40 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. 



the subject of translation and exposition by a great number 

 of learned men, among whom may be named here the 

 Scandinavians, H. G. Porthan of Abo, RASMUS Rask and C. 

 Chr. Rafx of Copenhagen. 



Regarding Othere's relations to King Alfred statements differ. 

 Some inquirers suppose that he was only on a visit at the court 

 of the king, others that he had been sent out by King Alfred 

 on voyages of discovery, and finally, others say that he was 

 a prisoner of war, who incidentally narrated his experience 

 of foreign lands. Othere's account of his travels runs as 

 fallows : — 



" Othere 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 Fins at times dwell, hunting in the 

 winter, and in the summer 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 dountry, leaving all the way 

 the waste land on the right, and the wide sea on the left. After 

 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 within another three days ; then the land there in- 

 clined due east, or the sea into the land, he knew not which; but 

 he knew that he waited there 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 inclined there 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 river 

 up in that land; they then turned in that river, because they 

 durst not sail on up the river on account of hostility ; because 

 all that country was inhabited on the other side of the river. 

 He had not before met with any land that was inhabited since 

 he left his own home ; but all the way he had waste land on his 

 right, except some fishermen, fowlers, and hunters, all of whom 

 were Fins : and he had constantly a wide sea to the left. The 



pineal introduction to the work written by King Alfred. This old 

 Anglo-Saxon work is preserved in England in two beautiful manuscripts 

 from the ninth and tenth centuries. Orosius' history itself is now for- 

 gotten, but King Alfred's introduction, and especially his account of 

 Othere's and Wulfstan's travels, have attracted much attention from in- 

 quirers, as appears from the list of translations of this part of King 

 Alfred's Orosius, given by Joseph Bos worth in his Kinf; Alfred's Anglo- 

 Saxon version of the Compendious History of the World hy Orosius. 

 London, 1859. 



