Short answers, pulled from the story.
Scandinavia most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, which share strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties. The term is sometimes extended to include Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Finland, particularly in English usage, though locally the broader grouping is called the Nordic countries.
The earliest identified source for the name Scandinavia is Pliny the Elder's Natural History, dated to the 1st century AD. The name likely traces back to the Proto-Germanic compound Skaðin-awjō, which scholars reconstruct as meaning 'dangerous island,' a reference to the treacherous sandbanks surrounding the Scania region of southern Sweden.
The Viking Age in Scandinavia lasted from approximately 793 to 1066 AD. During this period, Scandinavians conducted large-scale raiding, colonization, conquest, and trade throughout Europe, and became the first Europeans to reach North America.
The Kalmar Union was a political union of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden formed in 1397 under Queen Margaret I of Denmark. Sweden left the union in 1523 under King Gustav I, ending the three-way union after more than a century.
Scandinavism was a 19th-century linguistic and cultural movement that asserted the common heritage and unity of the Scandinavian countries. It peaked politically between the First Schleswig War of 1848-1850 and the Second Schleswig War of 1864, when Denmark was denied the military support promised by Sweden and Norway, and Prussia conquered Schleswig-Holstein.
Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish form a dialect continuum and are considered mutually intelligible in their standard written and broadcast forms. Faroese and Icelandic are only partially intelligible to speakers of those three continental languages; in the Faroe Islands and Iceland, learning Danish is mandatory.