailed them. They were also mentioned in the 860s by Byzantine Patriarch Photius under the name "Rhos." Rusiyyah was used by Ahmad ibn Fadlan for Varangians near Astrakhan, and by the Persian traveler Ahmad ibn Rustah who visited Veliky Novgorod and described how the Rus' exploited the Slavs. When the Varangians arrived in Constantinople, the Byzantines considered and described the Rhos (Greek Ῥῶς) as a different people from the Slavs. The earliest written mention of the word Rus appears in the Primary Chronicle under the year 912. When describing a peace treaty signed by the Varangian Oleg of Novgorod