Be that as it may, this is his theory.

Then he tells us how his people were at first called Winils; and how
they came out of Scania Insula. Sweden is often, naturally, an
island with the early chroniclers; only the south was known to them.
The north was magical, unknown, Quenland, the dwelling-place of
Yotuns, Elves, Trolls, Scratlings, and all other uncanny
inhumanities. The Winils find that they are growing too many for
Scanland, and they divide into three parties. Two shall stay behind,
and the third go out to seek their fortunes. Which shall go is to be
decided by lot. The third on whom the lot falls choose as war-kings,
two brothers, Ayo and Ibor, and with them their mother, Gambara, the
Alruna-wife, prudent and wise exceedingly--and they go forth.

But before Paul can go too, he has a thing or two to say, which he
must not forget, about the wild mysterious north from which his
forefathers came. First how, in those very extreme parts of Germany,
in a cave on the ocean shore, lie the seven sleepers. How they got
thither from Ephesus, I cannot tell, still less how they should be at
once there on the Baltic shore, and at Ephesus--as Mohammed himself
believed, and Edward the Confessor taught--and at Marmoutier by
Tours, and probably elsewhere beside. Be that as it may, there they
are, the seven martyrs, sleeping for ever in their Roman dresses,
which some wild fellow tried to pull off once, and had his arms
withered as a punishment. And Paul trusts that they will awake some
day, and by their preaching save the souls of the heathen Wends and
Finns who haunt those parts.

The Teutonic knights, however, and not the seven sleepers, did that