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Updated: June 27, 2025
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.
Ohthere afterwards made a second voyage from Halgoland along the west and south coast of Norway to the Bay of Christiania, and Sciringeshael, 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 aet Haedum, the capital town called Sleswic by the Saxons, but by the Danes Haithaby.
It appears to me, that the description given by Ohthere, implies, that Gotland was directly opposite to Sciringes-heal, or to the east. Not surely on going southwards, but after he had again turned to the northwards, after doubling the southern point of Sweden.
"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.
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.
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. Ohthere further says that he sailed in five days from Sciringes-heal to that port which men call AEt-Haethum, which stands between the Winedae, the Saxons, and the Angles, and is subject to the Danes.
It is necessary to distinguish accurately between Weonothland, which is probably Fuehnen, Funen, or Fionio, now called Fyen; and Weonodland or Winodland, afterwards Wendenland. Forst. Denmark obviously, called simply Dene, in the voyages of Ohthere. Probably Bornholm. Called Sueoland in the voyages of Ohthere, is assuredly Sweden, to which all these islands belong.
This Scorunga was not far from Gotland, and consequently in Sweden; and seems to have been the district in which Sciringes-heal was situated. Add to this, that Ohthere, after having described Sueoland, or Sweden, as being to the southwards of his habitation, immediately says, "there is a port in this southern land which is called Sciringes-heal."
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.
Among these was one Ohthere, who had made himself famous by his voyages to unknown parts of the north, and who was invited to court by Alfred, to give an account of the discoveries and observations he had made during his unusual expeditions.
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