Ebook: The "Terfinnas" and "Beormas" of Ohthere

Reprinted with an Additional Note by the Author and an Afterword by Michael Chesnutt.

This work was originally published in 1940 as "Leeds School of English Language Texts and Monographs" 7. The Russian and Finnish Summaries that were issued with that edition are not included in the present reprint, the map has been re-drawn, and an Afterword has been added.

At some time in the late 9th century, a Norwegian seafarer by the name of Ohthere [Oht-her-e] told the West Saxon king Alfred of his voyages along the coasts of Norway and Denmark. Ohthere's report made such an impression at the court of King Alfred that it was recorded and subsequently inserted into the Old English version of the late Roman world history by Orosius, accompanied by Wulfstan's account of a voyage across the Baltic Sea. Ohthere's account is the earliest known description of the North by a Scandinavian and gives a fascinating and highly trustworthy glimpse of the early Viking Age.

"Ohthere's Voyage" presents many acutely difficult problems of historical geography, of which the present monograph deals with two — the identification of the "Terfinnas" and the "Beormas".