north-east of European Russia. In one of these voyages he must have reached the shores of England, which was at that time governed by Alfred the Great. This famous prince collected[1] all the attainable geographical accounts of the then known world, which, together with the narration of Ohthere’s voyages and that of Wulfstan (who, it is possible, became acquainted with Ohthere in the course of his voyages, or resided with him in England), he included in his valuable Anglo-Saxon translation of the Hormista of Paulus Orosius. The beautifully written and well-preserved original of this work is to be found in the Cottonian collection of manuscripts in the British Museum. It was published under the title—
The Anglo-Saxon version from the historian Orosius, by Alfred the Great. Together with an English translation from the Anglo-Saxon. By Daines Barrington; London, 1773; 8vo.
Dr. Joh. Reinh. Forster, who gave a German translation of the narratives of Ohthere and Wulfstan, in his Geschichte der Entdeckungen, under the title, Erdbeschreibung vom nördlichen Europa nach König Alfred, etc., with many valuable comments and explanations,[2] says that Alfred’s account of the two voyages of Ohthere and of that of Wulfstan, which is
- ↑ See “Asserus de rebus gestis Alfredi in Anglica, Hibernica, etc., scripta, ex bibliotheca Camdeni.⟨”⟩ Auctore Silvestro Giraldo (properly Giraldus de Barry, but better known as Giraldus Cambrensis, born 1146, in Wales). Francf. 1602, fol., p. 5.
- ↑ Very circumstantial accounts of King Alfred’s work, and Ohthere, will be found in Beckmann’s Litter. d. ält. Reisebeschr. Th. i, p. 450, etc.
