Home thoughts of abroad: Ohthere’s Voyage in its Anglo‐Saxon context

The Old English text known as Ohthere’s Voyage is regarded as a key source for Norwegian history. Consequently, the context of its composition and inclusion in the Old English Orosius has often been overlooked. This article demonstrates that the text cannot be separated from the processes that shaped it during its early transmission. Continental geographical traditions of the peoples of the north governed the preconceptions of Ohthere’s audience. Furthermore, the individual who included the account in the Orosius edited the latter text to anticipate it and tailored the sailor’s account to support the West Saxon ideological underpinnings of its new context.

Ohthere's Voyage stripped of its original context in academic discourse and labelled as a source for Norwegian and Danish history, often to the detriment of the Old English Orosius (OE Or) itself. 1 Yet Ohthere's Voyage cannot be considered in isolation. Both the original exchange between Ohthere and his Anglo-Saxon audience and its incorporation into OE Or record a mutual negotiation of identity between representatives of learned Anglo-Saxon and elite Norse world-views. 2 This article considers the ways in which Ohthere's account was shaped by the stages of its transmission in an Anglo-Saxon context, arguing that Ohthere's Voyage and OE Or are dependent upon and inseparable from one another. It offers new insights into the person responsible for bringing the two texts together and his or her ideological reasons for doing so.

The Old English Orosius
The Historiae were written in the fifth century by Paulus Orosius, a Chalcedonian priest and disciple of Augustine of Hippo. Didactic works, they refuted the suggestion (made following the Visigothic sack of Rome in 410) that the spread of Christianity had resulted in an increase of worldly calamities, by arguing that pre-Christian history had been similarly dreadful. 3 Over the course of seven books, they dealt with the history of pagan peoples both before and after the birth of Christ, culminating in the sack of Rome. Five centuries later in Anglo-Saxon England, the need to counter such pagan philosophical arguments had been rendered negligible, allowing the Old English adapter of the text free rein to indulge in other interpretations of history. 4 Increasingly, it has been argued that the translation was not made simply out of academic interest, but as an exploration of themes composed, with Godden proposing the broadest date range of c.870 to c.930. 12 The text survives in two manuscripts, the earliest of which, London, British Library, Add. MS 47967 (the Lauderdale manuscript), dates from no later than c.950. 13 The second manuscript, London, British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius B I, is a product of the first half of the eleventh century and shares an archetype with the Lauderdale manuscript, although textual variations indicate that it belongs to a separate manuscript tradition. 14 Ohthere's Voyage is incorporated into the first book of OE Or which, following its exemplar, is taken up with a description of the geography of the known world. Orosius' geographical description, although influential in medieval literature, had been limited by its Gallaecian author's relative ignorance of northern Europe. The Old English translator extensively expanded and updated Orosius' descriptions of the north, inserting a detailed account of the peoples of Germania. In doing so, the translator drew upon a wide variety of geographical traditions beyond the exemplar. 15 Ohthere's Voyage is therefore just one of the additional sources of geographical information in the text, albeit only one of two that are acknowledged, the second being Wulfstan's Voyage, which immediately follows it and describes a journey eastward through the Baltic from southern Denmark. As a consequence of the accounts' apparent lack of integration and their stylistic departures from the description of Germania, the most recent editors of OE Or have concluded that neither of the voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan belong to the original translation. 16 Even so, Ohthere's Voyage was added to the text at an early stage, as the first half of the account is preserved in the Lauderdale manuscript. However, the manuscript is missing a gathering corresponding to the remainder of the first book of OE Or and the presence of Wulfstan's Voyage in the text cannot be confirmed until the eleventh century. 17

Ohthere's Geographia
Ohthere's Voyage narrates two voyages undertaken along the northern and western coasts of Scandinavia by the eponymous sailor. Ohthere, who 'ealra Norðmonna norþmest bude' ('lived northernmost of all Northmen'), relates a journey north and east of his home, driven, we are told, by a spirit of discovery and a desire to procure valuable walrus hides. 18 As Ohthere sailed around the northern coast of Scandinavia, sprawling westenne (wastelands) occupied solely by the Finnas (as Ohthere called the ancestors of the Sámi) lay to his starboard. 19 Turning south, Ohthere encountered a population he calls the Beormas. 20 The second voyage he narrates departed south from his home district of Halgoland (ON Hálogaland) in northern Norway and travelled along the coast to the port of Sciringes healh (Kaupang in Skiringssal). From there, Ohthere headed south to the Danish port of Haeðum (Hedeby, near modern Schleswig). 21 In the surviving form of the account, these voyages function as a framing device for Ohthere's description of the peoples of the north and of their relative position, although they also provide us with the most compelling glimpses of the sailor's world. At each stage of the voyages, Ohthere names the lands and peoples that lie to his port and starboard; famously, he refers to the coastline between Halgoland and Sciringes healh as Norðweg, in what may be the earliest surviving allusion to the concept which would become 'Norway' (ON Nóregr) in a Germanic language. 22 The two voyages are interspersed with a description of the layout of Norðmanna land (the land of the Northmen) and its eastern neighbours Sweoland (the land of the Svear, from whom Sweden derives its name) and Cwena land (the land of the Cwenas).
The importance of Ohthere's Voyage to historians hinges on the interpretation of terms such as these. There is no doubt that the account contains material of a genuine Scandinavian provenance, as the number of unique words calqued from Old Norse reveals. 23 Consequently, the significance of the text's inclusion in OE Or has often been neglected in historical discourse, aided in part by the conclusion that it was added after the latter was completed. 24 Ohthere is typically referred to in such discourse by Nordic normalizations (ON Óttar/r, MNor Ottar), obscuring the Old English provenance of the text. 25 However, the language of the textand its third-person registershould serve to remind us that the sailor's presentation of undoubtedly authentic local knowledge was influenced by at least two conceptual stages of transmission which occurred before it took the form in which it is known to us. The first stage was the initial reception and transcription of the report by an Anglo-Saxon audience, who shaped the account with their prior knowledgeor ignoranceof the areas Ohthere discussed and by their understanding of his words. The second stage was the reinterpretation of the text by whoever chose to add it to the Old English Orosius. This is likely to have involved some alteration of the material, tailoring Ohthere's words to fit the broader aims of OE Or. 26 The apparent modifications to Ohthere's Voyage that are discussed herein may belong to either stage, but certain changes are more likely to have occurred at one stage than the other. In either case, it will become clear that any reading of Ohthere's Voyage as an exclusively Norse voice is untenable. In order to understand how Ohthere's Voyage relates to Anglo-Saxon literary traditions, these two stages must be explored in greater depth.
While the account as we know it appears to be a monologue, it is more likely to deriveas Dorothy Whitelock suggestedfrom 'a set of replies to questions put to [Ohthere]'. 27 The recorder of this exchange omitted the Anglo-Saxon questions, but was unable to disguise the interests that lay behind them. If the audience were putting questions to Ohthere, they were able to exert some measure of control over the dialogue and could attempt to steer it in the directions that they chose, resulting in an account which reflected the interests of both parties. Furthermore, they were at liberty to choose which aspects of Ohthere's account were 24 See above, n. Other examples, such as an aside in the description of southern Scandinavia which notes that 'on þaem land eardodon Engle, aer hi hider on land coman' ('the Angles lived in that land before they came to this land'), may have entered the account at either stage of transmission, but serve to remind us that the Anglo-Saxons had their own traditions about the north and its inhabitants, beyond the information provided by Ohthere. 29 Many of the Anglo-Saxons' preconceptions about the area derived from continental geographical traditions. That a contemporary interest in and awareness of such traditions existed is proven beyond doubt by the very context in which Ohthere's Voyage survives. The geographical descriptions in Orosius' Historiae were vastly expanded upon by the author of OE Or and the text was supplemented with information whose ultimate origins lay in late antique and early medieval Latin writings. 30 The influence of these writings may not have been direct, however; Bately's analysis of the provenance of this information reveals that it can be traced to an improbably large number of differing textual traditions, suggesting that much of it was in fact derived from commentaries or even (as Godden prefers) a heavily glossed manuscript of the Historiae themselves. 31 Although the association between OE Or and the Alfredian court is not conclusive, we can reasonably hypothesize that, in the consciously learned atmosphere cultivated by that court, there would have been a degree of familiarity with continental traditions pertaining to northern peoples. The following discussion produces strong evidence to support this hypothesis, as it is demonstrated that Ohthere's account was guided by Anglo-Saxon preconceptions that can only have originated from such traditions. Furthermore, the evidence presented below strongly supports Whitelock's interpretation that Ohthere's original interaction with the Anglo-Saxons took the form of questions and answers.

The Scridefinne
Of the topics about which Ohthere was able to proffer the most insight, his Anglo-Saxon audience are most likely to have had preconceived notions about the peoples he referred to as the Finnas and Terfinnas. 32 These notions arose from the audience's association of these peoples with a group whose stylized portrayal had become a staple of Latin geographical treatises in the medieval period and who were known to the Anglo-Saxons as the Scridefinne or Scridefinnas. Irmeli Valtonen argues that this term and its variants were widely understood to refer to the world's northernmost population, much as the name 'Thule' had become literary shorthand for the world's northernmost land. 33 Despite appearing to derive from an Old Norse form *skríða-finnar ('sliding' Sámia presumed reference to skiing), there is no attestation of this term in Old Norse literature. 34 Conversely, it is attested in three Old English texts and at least seven Latin or Greek texts from the sixth century to the thirteenth.
It is highly likely that the term was introduced to Old English from a Latin source. 35 This is indicated by the earliest appearance of the term as Scridefinne immediately prior to Ohthere's Voyage in the Lauderdale manuscript of OE Or: the -e ending was regularly used to translate Latin second and first declension nominative plural endings (-i, and -ae) in Old English renderings of Latin nomenclature, as is frequently demonstrated throughout OE Or itself. 36 The Cotton Orosius provides the form Scridefinnas, a 32 The Terfinnas are named once in Ohthere's account; it seems likely that name refers to the Sámi who resided along the south-eastern coast of the Kola peninsula, known in modern Russian as Terskij bereg (the Ter coast); Valtonen, A Geographical Narrative, p. 384. 33  masculine a-stem noun corresponding to ON Finnar and matching Ohthere's usage; it is likely that this form was 'corrected' by the scribe with reference to Ohthere's Voyage and/or his or her own knowledge. The term also appears as the dative plural Scridefinnum in the Old English poem Widsið, the dating of which is controversial. 37 The poem is recorded in the eleventh-century Exeter Book (Exeter, Exeter Cathedral Library, MS. 3501) and it is therefore certain that the term was known by this pointand probably earlier. Finally, the term appears as Scridefinnas on the mid-eleventhcentury Anglo-Saxon mappa mundi, which is preserved in London, British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius B V. The label is attached to a long, tapering island which also bears the name Island (Iceland) and lies along the northern edge of the map. Helen Appleton argues convincingly that this mappa mundi visually expresses the same concept of translatio imperii and the same fascination with north-western Europe that can be detected in OE Or. She therefore suggests that the exemplar of the mappa mundi belongs to the same early tenth-century milieu, although it cannot be conclusively proven that the mapmaker used OE Or as a source. 38 In Valtonen's view, the position of the Scridefinnas on this map confirms the scholarly perception of the group as the world's northernmost population. 39 Five references to this group are found in Latin and Greek geographical and ethnographic descriptions from before the late ninth century. 40 The Ὑπὲρ τῶν Πολέμων Λόγοι (History of the Wars), penned by Procopius of Caesarea in the sixth century, makes reference to the Σκριθίφινοι (Skrithiphinoi) and Jordanes' Getica (History of the Goths), written in Latin in the same century, makes reference to the  43 The term Scridifinni also appears in the late eighth-century Frankish poem Versus de Asia et de universi mundi rota (Verses on Asia and the Wheel of the Whole World), in which a variety of northern ethnic groups are listed with little additional information. 44 Of these texts, the most likely to have been known to the Alfredian court is the Historia Langobardorum, which Michael Lapidge suggests was known to Bishop Asser and which Bately tentatively includes among possible sources for information found in the Old English Orosius. 45 However, Bately also notes the possible influence of Getica and the Ravenna Cosmographia in OE Or, and the most likely source for knowledge of the Scridefinne may well be a lost commentary which combined material from all of these sources. 46 The term also occurs in two geographical descriptions written after the ninth century. It is rendered as Scritefingi in the late eleventh century, in Adam of Bremen's Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (Deeds of the Bishops of Hamburg), during a geographical description strongly modelled on Latin traditions. 47 Indeed, Adam even names Paul the Deacon as a source for the Scritefingi in scholium 129. 48 Finally, it appears as Skritfinni in Saxo Grammaticus' thirteenth-century Gesta Danorum, the only known attestation by a Scandinavian, albeit one steeped in Latin learning. 49 For the sake of clarity, the Latin variants of this term are henceforth referred to collectively as Scridifinni.
In all but the Versus, the appearance of the name in continental geographies is accompanied by a stylized description of the lifestyle and habits of the groups to which it refers. Yet, as Ian Whitaker has proven, the interdependence of the pre-ninth-century accounts varies; all but the Ravenna Cosmographer had independent sources and offer different details, as did Adam and Saxo. 50 Procopius and Paul the Deacon both claim to have heard first-hand accounts from Scandinavians. Consequently (as with the ethnonym itself), aspects of the various descriptions superficially approach reality, although few details are wholly unique to the Scandinavian experience. 51 Nevertheless, the texts are linked not by the precise details they contain, but by the types of information that they provide, which are united by an interest in the lifestyle and habits of this northernmost population. Ohthere's Voyage contains no information that is owed directly to these texts, but it is also apparent that the questioning he received from his audience was informed by a familiarity with the same motifs.
The descriptions of the Scridifinni in these texts address the same common foci, which can be divided into three broad categories: 1. The climate and terrain of the Scridifinni homeland All but Procopius and Saxo pass comment on the coldness of the environment, and Paul the Deacon, the Ravenna Cosmographer and Adam of Bremen all do so in connection with the Scridifinni. Other than Paul the Deacon, each author also associates the group with a hostile and peripheral landscape: the Ravenna Cosmographer, Adam and Saxo all refer to mountains, whereas Procopius also alludes to forests. Jordanes mentions swamps. Furthermore, all except Adam and Saxo refer to the phenomenon of the midnight sun in their descriptions of the Thule/Scandza, but this is never explicitly linked to the experience of the Scridifinni. Paul the Deacon comes the closest, placing his explanation of the phenomenon directly after the description of the Scritobini. Jordanes associates the phenomenon and the 'alternato maerore cum gaudio' ('alternation of sorrow and joy') it causes with the Adogit, rather than the Screrefennae. 52 2. The Scridifinni's inability to cultivate the land, leading to the importance of hunting and the predominance of game in the group's diet This is the most consistently expressed theme. Procopius observes that the Σκριθίφινοι do not οὒτε τι ἐδώδιμον ἐκ τῆς γῆς ἔχουσιν ('derive anything edible from the earth') as they do not αὐτοὶ γῆν γεωργοῦσιν ('till the land themselves'), whereas Jordanes states that the Screrefennae 'frumentorum non quaeritant' ('do not seek grain') but live on birds' eggs and the abundant game inhabiting the swamps. 53 Procopius, Jordanes, Paul and Adam all make statements to the effect that the population 'crudis agrestium animantium carnibus vescuntur' ('feed only upon the raw flesh of wild animals'). 54 While not commenting on their eating habits, both the Ravenna Cosmographer and Saxo observe that the group live by hunting.
Most of the authors also enlarge upon the apparent peculiarities of this hunting society: Procopius and the Ravenna Cosmographer note that women join in the hunt, whereas Paul and Saxo appear to contain attempted descriptions of skiing. Adam may also hint at this with the suggestion that the Scritefingi 'cursu feras preterire' ('outstrip wild beasts at running'). 55

The Scridifinni's use of animal skins for clothing, trade and other purposes
Procopius notes that the Σκριθίφινοι wear no ὶμάτια (garments of cloth), instead clothing themselves in animal skins. 56 This is repeated by Paul the Deacon, who later describes a Scritobini fur coat made from a creature 'cervo non satis absimile' ('not very unlike a stag'), and by Adam. 57 Saxo states that the Skritfinni 'mercium loco quorundam animalium pellibus uti' ('use certain animal skins instead of money'). 58 Jordanes is somewhat vague on this topic, simply stating that the game of the swamps is abundant enough 'satietatem ad copiam genti' ('to satisfy the needs of the people'). However, he then notes that unnamed others who dwell in Scandza send skins to Rome and are richly clothed in 'pellium decorum nigredine' ('darkly beautiful furs'), despite their poverty. 59 52 Iordanis, Getica, c. 4, ed. Giunta and Grillone, p. 9. 53  The Ravenna Cosmographer is the only text which makes no reference to the garments of the Scridifinni or their neighbours. Uniquely, Procopius also observes that the babies of the Σκριθίφινοι are wrapped in skins and hung from trees for safety.
These core preoccupations can be discerned in ethnographical treatments of the denizens of the north stretching back to AD 98. 60 Tacitus' Germania, completed by that year, includes an account of the Fenni, who lived adjacent to 'silvarum ac montium' (forests and mountains), existed in 'mira feritas, foeda paupertas' ('incredible ferocity and squalid poverty'), lacked weaponry, horses and houses, and ate herbs. 61 They wore clothing made of skins and used arrows tipped with bone. Women joined men in hunting, while their children were left unprotected from wolves and storms in shelters of twisted branches.
In the accounts currently under analysis, the authors' interest in such living conditions and practices is rarely explored in any detail beyond the Scridifinni themselves. The main exception is Jordanes' Getica, in which the motifs described above are shared between those who are said to occupy the same region (Scandza), including the Adogit. In the Historia Langobardorum, the lifestyle of the Scritobini is related amid a geographical description which is otherwise more concerned with natural phenomena interspersed with references to mythology. In Procopius, the description of Θούλη (Thule) and its denizens takes the form of a digression in the midst of the history of the Ἔρουλοι (Eruli) tribe. The specific premise of these passages was to explore the lifestyle of the world's most northerly population, for whom the term Scridifinni had become a literary shorthand, despite its apparent Norse origins. 62 From the work of Tacitus, this portrayal was heavily influenced by classical perceptions of marginal, uncivilized people. 63 This is demonstrated by the assertion, made first by Tacitus but repeated by Procopius and Paul the Deacon, that the Fenni/ Scridifinni θηριώδη τινὰ βιοτὴν ἔχουσιν ('lived a kind of life akin to that of the beasts'). 64 Procopius explicitly contrasted this primitive lifestyle with other residents of Scandinavia, observing that the latter οὐδέν τι μέγα διαλλάσσουσι τῶν ἄλλων ἀνθρώπων ('do not differ very much from the rest of men'). 65 Although the precise motivations for describing the group undoubtedly varied from author to author, it is clear that for each, the extreme location of this northernmost population demanded that their experiences (stylized though they may have been) be given particular attention.
Armed with this knowledge, we may now turn to Ohthere's account of the peoples of the north. A considerable amount of the report is preoccupied with the information about the lifestyle and living conditions of the Finnas and of Ohthere himself, who, although not Sámi, established his credentials to be questioned in line with this tradition with the disclosure that he 'ealra Norðmonna norþmest bude' ('lived northernmost of the Northmen') and that the land to his north was 'eal weste' ('all uncultivated land'). 66 No other group is described in terms of their habits, beyond the observation that the Northmen and the Cwenas occasionally raided one another. At times the absence of such information suggests that it was simply not noted down, indicating that it did not hold the interest of the recorder. This is particularly apparent when the text notes that fela spella him saedon þa Beormas aegþer ge of hiera agnum lande ge of þaem landum þe ymb hie utan waeron, ac he nyste hwaet þaes soþes waes, for þaem he hit self ne geseah the Beormas told him many stories of their own land and the lands that were around them, but [Ohthere] did not know what was true, because he didn't see it himself. 67 Such phrasing is not out of place among the conventions of contemporary narrative literature. However, within the context of an oral reportparticularly one which is likely to have been interrogative in natureit is improbable that Ohthere would mention that he had been told such stories and not attempt to relate them, whatever his qualms about their verisimilitude; either he was discouraged from doing so, or the recorder of the account left them out. The audience appears uninterested in the Beormasa people entirely unknown to the Anglo-Saxonssuggesting that they were preoccupied with another topic: the Beormas could only hold their attention inasmuch as they could be related to the Finnas. This is categorically confirmed by the sentences that precede and follow the one quoted above: Repeated references to the Finnas are scattered throughout the account. The Finnas are named on six occasions and the Terfinnas once over the course of six distinct passages; this compares to five references to the Northmen over three passages, and three each to the Beormas and Cwenas in their own respective passages. A number of these allusions to the Finnas appear to be interjections that disrupt the flow of the report. Besides the incongruous description of Terfinna land quoted above, we might note Ohthere's description of his journey around the northern coast of Scandinavia: ac him waes ealne weg weste land on þaet steorbord, butan fiscerum ⁊ fugelerum ⁊ huntum, ⁊ þaet waeron eall Finnas, ⁊ him waes a widsae on þaet baecbord but there was uncultivated land to his starboard the whole way, apart from fishers, fowlers and hunters, and they were all Finnas, and the open sea was on his port side. 69 Similarly, in his description of Norðmanna land, Ohthere observes that licgað wilde moras wið eastan ⁊ wið uppon, emnlange þaem bynum lande. On þaem morum eardiað Finnas. ⁊ þaet byne land is easteweard bradost 68 OE Or I.1, ed. Bately, p. 14. 69 OE Or I.1, ed. Bately, p. 14. My emphasis. above and to the east wild uplands lie parallel to the cultivated land. In these uplands the Finnas live. And the cultivated land is broadest towards the east. 70 In these instances, we get a sense that Ohthere had repeatedly been asked for clarification as to how the Finnas fitted into his account.
The type of information that is related about the Finnas and Ohthere's lifestyle corresponds to the major themes of the Scridifinni tradition. This is made clear in the language used to refer to the Finnas and their habitat; it is emphasized twice that the Finnas are 'huntan . . . oþþe fisceras oþþe fugeleras' ('hunters and fishers and fowlers') and that they occupy weste land (wasteland/uncultivated land), which is explicitly contrasted with the byne land (settled/cultivated land) in which Ohthere and the Beormas respectively reside. 71 As Valtonen points out, this hints at traditional medieval perceptions of the division of landscapes into the ordered lands settled and cultivated by humans and the wilderness that lay beyond their control. 72 Finnas are also said to occupy the wilde moras (wild uplands), which are likewise immediately contrasted with the byne land. 73 Furthermore, Ohthere's description of his reindeer herdsspecifically his staelhranas (decoy reindeer)quickly shifts to note that 'ða beoð swyðe dyre mid Finnum' ('they are very valuable to the Finnas'). 74 It is consistently made clear that the Finnas inhabit an unforgiving landscape which they do not cultivate, that their primary occupation is the exploitation of wild animal populations in general and that reindeer are particularly important to them. Finally, the group's use of animal furs and hides is emphasized in Ohthere's description of the gafol (tribute) that the Finnas pay to him: 'þaet gafol bið on deora fellum ⁊ on fugela feðerum ⁊ hwales bane ⁊ on þaem sciprapum þe beoð of hwaeles hyde geworht ⁊ of seoles' ('that tribute consists of the hides of wild animals, bird feathers, whalebone and of the ships' ropes that are made of whale-and seal-hide'). 75 In fact, the use of animal products for everyday items is a theme explored throughout the central section of Ohthere's Voyage. After his depiction of Beorma land, Ohthere launches into a detailed description of walruses, whales and the resources gained from hunting them. This segues onto a discussion of Ohthere's wealth and means, before turning back to the resources of the Finnas. around a quarter of the text, can be interpreted in the light of the scholarly interest outlined above. In particular, Ohthere notes the use of walrus-and seal-hide to make ships' ropes, stating that the aim of his voyage north was to secure the materials for this purpose. At the end of the passage, he more clearly associates the creation of these ropes with the Finnas, adding them to the list of commodities which se byrdesta (the highest born/richest) Finnas are required to pay in tribute. 76 Although fuller in their detail, these contributions show a preoccupation with the same ethnographic paradigms that are found in the work of the continental authors discussed above and can therefore be broadly regarded as part of the same tradition; we must not be led to overlook this by virtue of the apparently authentic information they contain. Although we should be cautious when speculating about information that a text does not include, recent analyses of contemporary Sámi life have revealed the limitations of Ohthere's information. Besides hunting, fishing and trapping, some groups of Sámi extracted blubber oil for European markets while others may have been involved in farming, as agricultural terms were loaned into Sámi from Proto Norse as early as the fifth century. 77 Nor was Sámi settlement solely restricted to lands beyond the areas of Norse habitation: Roger Jørgensen argues that many Sámi lived permanently in Norse settlements in Hálogaland, where they were employed in metalworking and craft production. 78 Furthermore, Ohthere's account notably lacks details and motifs that we have come to expect of Old Norse accounts of the Sámi. Key among these is the ubiquitous portrayal of members of the group as inherently magical. 79 Current consensus suggests that Sámi figures were firmly embedded in Old Norse mythology by at least the tenth century, when they appear in skaldic poetry. 80 Ohthere's Voyage contributes to the geographical tradition discussed above by adding an unprecedented level of detail to the description of the resources of the Far North and the lifestyle of its inhabitants. Not only does Ohthere apparently confirm and expand upon the audience's existing preconceptions, but he also consciously contrasts his own experience with that of the Finnas by making it clear that he does cultivate his own land and possesses wealth in domesticated livestock. This appears to depart slightly from the tradition but ultimately serves it. The recorder's incredulity at the modesty of Ohthere's means makes it clear that the passage is aligned with the same fundamental intent which can be observed from the contributions of Tacitus onwards: to contrast the lifestyle familiar to the audience with the more limited existence of the inhabitants of extreme, alien landscapes. 81 In the case of the Finnas, as with the Scridifinni, this included those who lived beyond the perceived human realm of habitation. Furthermore, this fixation on the Finnas fits well with the West Saxon imperialist ideology which Francis Leneghan sees as fundamental to the production of OE Or and the inclusion of Ohthere's Voyage, extending the symbolic authority of West Saxon rulers to the furthest reaches of the human population. 82 When viewed against the backdrop of the West Saxon programme of translatio imperii proposed by Leneghan, it is significant that the largest innovation Ohthere's Voyage brings to the geographical tradition of the Scridifinni is the establishment of a hierarchy. 83 The Finnas, the northernmost residents of the known world and the most primitive in their lifestyle, pay tribute to Ohthere, a member of the northernmost people (appropriately called Northmen) who, from Ohthere's own description, could be recognized by the Anglo-Saxons as 'civilized'. In the account, Ohthere himself acknowledges that King Alfred is his hlaford, confirming symbolic West Saxon overlordship of the furthest extent of humanity's spread. Consequently, the most significant expansions of the geographical tradition are owed as much to ninth-or early tenth-century Anglo-Saxon ideology as they are to Ohthere's local Norse knowledge.
This line of reasoning leads us towards two conclusions. Firstly, it is clear that Ohthere's Anglo-Saxon audience, belonging to an environment which was conscious of its imperial legacy, would have had their own preconceptions of the world's northernmost population, gleaned from continental geographical traditions. They could therefore have guided Ohthere's account to address these preconceptions. 84 The examples that have been discussed, such as the frequent interjections to 81 See above, n. 62. 82 Leneghan, 'Translatio imperii', pp. 676-7. 83 See above, n. 7. 84 Leneghan, 'Translatio imperii', p. 695. relate more information regarding the Finnas, make it likely that this influence took place during the first of the two stages of transmission outlined at the outset of this analysis. Secondly, we might also posit that the same geographical traditions were known to the individual who completed the second stage of transmissionthe incorporation of the account in OE Oras the focus on the Finnas and their symbolic subjection to Alfred were preserved. This interpretation requires that an editorial process took place at this second stage which engaged intellectually with both Ohthere's Voyage and the 'base text' of OE Or (i.e. the same text but without the voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan), given Leneghan's argument that the former supports the ideology of the latter. 85 The remainder of the present article explores the relationship between the two texts and the evidence that they were brought into compliance with one another.

Textual interdependence
Janet Bately and Malcolm Godden agree that Ohthere's Voyage and Wulfstan's Voyage are likely to have been interpolated into the Old English Orosius at some point after the translation had been completed, as they are the only two sources of information that are cited by name and at such length. 86 Furthermore, Bately has argued forcefully that the accounts were added 'after [OE OR's] completion, very clumsily and by someone who lacked the author's demonstrable ability to weave new material seamlessly into his translation'. 87 She suggests that the interpolation was triggered simply by a passing reference to the Northmen in the base text and that no attempt was made to alter the account to fit its new context. 88 That Ohthere's Voyage was added after the description of Germania was completed seems likely, but this does not necessarily mean that it was inserted after the entire translation was finished. The transition from Wulfstan's Voyage to 'nu wille we secgan be suðan Donua þaere ea ymbe Creca land [hu hit] lið' ('now we will speak about the land of the Greeks, which lies to the south of the river Danube') would be no less abrupt if it had followed either Ohthere's Voyage or the description of Germania directly. 89 Although the precise 85  point at which each account was added is beyond our present ability to discern, we do have the means to establish that whoever added Ohthere's Voyage to OE Or adapted each text to fit the other and was intimately familiar with the style and themes of the geographical description in OE Or.
There are good reasons to suspect that the text of OE Or anticipates the insertion of Ohthere's Voyage, contrary to Bately's assertions. As I argue below, the description of the Sweon (Svear) and their neighbours which immediately precedes the account contains information that can only have been gleaned from it. This has significant implications: if this anticipation was part of the original translation, it would imply that Ohthere's Voyage was inserted when the translation was first carried out. Alternatively, if the text was an interpolation, then it cannot have been copied in blindly, but was consciously incorporated. Beyond the description of the Sweon and their neighbours, there is no perfect correlation between the geographical description found in OE Or and the information provided by Ohthere. Indeed, there are some clear inconsistencies, such as OE Or's distinction between North and South Danes and its references to the Ostsae (the Ost sea), the Osti people and the Burgendan, none of which are found in Ohthere's account. There are also differences in terminology between the two texts: Ohthere introduces the term Denemearc, for example, on top of which the account uses differing constructions, such as for þaem for 'because', instead of OE Or's for þon (þe). 90 However, these differences may have resulted from the initial recording of Ohthere's account, and do not definitively prove that the text was added by a different scribe. Nevertheless, as there is no conclusive evidence that knowledge of Ohthere's Voyage influenced the translator of OE Or prior to the passage in question, it is here assumed that the text was interpolated after the description of Germania was completed, albeit by someone who was intellectually engaged with the intent of both texts, as the following discussion proves.
The depiction of Germania in the Old English Orosius is almost entirely comprised of material that the translator had introduced to the text from sources other than the exemplar. 91 It follows a simple pattern of proceeding through a series of 'pivotal' peoples, naming each of the other groups that abut them and describing their relative position according to cardinal and intercardinal directions. The account then proceeds to the next pivotal point, which is chosen from among the surrounding peoples just noted. 92 The description of Scandinavia proceeds through the pivotal points of the Suþdene (South Danes), Norðdene (North Danes), Osti and Burgendan (Bornholmians) before reaching the Sweon (Svear): Sweon habbað be suþan him þone saes earm Osti ⁊ be eastan him Sermende, ⁊ be norþan him ofer þa westenne is Cwenland, ⁊ be westannorþan him sindon Scridefinne ⁊ be westan Norþmenn The Sweon have the arm of the Ost sea to their south and to their east the Sarmatians, and to the north of them over/throughout the wastelands is the land of the Cwenas, and to the north-west of them are the Scridefinne and to the west the Northmen. 93 Of this passage, the relative position of both the Sermende and Ostsae can be deduced from their previous appearances in the text. The Scridefinne, Cwenas, and Northmen, on the other hand, are named only in relation to the Sweon and comprise three of the four groups that Ohthere's Voyage describes in any detail (the fourth being the Beormas). None of the traditions that discuss the Scridifinni provide information that would place them be westannorðan (to the north-west of) the Sweon. Only Jordanes refers to the Suehans/Suetidi (the ancestors of the Svear) and does not give their position within Scandza. Two centuries later, Adam of Bremen would place them a borea (to the north) and, by implication (due to their association with the Riphaean Mountains in scholium 137), ab oriente (to the east) of the Sueones (Svear). 94 It is not impossible that some unknown tradition preserved the information that the Scridifinni lay to the north-west, although the reputation they enjoyed as the world's northernmost people suggests otherwise. Nevertheless, it is unnecessary to postulate an unknown source for this information when it is provided by the source that follows immediately afterwards. Ohthere's account make it clear that 'þaet land sie swiþe lang norþ þonan, ac hit is eal weste, buton on feawum stowum styccemaelum wiciað Finnas' ('that land stretches far north from there, but it is all 92 R. Derolez, 'The Orientation System in the Old English Orosius', in P. Clemoes  wasteland, except in a few places where the Finnas camp'). 95 Ohthere had Finnas to his starboard as he sailed around the northernmost coast of Europe and he brings them into the description of his lifestyle as the northernmost of all Northmen. Although he does refer in passing to Finnas occupying the uplands to the east of Norðmanna land and later states that 'on oðre healfe þaes moras [is] Sweoland' ('on the other side of the uplands is the land of the Sweon'), there is little doubt that his audience would have understood that the Finnas dwelt to the north of Norðmanna land and thus north-west of the Sweon, as the passage in OE Or makes clear. 96 The use of the term Scridefinne in this passage, rather than one of the terms used by Ohthere, may have been a conscious decision intended to explicitly link the terminology and traditions familiar to the Anglo-Saxon audience with the information provided by Ohthere. It also confirms that the author of this passage was familiar with the geographical traditions discussed above, thus making it clear why the account's extensive description of the Finnas was retained, as it was recognized as a staple of continental geographical traditions and, in keeping with the aim of OE Or, could be used to update Orosius' original work.
The reference to Cwenland in this passage is also likely to be owed to Ohthere's account. The Cwenas (ON Kve(i)nir) are entirely unknown from continental geographical traditions, unless a reference to the Uinouiloth in Jordanes' Getica is read as a corruption of proposed forms such as *cainothioth or *quinovilos (which Valtonen finds unlikely). 97 There is, however, a reference to Cwensae (the Cwen sea) as the northernmost boundary of Germania, which matches the form Cwenland in this passage (in contrast to Ohthere's Cwena land). Some unknown tradition may have been responsible for the suggestion that Germania ended at Cwensae; this cannot be derived from Ohthere's Voyage, which makes no mention of the sea in connection with the Cwenas. Whether or not the original author of OE Or believed that Cwensae derived its name from a resident population is unclear; it is possible that the appearance of the form Cwenland in the passage was driven by analogy with Cwensae and a desire, once again, to connect a pre-existing Anglo-Saxon concept with the new information provided by Ohthere. How the concept of Cwensae had entered OE Or in the first place, as well as its precise meaning to Anglo-Saxons, remains a mystery. It may have rendered a Latin term found in the sources of 95 OE Or I.1, ed. Bately, p. 14. 96 Bately (OE Or, p. lxvii) argues that such deductions are typical of the description of Germania, quoting the type 'x is north of y and has z on its west; therefore z must be north-west of y'. 97 Valtonen, A Geographical Narrative, p. 107.
one of the translators. Bately, for one, argues that it translated the concept of the oceanus septentionalis in Orosius' text or may otherwise have been invented by the translator of OE Or. 98 It may also result from a confusion of Cwenas with OE cwen (woman), assisted by depictions of all-female or female-led Scandinavian societies dating back to Tacitus (and also found in Adam's Gesta), although this would require that the Cwenas were known about, albeit in some corrupted or half-remembered form, before the description of Germania was written. 99 Whether or not the Anglo-Saxons had a prior understanding of the term Cwenland, it is clear that their position in relation to the Sweon could easily be deduced from Ohthere's Voyage, which states that 'ðonne is toemnes þaem land suðeweardum . . . Sweoland, oþ þaet land norðeweard; ⁊ toemnes þaem lande norðeweardum Cwena land' ('then Sweoland is alongside the southern part of the land up to the northern part; and alongside that land in the north is Cwena land'). 100 Finally, the suggestion that the Northmen lived to the west of the Sweon was almost certainly informed by Ohthere's account. Ohthere's references to Norðmenn and Norðmanna land have attracted a great deal of attention, viewed by many as particularly early attestations of the concepts of 'Norwegians' and 'Norway'. 101 Although we cannot be sure of Ohthere's understanding of the term Norðmenn, there is no doubt that the concept he describes differs from the connotations attached to the term in the literature of ninth-century western Europeand consequently from the preconceptions of his audience. Ohthere's Norðmanna land is 'swyþe lang ⁊ swyðe smael' ('very long and very narrow'), comprising a strip of cultivated land bounded by the coast to the west and 'wilde moras' ('wild uplands') to the east. 102 More significantly, it is clearly distinct from Sweoland, which lies 'on oðre healfe þaes mores' ('on the other side of the upland'), and Denemearce, which was to port as Ohthere sailed south from Sciringes healh. 103 From its appearance in Latin continental texts in the eighth century, there is little indication that the term Nordomanni (Northmen) referred to a group that was distinct from the Dani (Danes). As Paul Gazzoli and Ildar Garipzanov have both noted, the use of Nordomanni in the Royal Frankish Annals had generic connotations, referring to Scandinavians as a whole, of which the Dani and Sueones were simply sub-groups. 104 A sense of this can even be found in the Ravenna Cosmographia, which notes that 'Dania modo Nordomannorum dicitur patria' ('the land of the Nordomanni is now called Dania'). 105 Similarly, in contemporary Old English texts such as the common stock of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Norðmenn is used interchangeably with the term Dene (Danes) and other generic designations, such as wicingas (pirates), to refer to the Vikings: raiders of mostly Scandinavian descent who operated in an Insular context. 106 This is apparent from the first appearance of the terms in the common stock: the entry for 787 states that 'on his dagum coman aerest.iii. scipu Norðmanna; . . . þaet waeron þe aerestan scipu deniscra manna þe Angelcynnes land gesohtan' ('in these days came for the first time three ships of Northmen; . . . those were the first ships of Danish men who sought the land of the English people'). 107 Clare Downham suggests that the terms remained interchangeable in the various continuations of the Chronicle until at least the late tenth century, although the evidence for this is more ambiguous. The earliest that Norðmenn and Dene appear to come into conflict is in a Chronicle entry for 942, but Downham argues that this is due to a misreading of the A, C and D versions of the text, whereas the B version reveals that, once again, the terms were interchangeable. 108 The closest the Chronicle comes to stating a distinction between Danes and Northmen before this is in the A-version entry for 920, which refers to 'ealle þa þe on Norþhymbrum bugeaþ, aegþer ge Englisce ge Denisce ge Norþmen ge oþre' ('all those who live in Northumbria, both English and Danish and Northmen and others'). 109 This may simply be a rhetorical device related as much to the 'rule of three' as to a perceived ethnic distinction. Yet it is worth noting that the A version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is contained in the Winchester manuscript (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 173), which was updated for the period 892-924 by the same scribe who produced the Lauderdale manuscript of OE Or; it is tempting to think that this scribe was aware of Ohthere's distinction between Dene and Norðmenn and incorporated this knowledge into the annal entry. 110 However, even this entry does not refer to the Northmen in terms that could place them in the same part of Scandinavia as Ohthere does. Prior to 1028, when the Chronicle begins to link individuals to Nor[ð] wegon, the Northmen are only described in terms of their ultimate origins on one occasion other than in Ohthere's Voyage and the passage that precedes itand Norðmanna land is not mentioned. 111 In all other instances there was no need to be more specific, as the term Norðmenn itself provided all the information that was necessary for the rhetoric of Anglo-Saxon writers in the ninth and tenth centuries; to them, the Vikings were simply a faceless race of 'others' who came from the distant north.
The only notable omission from this passage in OE Or is any reference to the Beormas, another group named by Ohthere of which his audience apparently had no prior knowledgebut this absence is easily explained. This passage is centred on the pivotal point of the Sweon, but nothing in Ohthere's account could be used to relate the Beormas to them. Firstly, Ohthere pleads ignorance of any knowledge of layout of the land of the Beormas beyond the estuary where he encountered them and (as observed above) may have been discouraged from relating what he had gleaned from the Beormas themselves. Secondly, it would have been hard enough to relate the location of Ohthere's encounter with the Beormas to Norðmanna land itself, let alone Sweoland. We are told only that Ohthere reached the Beormas by sailing north from his homeland in northern Norðmanna land for six days, then east for feower dagum (four days), then south for fif dagum (five days). 112 No detail connects the Beormas to Sweoland; at the very least, the author of the passage would be likely to conclude that the Cwenas lay between Sweoland and the Beormas, thus rendering the latter unworthy of comment in a description of the neighbours of the Sweon.
Ohthere and Germania If OE Or was shaped to fit Ohthere's Voyage by incorporating information from the account itself, we must also consider the possibility that whoever added the account was willing to alter both texts to bring them into some form of compliance. The suggestion that Ohthere's account may have been trimmed or otherwise edited is not unusual, although such proposals rarely address the stage of transmission when such editing is likely to have occurred. 113 Valtonen, for example, has argued that the voyage south of Sciringes healh shows signs of being 'highly edited'. 114 Besides the aforementioned interjection regarding the origins of the Engle, Bately suggests that the place name Gotland (northern Jutland) has been altered from the form used by Ohthere.
Stephen Harris argues that this alteration was intended to comply with Orosius' assertion that Dacia, which was often conflated with the land of the Danes in medieval geographies, is et Gothia (also Gothia). 115 This change could have occurred either at the point of recording or interpolating, although it is significant that it requires a knowledge of Orosius. Other changes can more confidently be laid at the door of the interpolator. Whitaker observes that Ohthere's description of his encounter with the Beormas does not flow well and may be missing sentences. 116 Having described the voyage, Ohthere relates that he turned into a large river, beyond which 'þaet land was eall gebun' ('the land was widely cultivated'), in contrast to the wastelands of the Finnas that he had passed up until that point. 117 The account then notes that 'þa Beormas haefdon swiþe wel gebud hira land' ('the Beormas had cultivated their land very well'). 118 The Beormas appear abruptly and it of this part of OE Or: namely to list the rough geography and, most importantly, the peoples of the known world and relate them to one another. Thus, a nautical travelogue is pressed into a primarily ethnographic mould. Ohthere's initial motivation for sailing north was to 'fandian hu longe þaet land norþryhte laege, oþþe hwaeðer aenig mon be norðan þaem westenne bude' ('test how long that land stretched northwards and whether any people lived north of the wastelands'). 123 This prompts a geographical description of the northern coast of Scandinavia and its inhabitants. That this expression of intent may have been introduced by an editor is indicated by Ohthere's subsequent change in motivation (twenty-five lines later in Bately's edition), where it is claimed that 'swiþost he for ðider . . . for þaem horshwaelum' ('he travelled there mainly for the walruses'i.e. for their hides and tusks). 124 This statement heralds a switch in the narrative from an interest in geography to a description of the fauna of the extreme north and the lifestyle of its inhabitants; it therefore also seems to preface the information that follows it. Ohthere's primary motivation for sailing north is unclear, although the observation that he presented his audience with a walrus tusk may hint at the true reason.
In either case, it is clear that the editor of the text embraced the voyages as a way to frame the narrative in terms that brought it in line with geographical traditions. If the description of the voyages is included, information relating to the shape of Scandinavia and the position of its inhabitants relative to Norðmanna land occupies close to two-thirds of the account. Information that is related to the lifestyle of Ohthere and the Finnas takes up a further third, leaving only sparse details (such as the tit-fortat raiding of the Cwenas and Northmen) that belong to neither category. If Ohthere's account ever contained more information that was secondary to the predominant interests of the interpolator, it is likely that it was discarded as superfluous.
Assuming that Ohthere's Voyage was inserted after the description of Germania was completed, the interpolator's anticipatory addition to OE Or bridges the gap between the Scandinavian pivotal points of the base text and the pivotal point of Norðmanna land. The Sweon were the only group mentioned in relation to the previous pivotal point (the Burgendan) who also appeared in Ohthere's Voyage. Furthermore, although Ohthere refers to Denemearc, he makes no reference to the division OE Or makes between Suþdene and Norðdene, and his account makes it clear that other people lie between the Northmen and the 123 Historia Norwegie, ed. and trans. Ekrem, Mortensen and Fisher, p. 14. 124 Historia Norwegie, ed. and trans. Ekrem, Mortensen and Fisher, p. 14.
Winedum ⁊ Seaxum (Wends and Saxons), the only other groups to appear in both Ohthere's account and OE Or. 125 The interpolator of Ohthere's Voyage clearly seized upon the convenient reference to the Sweon in the base text to provide the link to the new material. The Sweon became a new pivotal point: references to the 'þone saes earm Osti' and the Sermende were drawn from the information already provided, whereas the allusions to Cwenland, the Scridefinne and the Northmen were gleaned from Ohthere's account. 126 The description of Germania then progresses to the next pivotal point: Ohthere's Northmen. It is difficult to imagine that the sailor himself would have delivered an account that so conveniently fit the text into which it was ultimately incorporated; an editorial process is the most likely possibility.
Yet if the interpolator was prepared to shape and trim superfluous material, we must conclude that most or all of what remains was considered integral to the interpolation of the account in the first place. Why, then, was it important to preserve the text of Ohthere's Voyage as a record of an oral report, rather than integrating it seamlessly? The simplest reason was to convey authenticity by attributing new information to a named authority, a practice commonplace enough in contemporary literature. We need look no further than OE Or for examples; the phrase Orosius saede/cwaeð (Orosius said) is repeated frequently throughout the text, and Bately suggests that the account's Ohthere saede and the Wulfstan saede of the following passage were consciously modelled on this formula from the base text. 127 Within Ohthere's account itself, information about the Beormas was omitted by the recorder for the ostensible reason that 'he nyste hwaet þaes soþes waes, for þaem he hit self ne geseah' ('[Ohthere] didn't know what was true, because he didn't see it himself'). 128 Besides allowing the editor to align Ohthere's motivations with those of OE Or, the convenient framing of the voyages added a level of detail and perspective that only enhanced this sense of authenticity. Consequently, we not only find an emphasis on sailing times and conditions, but also on Ohthere's personal observations, such as his interjection that the 'swyðe mycel sae' ('very large sea') south of Sciringes healh 'is bradre þonne aenig man ofer seon maege' ('is broader than any person can see across'). 129 Details such as the Cwenas raiding the Northmen contribute yet more colour to the ensemble.
The success of the voyage as a device for conveying authenticity is indicated by its subsequent appearance in Wulfstan's Voyage. As Judith Jesch and Przemysław Urbańczyk both observe, Wulfstan's Voyage appears much more to be a composite of information from different sourcessome apparently based on local knowledge, others drawn from centuries-old geographical traditions. 130 The beginning of the account is framed as a voyage from Haeþum 'oð Wislemuðan' ('to the mouth of the Vistula'), although it lacks the observations that make Ohthere's Voyage so compelling. 131 The information it presents about the lands lying to the port and starboard are drawn from a broader knowledge than the voyage described alone could have provided. 132 It therefore seems likely that the device of the voyage was inserted to unify information gained from a variety of sources with a veneer of the same authenticity which Ohthere's Voyage effortlessly conveys. The device is quickly abandoned in favour of a more traditional ethnographic description of the Estan. It is likely that the inspiration for framing the account as a voyage came from Ohthere's Voyage itself, particularly given that Wulfstan's account begins where Ohthere's ends, in Haeþum. Given that the inclusion of Wulfstan's Voyage in OE Or is not attested in the Lauderdale manuscript, Ohthere's Voyage might already have been added to the Orosius before itself becoming the model for Wulfstan's Voyages.
Additionally, the report of Ohthere's exchange could be moulded to ideologies present in ninth-century Wessex in general and OE Or in particular. As Leneghan has argued, there may have been ideological value in leaving the structure of Ohthere's Voyage intact. For example, the voyage 'foregrounds the mercantile ambitions of Wessex', placing Alfred at the centre of a trade network and emphasizing his role as a friend to wealthy foreign traders. 133 The nautical vantage point of the account recalls the maritime Insular perspective which, as Helen Appleton points out, is uniquely evident on the Anglo-Saxon mappa mundi. 134 Besides this, we have the aforementioned symbolic extension of West Saxon authority over both Ohthere and the lands he describes. The geographical description in OE Or makes no claims about the political status of the peoples it namesno information is given about rulers or the territories they control. This undoubtedly facilitated the perception of symbolic West Saxon overlordship of those peoples, as any inconvenient kings who might detract from it are not even mentioned.
Ohthere's Voyage continues this trend, with two exceptions: the Finnas are said to pay tribute to Ohthere, and Ohthere is described as 'mid þaem fyrstum mannum on þaem lande' ('among the foremost men in the land'). 135 As noted above, these instances enhance, rather than deny, West Saxon overlordship, as we are explicitly told that Alfred is Ohthere's lord.
In this regard the interests of modern historians are frustrated by those of the account's earliest redactors. We might wish that Ohthere's Voyage provided us with some evidence for contemporary Scandinavian politics confirmation of the elusive (or illusive) Haraldr hárfagri (Fairhair), for example. 136 Yet even if Ohthere's report originally contained political details of this nature (which cannot be determined one way or the other), those details may have clashed with the imperial ideology outlined above. Wulfstan's Voyage, on the other hand, shows no compliance with this model. Both the Burgendan and the Estan are said to have their own kings, and the lands to port are explicitly referred to as territories that hyrað to (are controlled by) Denemearc or the Sweon. 137 Ohthere's Voyage can therefore be easily connected to the broader intent of the geographical description in OE Or; Wulfstan's Voyage, on the other hand, is somewhat more incongruous, perhaps revealing it to be a later addition.

Conclusions
The analysis presented in this article reveals the extent to which Ohthere's Voyage was shaped by its ninth-century Anglo-Saxon context, whatever genuine Scandinavian knowledge it may have contained. To modern historians, Ohthere's Voyage is a puzzle piece to be fitted into our broader understanding of Viking Age Scandinaviaa datapoint whose relevance is dictated by the knowledge we have garnered from other sources. It was no different to the Anglo-Saxons. At both of the stages of transmission discussed above, the information Ohthere provided was shaped to slot into the preconceptions and ideologies of its audience. Their awareness of a wild northern population known as the Scridefinne coloured their understanding of Ohthere's Finnas and led 135 OE Or I.1, ed. Bately, p. 15. 136 Valtonen, A Geographical Narrative, pp. 407, 478 and 509 is particularly bemused by the absence of any reference to Haraldr, concluding that the information must once have been present, but was discarded. See also Lund, 'Denemearc', p. 167. 137 OE Or I.1, p. 16. For a discussion of the term, see Bately, 'Wulfstan's Voyage', p. 24. them to interrogate the sailor about the topics that had preoccupied the continental writers from whom they had gained their knowledge. When the account was edited to prepare it for insertion into OE Or, this information was preserved as a new witness to the tradition and in keeping with the translator's aim to update Orosius's geographical description with new information. For reasons such as this, Ohthere's Voyage cannot be separated from OE Or. The two texts were altered to be brought broadly into accord with one another. Ohthere's account was not blindly copied in but added to enhance the ideological purposes of the base text, primary among which was the symbolic extension of West Saxon authority over the known world, forming part of a perceived translatio imperii from the successors of Charlemagne to Alfred and his offspring.
Finally, this analysis allows us to draw a number of conclusions about the individual who included Ohthere's Voyage in OE Or. This individual was acquainted with continental geographical traditions, as he or she made reference to the Scridefinne and preserved the level of detail regarding the Finnas that had made it into the initial report of Ohthere's account. The interpolator may have been familiar with Orosius' original Latin text, if he or she was responsible for substituting 'Gotland' for the form that Ohthere is more likely to have spoken. He or she was certainly intimately familiar with the traditions, motivations and ideologies that informed the translation of OE Or. Janet Bately argues that Ohthere's Voyage was blindly copied into the text after it had been completed because she can detect no attempt to integrate it into OE Or. 138 The arguments offered above reveal that, on the contrary, the information found prior to Ohthere's Voyage can only have come from it. She argues that of the many sources the translator of OE Or drew upon for the description of Germania, only Ohthere's Voyage and Wulfstan's Voyage were preserved in full; yet it is clear that Ohthere's Voyage was shaped to bring it in line with this section of the base text. 139 This far from proves that the interpolator of Ohthere's Voyage and the translator of OE Or were one and the same. However, the unavoidable conclusion of the present analysis is that the interpolator, whoever he or she may have been, belonged to the same cultural and intellectual milieu as both the audience that had witnessed Ohthere's report and the translator of OE Or. This suggests that Ohthere's Voyage was a part of OE Or from a very early stage in the text's history. Besides providing a bridge between the Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse worlds, Ohthere's Voyage offers a tangible vision of the geographical