according to his birth; the best-born, it is said, pay the
skins of fifteen martens, and five rein-deers, and one
bear's skin, ten ambers of feathers, a bear's or otter's
skin kyrtle, and two ship-ropes, each sixty ells long,
made either of whale or of seal hide."

The continuation of Othere's narrative consists of a sketch of the
Scandinavian peninsula, and of a journey which he undertook from his
home towards the south. King Alfred then gives an account of the
Dane, Wulfstan's voyage in the Baltic. This part of the introduction
to Orosius, however, has too remote a connection with my subject to
be quoted in this historical sketch.

[Illustration: NORSE SHIP OF THE TENTH CENTURY. Drawn with reference
to the vessel found at Sandefjord in 1880, under the superintendence
of Ingvald Undset, Assistant at the Christiania University's
collection of Northern antiquities. ]

It appears from Othere's simple and very clear narrative that he
undertook a veritable voyage of discovery in order to explore the
unknown lands and sea lying to the north-east. This voyage was also
very rich in results, as in the course of it the northernmost part
of Europe was circumnavigated. Nor perhaps is there any doubt that
during this voyage Othere penetrated as far as to the mouth of the
Dwina or at least of the Mesen in the land of the Beormas.[27] We
learn from the narrative besides, that the northernmost part of
Scandinavia was already, though sparsely, peopled by Lapps, whose
mode of life did not differ much from that followed by their
descendants, who live on the coast at the present day.

[Illustration: Map of North Europe, from Nicholas Donis's edition
of Ptolemy's _Cosmographia_, Ulm, 1482. ]

[Illustration: Map of the North, from Jakob Ziegler's _Schondia_,
Strassburg, 1532. ]

[Illustration: Map of North Europe from _Olai Magni Historia de gentium
septentrionalium variis conditionibus_, Basil, 1567. ]

The Scandinavian race first migrated to Finmark and settled there in
the 13th century, and from that period there was naturally spread
abroad in the northern countries a greater knowledge of those
regions, which, however, was for a long time exceedingly incomplete,
and even in certain respects less correct than Othere's. The idea of
the northernmost parts of Europe, which was current during the first
half of the 16th century, is shown by lithographed copies of two
maps of the north, one dated 1482, the other 1532