Ohthere of Hålogaland
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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.
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."
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 heal
Hålogaland
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Hålogaland was the northernmost of the Norwegian provinces in the medieval Norse sagas. In the early Viking Age, before Harald Fairhair, Hålogaland was a kingdom extending between the Namdalen valley in Trøndelag county and the Lyngen fjord in Troms county.
Hålogaland around 1000 CE
Tromsø, by Peder Balke The painting illustrates the rugged fjords and island terrain in Hålogaland.
Chieftain House at Borg in Lofoten Lofotr Viking Museum