own country and about the countries which were around them; but he knew not what was true, because he did not see it himself. The Finns and the Biarmians, as it seemed to him, spoke nearly the same language. He chiefly went thither, in addition to the seeing of the country, on account of the horsewhales [walruses], because they 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. This whale is much less than other whales: it is not longer than seven ells; but 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.

15. He [Ohthere] was a very wealthy man in those possessions in which their wealth consists; that is, in the wilder [animals]. He had, moreover, when he came to the king, six hundred tame deer of his own breeding. They call these reindeer; of these, six were decoy-deer, which are very valuable among Finns, because with them they take the wild-deer. He was amongst the first men in the land, though he had not more than twenty horned cattle, twenty sheep, and twenty swine; and the little that he ploughed, he ploughed with horses. But their revenue is chiefly in the tribute that the Finns pay them, which tribute is in skins of animals, feathers of birds, in whale-bone, and ship-ropes, which are made from the whale's hide, and from the seal's. Every one pays according to his means: the richest must pay fifteen skins of the marten, and five of the reindeer, and one bear's skin, and forty bushels of feathers, and a bear or otter-skin kirtle, and two ship-ropes, each sixty ells long, one made from the whale's hide, and the other from the seal's.

16. He said that the country of Northmen was very long and very narrow. All that can be either pastured or ploughed lies by the sea, and that, however, is in some places very rocky; and on the east lie wild mountains along the inhabited land. In these mountains [wastes] Finns dwell; and the inhabited land is broadest eastward, and always narrower more northerly. Eastward it may be sixty miles broad, or a little broader, and midway thirty or broader; and northward, he said, where it was narrowest, that it might be three miles broad to the waste, and, moreover, the waste, in some places, [is] so broad that a man may travel over it in two weeks; and in other places so broad that a man may travel over [it] in six days.

17. Then, over against this land southward, on the other side of the waste, is Sweden, extending to the north; and over against the land northward is Cwena land. The Cwenas sometimes make war on the Northmen over the waste, sometimes the Northmen on them. There are very large fresh water meers beyond the wastes; and the Cwenas carry their boats over land into the meers, and thence make war on the Northmen. They have very little boats, and very light.

18. Ohthere said that the district in which he dwelt was called Halgoland. He said that no man abode north of him. Then there is à port, on the south of the land [Norway], which is called Sciringesheal. Thither he said that a man could not sail in a month, if he anchored at night, and every day had a fair wind. All the while he must sail near the land. On his right hand is first* Iceland, and then the islands which are between Iceland and this land [Britain]. Then this land continues till he comes to Sciringesheal; and all the way, on the left, [is] Norway. To the south of Sciringesheal a very great sea runs up into the land it is broader than any man can see over; and Jutland is opposite, on the other side, and then Zealand. This sea lies many hundred miles up into the land.

19. He said that he sailed in five days from Sciringesheal to the port which they call Haddeby [near Schleswig], which stands in the midst of the Winedi, Saxons, and Angles, and belongs to the Danes. When he sailed thitherward from Sciringesheal, then Denmark was on his left; and, on his right, a wide sea for three days; and, the two days before he came to Haddeby, he had on his right Jutland, Zealand, and many islands. The Angles dwelt in these lands before they came into this country. And these two days the islands which belong to Denmark were on his left.

*The Cotton MS., the only one that contains this part of Ohthere's voyage, has Iraland. Though I have the greatest objection to conjectural emendations of a text, in this case, after reading the context, and all that commentators have written upon it, I prefer substituting Isaland for Iraland. To what Dr. Ingram and Rask have advanced to justify the insertion of Isaland in the text, it may be added that Ireland was generally called Scotland from the fifth to the eleventh century.

Langebek and Porthan retained Iraland in the text, and Forster sanctioned this reading; but they all thought, erroneously, that Scotland was intended. Dr. Ingram, in his Inaugural Lecture, published in 1807, preferred reading Isaland, and gives his reasons thus: "I suspect that the true reading in the original, instead of Ira-land [i.e. Scotland] should be Isaland, Iseland (or, as it is sometimes improperly written, Iceland). How frequently the Saxon letters two have been confounded and interchanged is well known to every person conversant in the language. As Ohthere sailed from Halgoland, Iseland was the first land to his right, and then the islands of Faroe, Shetland, and Orkney, between Iseland and this land [i.e. England]: then this land continued on his right hand till he entered the Baltic, which he soon afterwards describes very accurately, as running up many hundred miles into the land, and so wide that no man could see over it."

† Alfred expressly states here that the Engles before they came to Britain dwelt not only

20. Wulfstan✶ said that he went from Haddeby, that he was in Truso in seven days and nights, that the ship was running all the way under sail. He had Weonodland [Mecklenburg and Pomerania] on the right [starboard], and Langland, Laaland, Falster, and Sconey on his left; and all these lands belong to Denmark. And then we had on our left the land of the Burgundians [Bornholmians], who have their own king. After the land of the Burgundians we had on our left those lands that were called first Blekingey and Meore and Oeland and Gothland; and these lands belong to Sweden. And we had Weonodland on the right all the way to the mouth of the Vistula. The Vistula is a very large river, and near it lie Witland and Weonodland; and Witland belongs to the Esthonians. The Vistula flows out of Weonodland and runs into the Frische Haff [Estmere]. The Frische Haff is, at least, fifteen miles broad. Then the Elbing comes from the east into the Frische Haff, out of the lake [Drausen] on the shore of which Truso stands; and [they] come out together into the Frische Haff, the Elbing from the east, out of Esthonia, and the Vistula from the south, out of Weonodland. Then the Vistula takes away the name of the Elbing, and runs out of the lake into the sea, by a western [opening] on the north [of the Frische Haff]: therefore, they call it the mouth of the Vistula. Esthonia [Eastland] is very large; and there are many towns, and in every town there is a king. There is also very much honey and fishing. The king and the richest men drink mare's milk, but the poor and the slaves drink mead. There is very much war among them; and there is no ale brewed by the Esthonians, but there is mead enough.

21. There is also a custom with the Esthonians that, when a man is dead, he lies in his house, unburnt, with his kindred and friends, a month, sometimes two; and the king and other men of high rank, so much longer according to their wealth, in Jutland, but in Zealand and many islands. Hence we conclude that the Engles or Angles came hither not only from Anglen, in South Jutland, between Schleswig and Flensburg, but from the Danish islands. The majority of settlers in Britain were the Engles, and from them we derive not only our being, but our name; for England is, literally, Englaland, the land or country of the Engles. The Engles were the most powerful and energetic of the tribes that constituted the great Saxon confederacy, which, in the third and two following centuries, had the greatest extent of territory in the north-west of Germany. The Saxon confederacy increased, till it possessed the vast extent of country embraced by the Elbe, the Sala, and the Rhine, in addition to their ancient territory between the Elbe and the Oder. In the seventh century, and in the time of Alfred, Schleswig was considered the locality from which England received its chief population.

Forster says, "Wulfstan appears to have been a Dane, who, perhaps, had become acquainted with Ohthere in the course of his expedition, and had gone with him to England."

remain unburnt sometimes half a year, and lie above ground in their houses. All the while the body is within there must be drinking and sports to the day on which he is burned.

22. Then, the same day, when they wish to bear him to the pile, they divide his property, which is left after the drinking and sports, into five or six parts, sometimes into more, as the amount of his property may be. Then they lay the largest part of it within one mile from the town, then another, then the third, till it is all laid, within the one mile; and the least part shall be nearest the town in which the dead man lies. All the men, who have the swiftest horses in the land, shall then be assembled about five or six miles from the property. Then they all run towards the property; and the man who has the swiftest horse comes to the first and the largest part, and so each after the other, till it is all taken; and he takes the least part who runs to the property nearest the town. Then each rides away with the property, and may keep it all; and, therefore, swift horses are there uncommonly dear. When his property is thus all spent, then they carry him out, and burn him with his weapons and clothes. Most commonly they spend all his wealth, with the long lying of the dead within, and what they lay in the way, which the strangers run for and take away.

23. It is also a custom with the Esthonians that there men of every tribe must be burned; and, if any one find a single bone unburnt, they shall make a great atonement. There is also among the Esthonians a power of producing cold; and, therefore, the dead lie there so long, and decay not, because they bring the cold upon them. And, if a man set two vats full of ale or of water, they cause that either shall be frozen over, whether it be summer or winter.

24. Now will we speak about GREECE, on the south of the river Danube. The sea Propontis lies on the east of Constantinople, a city of the Greeks. On the north of Constantinople the arm of the sea shoots up right west from the Euxine; and, on the north-west of the city, the mouth of the river Danube shoots out south-east into the Euxine Sea; and on the south and on the west side of the mouth are the Mosians, a tribe of Greeks; and on the west of the city are the Thracians; and, on the west of these, the Macedonians. On the south of the city, and on the south side of the arm of the sea which is called Archipelago [Ægæum], is the country of the

Athenians and of Corinth.

To the south-west of Corinth is the country of Achaia, by the Mediterranean Sea. These countries are peopled by Greeks. On the west of Achaia, along the Mediterranean, is the country Dalmatia, on the north side of the sea; and on the north of Dalmatia are the Bulgarians and Istria. On the south of Istria is that part of the Mediterranean Sea which is called Adriatic; and, on the west, the Alpine Mountains; and, on the north, that waste which is between Carinthia and the Bulgarians.

25. Then the country of ITALY extends a long way northwest and south-east; and all around it lies the Mediterranean Sea, save on the north-west. At that end it is bounded by the mountains called the Alps: these begin on the west, from the Mediterranean Sea, in the country Narbonensis, and end again on the east in the country of Dalmatia by the [Adriatic] Sea.

26. The countries called GALLIA BELGICA: On the east of these is the river Rhine, and on the south the mountains called the Alps, and on the south-west the ocean which is called Britannic; and on the north, on the other side of the arm of the ocean, is the country Britain. On the west of the Loire is the country Aquitania; and on the south of Aquitania is some part of the country Narbonensis; and, on the south-west, the country of Spain; and, on the west, the ocean. On the south of Narbonensis is the Mediterranean Sea, where the river Rhone empties itself; and, on the east of it, Provence; and on the west of it, over the wastes, the nearer Spain [Hispania Citerior]; and, on the west and north, Aquitania; and Gascony on the north. Provence has, on the north of it, the Alps; and on the south of it is the Mediterranean Sea; and on the north and east of it are the Burgundians; and on the west the Gasconians.

fore.

27. The country of SPAIN is three-cornered, and all encompassed with water by the Atlantic Ocean without and by the Mediterranean Sea within, more than the countries named beOne of the corners lies south-west, opposite to the island called Cadiz; and another east, opposite the country Narbonensis; and the third north-west, towards Betanzos, a city of Galicia ; and opposite Scotland [Ireland], over the arm of the sea, right against the mouth of the river called the Shannon. As to that part of Spain,* more distant from us, on the west of

*It must be recollected that Orosius is supposed to speak, and not Alfred. The royal Geographer, indeed, appears to have deserted Orosius entirely, as an insufficient guide, till he came to those territories, which are situated to the south of the Danube. This, therefore, is