Analysis of the Old English text “Ohthere’s Voyage”

Proseminar “English through the Ages“
Winter Term 2001 / 2002

Bettina Lüdemann
Michael Treichler

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 2
1.1. The cultural and historical background of the text 2
1.2. About Ohthere 3
1.3. The manuscripts 3
1.4. Analysis of the Text 4

2. Interlinear Morphemic Translation 5
2.1. Abbreviations used 5
2.2. Interlinear Morphemic Translation 6

3. Analysis of the function of OE cases 11
3.1. The dative 11
3.2. The genitive 12
3.3. The accusative 13

4. Analysis of the OE negations 14

5. Analysis of OE syntactical structures 15
5.1. Subordinate clauses 15
5.2. The demonstrative order 17

6. Bibliography 18

1. Introduction

1.1. The cultural and historical background of the text

The description of Ohthere’s voyages is an insertion into a translation of “A history of the world” by Paulus Orosius. Orosius was a fifth century Spanish cleric, who was engaged by the North African Bishop Augustinus of Hippo to write his Historia adversus paganos (“History against the pagans”) in order to refute pagan claims that the coming of Christianity was responsible for recent disasters in Europe.

Possibly, the Old English Orosius was one of the works of translation commissioned by King Ælfred of Wessex (reign: 871 - 899) as a part of his educational program proclaimed in the preface to Gregory the Great ’s Pastoral Care ( cf. Raith 1958: 1) . Since Orosius’ version only covered the geography south of the Alps, it was lacking the Northern part of Western Europe. Therefore, the narratives of the voyages of Ohthere and Wulfstan, two seafarers, who sailed the Northern and Baltic Sea, were added to complete and extend Orosius` description. The question whether King Alfred translated the Old English Orosius himself or if he had translated it by others is a controversial issue, and widely discussed. While linguists until the second half of the 20th century assume King Alfred to be the author of the Old English Orosius, Raith was the first, who questioned his authorship (cf. Raith 1951: 54-61). Later, Bately offers a very detailed discussion of the question in her book “The Old English Orosius”. She comes to the conclusion that the assumption of Alfredian authorship is unfounded (cf. Bately 1980: lxxiii-Ixxxvi).

1.2. About Ohthere

Except for the information we gain from the text, we do not know much about Ohthere himself and the circumstances of his meeting with King Ælfred. Ohthere was a “NorÞmann” or Norwegian and possibly a merchant or trader, who encountered the Anglo-Saxon king under peaceful circumstances. Historians situate their meeting within a century of contact between Norse-speaking people like Ohthere and the Anglo-Saxons, most of which contact involved bloodshed. Ælfred himself ruled during the most brutal period of the first wave of Viking attack on Britain. He stemmed the tide of invasion confining the Vikings to a large area of the eastern half of England, the Danelaw, over which they then ruled, while Ælrfred and his successors ruled the remaining part.

The expression “his hlaforde Ælfrede cyninge” leads to the presumption that he might have entered in Alfred’s service, but it could as well have been a honorific expression. From the ongoing text, we learn that Ohthere was a rich man of a high social status who collected tribute from the Lapps. He was a whale hunter and possibly belonged to the Winking merchants of that time, who shipped Northern luxury goods to the South. It is also discussed, that Ohthere might have been a refugee that fled from the Norwegian King Harald Hårfagre, who in the years before 885 imposed his royal central power and expelled the nobility into exile.

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