A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 | Page 8

these parts, he had only twenty head of cattle, twenty sheep, and twenty swine; and what little land he had in tillage was ploughed by horses. The principal wealth of the Norman chiefs in that country consisted in tribute exacted from the Fins; being paid in skins of wild beasts, feathers, whalebone, cables and ropes for ships, made from the hides of whales or seals. Every one pays in proportion to his substance: the wealthiest paying the skins of fifteen martins, five rein-deer skins, and one bear-skin, a coat or cloak made of bear-skin or otters skins, and two cables or ship ropes of sixty ells long each, one of which is made of whale hide, and the other from the skins of seals.
According to the description given to the king by Ohthere, Northmanna-land, or Norway, is very long and narrow, all the land which is fit for pasture or tillage being on the seacoast, which is very rocky in some places. To the east of this, and parallel to the cultivated land, there are wild and huge mountains and moors, which are inhabited by the Fins. The cultivated land is broadest in the south[11], where it is sixty miles broad, and in some places more; about the middle of the country, it is perhaps thirty miles broad, or somewhat more; and where it is narrowest in the north, it is hardly more than three miles from the sea to the moors. In some places, the moors are so extensive that a man can hardly travel across them in a fortnight, and in other places perhaps in six days.
Opposite to the south part of this country is Sueoland[12], or Sweden, on the other side of the moors, and opposite to its northern part is Cwenland. The Cwens sometimes pass the moors and mountains to invade and plunder the country of the Normans; who likewise sometimes retaliate, by crossing over to spoil their land. In these moors, there are some very large meres or lakes of fresh water, and the Cwenas[13] sometimes carry their small light ships over land into these lakes, and employ them to facilitate their depredations on the Nordmen. Ohthere says, that the shire or district which he inhabited is called Halgoland, and that there were no inhabitants beyond him to the north. There is likewise a port in the southern land, which is called Sciringes-heal[14], which no one could reach in a month's sailing, even with a fair wind, at least if he lay to at night. During this voyage, the navigator must sail near the land, or make a coasting voyage along the coast of Norway towards the south, having _Iraland_[15], and the islands which are between that country and Norway, on his right hand; for this country continues all the way on the left hand of the navigator, from Halgoland to Sciringes-heal. As he proceeds again to the northward, a great sea to the south of Sciringes-heal runs up into this land, and that sea is so wide, that a person cannot see across it. Gotland[16] is opposite on the other side, or right-hand; and afterwards the sea of Sillende[17] lies many miles up in that country.
Ohthere farther says, that he sailed in five days from Sciringes-heal to that port which is called Haethum [18], which lies between Winedum, Seaxun, and Anglen, and makes part of Dene. When he sailed to this place from Sciringes-heal, Dene, or Denmark, was on his left, and on his right was a wide sea for three days; as were also on his right, two days before he came to Haethum, Gotland, Sillende, and many other islands, which were inhabited by the Angles before they came to Britain; and during these two days, the islands belonging to Denmark were on his left hand.
[1] Anglo-Saxon Version of Orosius, by Alfred the Great, translated by Daines Barrington, p. 9.--Langebeck, Script. Dan. II. 106-118.-- Forster, Voy. and Disc. in the North, p. 53.
[2] Ohthere here calls the inhabitants of the desert Fins, and it would appear that the Laplanders are actually Fins, or Finlanders; the name of Laps or Laplanders being of modern origin, and the Danes and Norwegians still call this country Finmark.--Forst
[3] In former translations of Alfred, this passage is rendered as follows: "He was within three days sail of being as far north as the whale-hunters ever go." This expression is vague and ambiguous, and rather means that the residence from whence he set out was within three days sail, &c.; whereas the next member of the same sentence distinctly indicates a preceding three days sail, as in the adopted translation.--E.
[4] This is not quite accurate, as the coast of Norway, in the course of Ohthere, stretches N.N.E. He was now arrived at the North Cape, whence the coast towards