The Voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan

To the White Sea and to the Mouth of the Vistula in the Time
of Alfred the Great, with Notes on the Geography
of Europe inserted by
KING ALFRED,
In his Translation of Orosius.

KING ALFRED’S OROSIUS.
(FROM “ENGLISH WRITERS.”)

One of King Alfred’s labours for the enlightenment of his countrymen was a translation of the “Universal History of Orosius, from the Creation to the year of our Lord 416.”  This book had long been in high repute by the familiar name of “Orosius” among students and teachers in the monasteries; and it retained its credit so, that after the invention of printing it was one of the first works put into type, and appeared in numerous editions.  The author was a Spanish Christian of the fifth century.  Born at Tarragona and educated in Spain, he crossed over to Africa about the year 414, and received instruction from St. Augustine upon knotty questions of the origin of the soul and other matters.  In Augustine’s works are contained the “Consultation of Orosius with Augustine on the Error of the Priscillianists and Origenists,” and a letter from Augustine to Orosius against them.  Augustine sent Orosius to consult Jerome, who was in Palestine; and in his letter of introduction said, “Behold, there has come to me a religious young man, in catholic peace a brother, in age a son, in rank a co-presbyter, Orosius—of active talents, ready eloquence, ardent application, longing to be in God’s house a vessel useful for disproving false and destructive doctrines, which have killed the souls of Spaniards much more grievously than the barbarian sword their bodies.”  In Palestine, towards the latter half of the year 415, Orosius attacked the Pelagians by writing against them a treatise on Free Will, and presenting a memorial against them to the Council of Diospolis.  It was at the request of St Augustine that Orosius wrote his History.  The sack of Rome by Alaric having caused the Christians of Rome to doubt the efficacy of their faith, Augustine, while he himself wrote his “De Civitate Dei” to show from the history of the Church that the preaching of the Gospel could not augment the world’s misery, incited Orosius to show the same thing in a compendium of profane history also.  Orosius began his work in the year 410, when Augustine had got through ten books of his, and he finished it about the year 416.  Like a good old-fashioned controversialist, he made very light of the argument of terror from the sack of Rome by Alaric, so representing the event that King Alfred, in his translation, thus abridged the detail:—

“Alaric, the most Christian and the mildest of kings, sacked Rome with so little violence, that he ordered no man should be slain, and that nothing should be taken away or injured that was in the churches.  Soon after that, on the third day, they went out of the city of their own accord.  There was not a single house burnt by their order.”

In translating and adapting this book to the uses of his time, King Alfred did not trouble himself at all with its old ecclesiastical character, as what Pope Gelasius I. had called a book written “with wonderful brevity against heathen perversions.”  Looking to it exclusively as a digest of historical and geographical information, Alfred abridged, omitted, imitated, added, with a single regard to his purpose of producing a text-book of that class of knowledge.  Omitting the end of the fifth book and the beginning of the sixth, and so running two books into one, he made the next and last book the sixth instead of the seventh, as it is in the original.

The “History of Orosius” itself is bald, confused; but it was enriched and improved by Alfred’s addition to the first book of much new matter, enlarging knowledge of the geography of Europe, which he calls Germania, north of the Rhine and Danube.  Alfred adds also to the same book geographical narratives taken from the lips of two travellers.  One was Ohthere, a Norwegian, who sailed from Halgoland, on the coast of Norway, round the North Cape into the Cwen-Sæ, or White Sea, and entered the mouth of the river Dwina, the voyage ending where there is now Archangel, the most northern of the Russian seaports.  Ohthere afterwards made a second voyage from Halgoland along the west and south coast of Norway to the Bay of Christiania, and Sciringeshæl, the port of Skerin, or Skien, near the entrance of the Christiania fjord.  He then sailed southward, and reached in five days the Danish port æt Hæđum, the capital town called Sleswic by the Saxons, but by the Danes Haithaby.  The other traveller was Wulfstan, who sailed in the Baltic, from Slesvig in Denmark to Frische Haff within the Gulf of Danzig, reaching the Drausen Sea by Elbing.  These voyages were taken from the travellers’ own lips.  Of Wulfstan’s, the narrative passes at one time into the form of direct personal narration—“Wulfstan said that he went . . . that he had . . . And then we had on our left the land of the Burgundians [Bornholmians], who had their own king.  After the land of the Burgundians we had on our left,” &c.  The narrative of the other voyage opens with the sentence, “Ohthere told his lord, King Alfred.”  These three additions to “Orosius”—the Description of Europe, the two voyages of Ohthere, and the voyage of Wulfstan—may be considered Alfred’s own works.

The Description is the king’s own account of Europe in his time, and the only authentic record of the Germanic nations, written by a contemporary, so early as the ninth century.

Ohthere was a man of great wealth and influence in Norway, as wealth was there reckoned; for he had 600 reindeer, including six decoy-deer; but though accounted one of the first men in the land, he had only twenty horned cattle, twenty sheep, and twenty swine.  The little that he ploughed he ploughed with horses, and his chief revenue was in tribute of skin and bone from the Finns.  The fame of his voyages attracted to him the attention of King Alfred.  He said that he dwelt “Northmost of all northmen,” in Halgoland; and wishing to find out how far the land lay due north, and whether any man dwelt north of him—for the sake also of taking the walruses, “which have very good bone in their teeth; of these teeth they brought some to the king; and their hides are very good for ship-ropes”—he sailed northward.  Ohthere may have obtained some of his wealth by whale-fishing.  He says that “in his own country is the best whale-hunting; they are eight-and-forty ells long, and the largest fifty ells long;” of these he said “that he was one of six who killed sixty in two days;” meaning, no doubt, that his vessel was one of six.  He relates only what he saw.  “The Biarmians,” he says, “told him many stories both about their own land and about the countries which were around them, but he knew not what was true, because he did not see it himself.”

Wulfstan was perhaps a Jutlander, and his voyage was confined to the Baltic.  Neither his account nor that of Ohthere contradicts the opinion then held, that Scandinavia was a large island, and the Gulf of Bothnia or Cwæner Sea flowed into the North Sea.

Now will we describe the geography of Europe, so far, at least, as our knowledge of it extends.  From the river Tanais, westward to the river Rine (which takes its rise from the Alps and runs directly north thenceforward on to the arm of the ocean that surrounds Bryttania), then southward to the river Danube (whose source is near the river Rine, running afterwards in its course along the confines of Northern Greece, till it empties itself into the Mediterranean), and northward even unto the ocean, which men call Cwen-sea; within these boundaries are many nations; but the whole of this tract of country is called Germany.

Then to the north of the source of the Danube, and to the east of the Rine, are the Eastern Franks, and to the south of them are the Suabians; on the opposite bank of the Danube, and to the south and east, are the Bavarians, in that part which is called Regnesburh.  Due east from thence are the Bohemians, and to the north-east the Thyringians, to the north of these are the Old Saxons, to the north-west are the Frieslanders, and to the west of the Old Saxons is the mouth of the Elbe, as also Friesland.  Hence to the west-north is that land which is called Angleland, Sealand, and some part of Den-marc; to the north is Apdredè, and to the east-north the wolds, which are called the Heath-wolds.  Hence eastward is the land of the Veneti (who are also called Silesæ), extending south-west over a great part of the territory of the Moravians.  These Moravians have to the west the Thyringians and Bohemians, as also part of Bavaria, and to the south, on the other side of the Danube, is the country of the Carinthians, lying southward even to the Alps.  To the same mountains also extend the boundaries of the Bavarians and the Suabians.  Thence to the eastward of Carinthia, beyond the waste, is the land of the Bulgarians.  To the east of them is the land of the Greeks, and to the east of Moravia is Wisle-land; to the east of that are the Dacæ, who were originally a tribe of Goths.  To the north-east of the Moravians are the Dalamensæ; east of the Dalamensians are the Horithi, and north of the Dalamensians are the Servians; to the west also are the Silesians.  To the north of the Horiti is Mazovia, and north of Mazovia are the Sarmatians, quite to the Riphæan mountains.  To the west of the Southern Danes is the arm of the ocean that surrounds Britannia, and to the north of them is the arm of the sea called Ost Sea; to the east and to the north of them are the Northern Danes, both on the continent and on the islands; to the east of them are the Afdredè; and to the south is the mouth of the Elb, with some part of Old Saxony.  The Northern Danes have to the north of them the same arm of the sea called Ost Sea; to the east of them is the nation of the Estonians, and the Afdredè to the south.  The Estonians have to the north of them the same arm of the sea, and also the Winedæ and Burgundæ, and to the South are the Heath-wolds.  The Burgundians have the same arm of the sea to the west of them, and the Sweons to the north; to the east of them are the Sarmatians, and to the south the Servians.  The Sweons have to the south of them the same arm of the sea, called Ost Sea; to the east of them the Sarmatians; and to the north, over the wastes, is Cwenland; to the west-north of them are the Scride-Finnas, and to the west the Northmen.

“Ohthere told his lord, King Alfred, that he lived to the north of all the Northmen.  He says that he dwelt on the mainland to the northward, by the west sea; that the land, however, extends to a very great length thence onward to the north; but it is all waste, except in a few places where the Finlanders occasionally resort, for hunting in the winter, and in the summer for fishing along the sea-coast.  He said that he was determined to find out, on a certain time, how far this country extended northward, or whether any one lived to the north of the waste.  With this intent he proceeded northward along the coast, leaving all the way the waste land on the starboard, and the wide sea on the backboard, for three days.  He was then as far north as the whale-hunters ever go.  He then continued his voyage, steering yet northward, as far as he could sail within three other days.  Then the land began to take a turn to the eastward, even unto the inland sea, but he knows not how much farther.  He remembers, however, that he stayed there waiting for a western wind, or a point to the north, and sailed thence eastward by the land as far as he could in four days.  Then he was obliged to wait for a due north wind, because the land there began to run southward, quite to the inland sea; he knows not how far.  He sailed thence along the coast southward, as far as he could in five days.  There lay then a great river a long way up in the land, into the mouth of which they entered, because they durst not proceed beyond the river from an apprehension of hostilities, for the land was all inhabited on the other side of the river.  Ohthere, however, had not met with any inhabited land before this since he first set out from his own home.  All the land to his right, during his whole voyage, was uncultivated and without inhabitants, except a few fishermen, fowlers, and hunters, all of whom were Finlanders; and he had nothing but the wide sea on his left all the way.  The Biarmians, indeed, had well cultivated their land; though Ohthere and his crew durst not enter upon it; but the land of the Torne-Finnas was all waste, and it was only occasionally inhabited by hunters, and fishermen, and fowlers.

“The Biarmians told him many stories, both about their own land and about the other countries around them; but Ohthere knew not how much truth there was in them, because he had not an opportunity of seeing with his own eyes.  It seemed, however, to him, that the Finlanders and the Biarmians spoke nearly the same language.  The principal object of his voyage, indeed, was already gained; which was, to increase the discovery of the land, and on account of the horse-whales, because they have very beautiful bone in their teeth, some of which they brought to the king, and their hides are good for ship-ropes.  This sort of whale is much less than the other kinds, it is not longer commonly than seven ells: but in his own country (Ohthere says) is the best whale-hunting; there the whales are eight and forty ells long, and the largest fifty; of these, he said, he once killed (six in company) sixty in two days.  He was a very rich man in the possession of those animals, in which their principal wealth consists, namely, such as are naturally wild.  He had then, when he came to seek King Alfred, six hundred deer, all tamed by himself, and not purchased.  They call them reindeer.  Of these six were stall-reins, or decoy deer, which are very valuable amongst the Finlanders, because they catch the wild deer with them.

“Ohthere himself was amongst the first men in the land, though he had not more than twenty rother-beasts, twenty sheep, and twenty swine; and what little he ploughed, he ploughed with horses.  The annual revenue of these people consists chiefly in a certain tribute which the Finlanders yield them.  This tribute is derived from the skins of animals, feathers of various birds, whalebone, and ship-ropes, which are made of whales’ hides and of seals.  Everyone pays according to his substance; the wealthiest man amongst them pays only the skins of fifteen marterns, five reindeer skins, one bear’s skin, ten bushels of feathers, a cloak of bear’s or otter’s skin, two ship-ropes (each sixty ells long), one made of whale’s and the other of seal’s skin.

“Ohthere moreover said that the land of the Northmen was very long and very narrow; all that is fit either for pasture or ploughing lies along the sea coast, which, however, is in some parts very cloddy; along the eastern side are wild moors, extending a long way up parallel to the cultivated land.  The Finlanders inhabit these moors, and the cultivated land is broadest to the eastward; and, altogether, the more northward it lies, the more narrow it is.  Eastward it may perhaps be sixty miles broad, in some places broader; about the middle, thirty miles, or somewhat more; and northward, Ohthere says (where it is narrowest), it may be only three miles across from the sea to the moors, which, however, are in some parts so wide, that a man could scarcely pass over them in two weeks, though in other parts perhaps in six days.  Then parallel with this land southward is Sweoland, on the other side of the moors, extending quite to the northward; and running even with the northern part of it is Cwenaland.  The Cwenas sometimes make incursions against the Northmen over these moors, and sometimes the Northmen on them; there are very large meres of fresh water beyond the moors, and the Cwenas carry their ships overland into the meres, whence they make depredations on the Northmen; they have ships that are very small and very light.

“Ohthere said that the shire which he inhabited is called Halgoland.  He says that no human being abode in any fixed habitation to the north of him.  There is a port to the south of this land, which is called Sciringes-heal.  Thither he said that a man could not sail in a month, if he watched in the night, and every day had a fair wind; and all the while he shall sail along the coast; and on his right hand first is Island, and then the islands which are between Island and this land.  Then this land continues quite to Sciringes-heal; and all the way on the left is Norway.  To the south of Sciringes-heal a great sea runs up a vast way into the country, and is so wide that no man can see across it.  (Jutland is opposite on the other side, and then Sealand.)  This sea lies many hundred miles up into the land.  Ohthere further says that he sailed in five days from Sciringes-heal to that port which men call Æt-Hæthum, which stands between the Winedæ, the Saxons, and the Angles, and is subject to the Danes.

“When Ohthere sailed to this place from Sciringes-heal, Denmark was on his left, and on his right the wide sea, for three days; and for the two days before he came to Hæthum, on his right hand was Jutland, Sealand, and many islands; all which lands were inhabited by the English, before they came hither; and for these two days the islands which are subject to Denmark were on his left.”

“Wulfstan said that he went from Heathum to Truso in seven days and nights, and that the ship was running under sail all the way.  Weonodland was on his right, and Langland, Læland, Falster, and Sconey, on his left, all which land is subject to Denmark.  “Then on our left we had the land of the Burgundians, who have a king to themselves.  Then, after the land of the Burgundians, we had on our left the lands that have been called from the earliest times Blekingey, and Meore, and Eowland, and Gotland, all which territory is subject to the Sweons; and Weonodland was all the way on our right, as far as Weissel-mouth.  The Weissel is a very large river, and near it lie Witland and Weonodland.  Witland belongs to the people of Eastland; and out of Weonodland flows the river Weissel, which empties itself afterwards into Estmere.  This lake, called Estmere, is about fifteen miles broad.  Then runs the Ilfing east (of the Weissel) into Estmere, from that lake on the banks of which stands Truso.  These two rivers come out together into Estmere, the Ilfing east from Eastland, and the Weissel south from Weonodland.  Then the Weissel deprives the Ilfing of its name, and, flowing from the west part of the lake, at length empties itself northward into the sea, whence this point is called the Weissel-mouth.  This country called Eastland is very extensive, and there are in it many towns, and in every town is a king.  There is a great quantity of honey and fish; and even the king and the richest men drink mare’s milk, whilst the poor and the slaves drink mead.  There is a vast deal of war and contention amongst the different tribes of this nation.  There is no ale brewed amongst the Estonians, but they have mead in profusion.

“There is also this custom with the Estonians, that when anyone dies the corpse continues unburnt with the relations and friends for at least a month, sometimes two; and the bodies of kings and illustrious men, according to their respective wealth, lie sometimes even for half a year before the corpse is burned, and the body continues above ground in the house, during which time drinking and sports are prolonged till the day on which the body is consumed.  Then, when it is carried to the funeral pile, the substance of the deceased, which remains after these drinking festivities and sports, is divided into five or six heaps; sometimes into more, according to the proportion of what he happens to be worth.  These heaps are so disposed that the largest heap shall be about one mile from the town; and so gradually the smaller at lesser intervals, till all the wealth is divided, so that the least heap shall be nearest the town where the corpse lies.

“Then all those are to be summoned together who have the fleetest horses in the land, for a wager of skill, within the distance of five or six miles from these heaps; and they all ride a race toward the substance of the deceased.  Then comes the man that has the winning horse toward the first and largest heap, and so each after other, till the whole is seized upon.  He procures, however, the least heap who takes that which is nearest the town; and then everyone rides away with his share, and keeps the whole of it.  On account of this custom fleet horses in that country are wonderfully dear.  When the wealth of the deceased has been thus exhausted, then they carry out his corpse from the house and burn it, together with his weapons and clothes; and generally they spend his whole substance by the long continuance of the body within the house, together with what they lay in heaps along the road, which the strangers run for, and take away.

“It is also an established custom with the Estonians that the dead bodies of every tribe or family shall be burned, and if any man findeth a single bone unconsumed, they shall be fined to a considerable amount.  These Estonians also have the power of producing artificial cold; and it is thus the dead body continues so long above ground without putrefying, on which they produce this artificial cold; and, though a man should set two vessels full of ale or of water, they contrive that either shall be completely frozen over; and this equally the same in the summer as in the winter.”

Now will we speak about those parts of Europe that lie to the south of the river Danube; and first of all, concerning Greece.  The sea which flows along the eastern side of Constantinople (a Grecian city) is called Propontis.  To the north of this Grecian city an arm of the sea shoots up westward from the Euxine; and to the west by north the mouths of the river Danube empty themselves south-east into the Euxine.  To the south and west of these mouths are the Moessians, a tribe of Greeks; to the west of the city are the Thracians; and to the west also are the Macedonians.  To the south of this city, towards the southern part of that arm of the sea which is called the Egean, Athens and Corinth are situated.  And to the west by south of Corinth is the land of Achaia, near the Mediterranean.  To the west of Achaia, along the Mediterranean, is Dalmatia, on the north side of the sea; to the north of Dalmatia are the boundaries of Bulgaria and Istria.  To the south of Istria is that part of the Mediterranean which is called the Adriatic; to the west are the Alps; and to the north that desert which is between the Carinthians and the Bulgarians.

Italy, which is of great length west by north, and also east by south, is surrounded by the Mediterranean on every side but towards the west-north.  At that end of it lie the Alps, which begin westward from the Mediterranean, in the Narbonense country, and end eastward in Dalmatia, near the [Adriatic] sea.

With respect to the territory called Gallia Belgica, to the east of it is the river Rine, to the south the Alps, to the west by south the sea called the British Ocean, and to the north, on the other side of the arm of the ocean, is Britannia.  The land to the west of the river Loire is Æquitania; to the south of Æquitania is some part of the Narbonense; to the west by south is the territory of Spain; and to the south the ocean.  To the south of the Narbonense is the Mediterranean, where the Rone empties itself into the sea, having Provençe both on the east and west.  Over the Pyrenean wastes is Ispania citerior, to the west of which, by north, is Æquitania, and the province of Gascony to the north.  Provençe has to the north of it the Alps; to the south of it is the Mediterranean; to the north-east of it are the Burgundians; and the people of Gascony to the west.

Spain is triangular, and entirely guarded on the outside by the sea, either by the great ocean or by the Mediterranean, and also well guarded within over the land.  One of the angles lies south-west against the island of Gades, the second eastward against the Narbonense territory, and the third north-west against Braganza, a town of Gallicia.  And against Scotland (i.e., Ireland), over the arm of the sea, in a straight line with the mouth of the Shannon, is Ispania ulterior.  To the west of it is the ocean; and to the south and east of it, northward of the Mediterranean, is Ispania citerior; to the north of which are the lands of Equitania; to the north-east is the weald of the Pyrenees, to the east the Narbonense, and to the south the Mediterranean.

With regard to the island Britannia, it is of considerable length to the north-east, being eight hundred miles long and only two hundred miles broad.  To the south of it, on the other side of the arm of the sea, is Gallia Belgica; to the west, on the other side of an arm of the sea, is the island Ibernia, and to the northward the Orkney Isles.  Igbernia, which we call Scotland, is surrounded on every side with the ocean; and hence, because the rays of the setting sun strike on it with less interruption than on other countries, the weather is milder there than it is in Britain.  Thence, to the west-north of Ibernia, is that utmost land called Thila, which is known to a few men only, on account of its exceeding great distance.

Thus have we now sufficiently described all the landmarks of Europe, according to their respective situations.