n a
time, how far that country extended due north; or whether any one lived
to the north of the waste. He then went due north, along the country,
leaving all the way, the waste land on the right, and the wide sea on
the left, for three days: he was as far north as the whale-hunters go at
the farthest. Then he proceeded in his course due north as far as he
could sail within another three days. Then the land there inclined due
east, or the sea into the land, he knew not which; but he knew that he
there waited for a west wind, or a little north, and sailed thence
eastward along that land, as far as he could sail in four days." He
arrives at a place where the land turns to the south, evidently
surrounding the White Sea, and he finds a broad river, doubtless the
Dwina, that he dares not cross on account of the hostility of the
inhabitants. This was the first tribe he had come across since his
departure; he had only seen here and there some Fins, hunters and
fishers. "He went thither chiefly, in addition to seeing the country, on
account of the walruses, because they have very noble bones in their
teeth; some of those teeth they brought to the king; and their hides are
very good for ship ropes." Ohthere, adds Alfred, was very rich; he had
six hundred tame reindeer; he said the province he dwelt in was called
Helgoland, and that no one lived north of him.[109] The traveller gave
also some account of lands more to the south, and even more interesting
for his royal listener, namely Jutland, Seeland, and Sleswig, that is,
as Alfred is careful to notice, the old mother country: "In these lands
the Angles dwelt, before they came hither to this land."

When he has to deal with a Latin author, Alfred uses as much liberty. He
takes the book that the adviser of Theodoric the Great, Boethius, had
composed while in prison, and in which we see a personified abstraction,
Wisdom, bringing consolation to the unfortunate man threatened with
death. No work was more famous in the Middle Ages; it helped to spread
the taste for abstract personages, owing to which so many shadows,
men-virtues and men-vices, were to tread the boards of the mediaeval
stage, and the strange plays called _Moralities_ were to enjoy a lasting
popularity. The first in date of the numerous translations made of
Boethius is that of Alfred.

Under his pen, the vague Christianity of Boethius[110] becomes a naive
and superabundant faith; each episode is moralised; the affecte