Ohthere’s Northern Voyage: A Close Reading and Practical Interpretation

Abstract

This paper argues that several hitherto unexplained problems in Ohthere’s Old English account of his sailing voyage from northern Norway to the White Sea in the late ninth century can be solved by applying nautical experience, by critical reading based on philological considerations, and also by common sense. Answers are presented to the questions why Ohthere twice had to wait so that he could sail downwind, why he did not dare to sail beyond the settlements of the Beormas, how he got into contact with them, and how he could detect that the Beormas and the Terfinnas nearly spoke the same language. The most important point is a simple emendation of the reading order of clauses in a complex passage, which not only removes the impossible concept of Ohthere and his crew killing sixty big whales in two days: but it also leads to the conclusion that he was in the White Sea with a small crew on a vessel that could only be sailed, not rowed. The 1997 detection of rock carvings near the southern coast of the Kola Peninsula underpins Ohthere’s statement that he sailed there ‘for the walruses’; these petroglyphs thus also provide support for the emendation of the text. The old theory that Ohthere was actually an exile from Norway is revived by new linguistic arguments and leads to a reasoned proposal for the Northman’s meeting place with King Alfred.