[ 4«3 !-] 



f Ohthere was a very rich man in fuch goods as are valuable in 

 * thofe countries (namely, in wild deer), and had, at the time 

 " he came to the king % fix hundred tame deer, none of which 

 " he had purchafed ; befides this, he had fix decoy f rhein-deer, 

 f which are very valuable amongft the Finnas, becaufe they catch 

 f* the wild ones with them.. 



M Ohthere himfelf was one of the moll: confiderable men in 

 '* thole parts, and yet he had not more than twenty horned 

 " cattle, twenty fiheep, and twenty fwine ; and what little he 

 " ploughed was with horfes. The rents in this country con fift 

 " chiefly of what is paid by the Finnas, in deer-fkins-, feathers, 



and whale-bone, fhip- ropes, made of whales hides, or thofe 

 ff of feals. ; Every one pays according to his fubftance; the weal- 

 " thieft pay the Ikins of fifteen martins, five rhein-deer, one 

 ** bear's Ikin, ten bufliels of feathers, a cloak of bear's or otter' s- 

 ** Ikin, two fhip-ropes, (each fixty ells long,) one made of whale's 

 " and the other of feal's-lkin. 



" Ohthere moreover faid, that Northmanna land was very 

 " long and narrow, andthat all of the country which is fiteither 

 " for pafture or plowing is on the feacoaft, which however is in 

 ** fome parts very rocky; to the eaft- ward are wild moors, pa- 

 ** rallel to the cultivated land- The Finnas inhabit thefe moors, 

 " and the cultivated land is broadeft to the eaftward, and grows 

 f* narrower to the northward. To the eaft it is fixty milee 



e This fhews, that Ohthere was a man of confiderable fubftance when 

 he left his own country to come to England, and there is not the leaft 

 alluiion to his having been fent to the northward by iElfred, as his voyage 

 feems to have happened long before he was known to that king. 



f The Saxon word is rtael-nhanaj" ; and we apply, even to this day, 

 the word Jiale to a dead bird, which is placed on a tree in a living attitude, , 

 furrounded with lime-twigs, in order to entice the wild ones. 



*' b'oadj. 



