From Twelve Centuries of English Poetry and Prose selected and edited by Alphonso Gerald Newcomer and Alice E. Andrews; Scott, Foreman and Company, Chicago; 1910; pp. 27-8.
[27]
YEAR ~ 890 A. D.
Ohthere’s Narrative by Alfred the Great (849-901)*
Ohthere told his lord King Alfred, that he dwelt northmost of all the Northmen. He said that he dwelt in the land to the northward, along the West-Sea; he said, however, that that land is very long north from thence, but it is all waste except in a few places where the Finns here and there dwell, for hunting in the winter, and in the summer for fishing in that sea. He said that he was desirous to try, once on a time, how far that country extended due north, or whether any one lived to the north of the waste. He then went due north along the country, leaving all the way the waste land on the right, and the wide sea on the left, for three days: he was as far north as the whale-hunters go at the farthest. Then he proceeded in his course due north as far as he could sail in another three days; then the land there inclined due east, or the sea into the land, he knew not which, but he knew that he there waited for a west wind, or a little north, and sailed thence eastward along that land as far as he could sail in four days; then he had to wait for a due north wind, because the land there inclined due south, or the sea in on that land, he knew not which; he then sailed along the coast due south, as far as he could sail in five days. There lay a great river1 up in that land; they then turned up in that river, because they durst not sail on by that river, on account of hostility, because all that country was inhabited on the other side of that river; he had not before met with any land that was inhabited since he came from his own home; but all the way he had waste land on his right, except for fishermen, fowlers, and hunters, all of whom were Finns, and he had constantly a wide sea to the left. The Beormas2 had well cultivated their country, but they did not dare to enter it; and the Terfinna land3 was all waste, except where hunters, fishers, or fowlers had taken up their quarters.
The Beormas told him many particulars both of their own land, and of the other lands lying about them; but he knew not what was true, because he did not see it himself; it seemed 28to him that the Finns and the Beormas spoke nearly one language. He went thither chiefly, in addition to seeing the country, on account of the walruses, because they have very noble bones in their teeth; some of those teeth they brought to the king; and their hides are good for ship-ropes. This whale is much less than other whales, it being not longer than seven ells; but in his own country is the best whale-hunting, — there they are eight and forty ells long, and the biggest of them fifty ells long; of these he said that he and five others had killed sixty in two days. He was a very wealthy man in those possessions in which their wealth consists, that is in wild deer. He had at the time he came to the king, six hundred unsold tame deer. These deer they call rein-deer, of which there were six decoy rein-deer, which are very valuable among the Finns, because they catch the wild rein-deer with them.
He was one of the foremost men in that country, yet he had not more than twenty horned cattle, and twenty sheep, and twenty swine, and the little that he ploughed he ploughed with horses.4 But their wealth consists for the most part in the rent paid them by the Finns. That rent is in skins of animals, and birds’ feathers, and whalebone, and in ship-ropes made of whales’ hides, and of seals’. Everyone pays according to his birth; the best-born, it is said, pay the skins of fifteen martens, and five rein-deer’s, and one bear’s skin, ten ambers5 of feathers, a bear’s or otter’s skin kirtle, and two ship-ropes, each sixty ells long, made either of whale-hide or of seal’s.
He said that the Northmen’s land was very long and narrow; all that his man could either pasture or plough lies by the sea, though that is in some parts very rocky; and to the east are wild mountains, parallel to the cultivated land. The Finns inhabit these mountains, and the cultivated land is broadest to the eastward, and continually narrower the more north. To the east it may be sixty miles broad, or a little broader, and towards the middle thirty, or broader; and northward, he said, where it is narrowest, that it might be three miles broad to the mountain, and the mountain then is in some parts so broad that a man may pass over in two weeks, and in some parts so broad that a man may pass over in six days. Then along this land southwards, on the other side of the mountain, is Sweden; to that land northwards, and along that land northwards, Cwenland.6 The Cwenas sometimes make depredations on the Northmen over the mountain, and sometimes the Northmen on them; there are very large fresh meres amongst the mountains, and the Cwenas carry their ships over land into the meres, and thence make depredations on the Northmen; they have very little ships, and very light.
Ohthere said that the shire in which he dwelt is called Halgoland. He said that no one dwelt to the north of him; there is likewise a port to the south of that land, which is called Sciringes-heal;7 thither, he said, no one could sail in a month, if he landed at night, and every day had a fair wind; and all the while he would sail along the land, and on the starboard will first be Iraland,8 and then the islands which are between Iraland and this land.9 Then it is this land until he come to Sciringes-heal, and all the way on the larboard, Norway. To the south of Sciringes-heal, a very great sea runs up into the land, which is broader than any one can see over; and Jutland is opposite on the other side, and then Zealand. This sea runs many miles up in that land. And from Sciringes-heal, he said that he sailed in five days to that port which is called Æt-Hæthum,10 which is between the Wends, and Saxons, and Angles, and belongs to Denmark.
When he sailed thitherward from Sciringes-heal, Denmark was on his left, and on the right a wide sea for three days, and two days before he came to Hæthum he had on the right Jutland, Zealand, and many islands. In these lands the Angles dwelt before they came hither to this land. And then for two days he had on his left the islands which belong to Denmark.
NOTES
* From the addition made by King Alfred to his translation of Orosius’ History of the World; modern English translation by Benjamin Thorpe. Ohthere was a Norwegian sailor, who, straying to Alfred’s court, was eagerly questioned. See Eng. Lit., p. 26.
1 The Dwina.
2 A people east of the Dwina.
3 The region between the Gulf of Bothnia and the North Cape.
4 forty bushels
5 The Anglo-Saxons plowed with oxen.
6 Between the Gulf of Bothnia and the White Sea.
7 In the Gulf of Christiania.
8 Ireland (meaning Scotland; or possibly an error for Iceland).
9 England
