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Ohthere of Hålogaland
Norwegian explorer · Norway · Historical Figures · Lived 900 to 901 · aged 1
Ohthere of Hålogaland is read about 72 times a day, in 22 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 19 September 2026
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Something wrong?Ohthere of Hålogaland was a Viking Age Norwegian seafarer known only from an account of his travels that he gave to King Alfred of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex in about 890 AD.
Also in Deutsch
Photos 4
Opening lines of Ohthere's Old English account, from Thorpe's edition of 1900: "Ohthere told his lord, king Alfred, that he lived northmost of all Norwegians⁖ He said that he lived on the land northwards by the West Sea. Nevertheless, he told that the land was very long from the north, but it is all uninhabited, except in a few places here and there where the Finns (Sámi) live, hunting in winter & fishing by the sea in summer."
Map showing the principal places mentioned in Ohthere's account: modern scholarship has commonly identified Ohthere's Sciringes heal with Skíringssalr, a historical site near Larvik, but it may have been located slightly west of Lindesnes, the southern tip of modern Norway. Also it is unclear whether it is Ireland or Iceland that was mentioned in his original account.
A Norwegian map of the voyages of Ohthere. The arrow pointing towards the southern coast of the White Sea conflicts with Ohthere's statement that "there was waste land all the way on his starboard side", and the port of London is an educated guess, but is not attested.
Page from the 11th-century copy of the Old English Orosius (BL Cotton Tiberius B.i) featuring the place-names Denmark (dena mearc), Norway (norðweg), Iraland and Sciringes healAbout this person
Ohthere of Hålogaland was a Viking Age Norwegian seafarer known only from an account of his travels that he gave to King Alfred of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex in about 890 AD. His account was incorporated into an Old English adaptation of a Latin historical book written early in the fifth century by Paulus Orosius, called Historiarum Adversum Paganos Libri VII, or Seven Books of History Against the Pagans. The Old English version of this book is believed to have been written in Wessex in King Alfred's lifetime or soon after his death, and the earliest surviving copy is attributed to the same place and time.
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