Natural Environment in the Old English Orosius: Ohthere’s Travel Accounts in Norway
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Marialuisa Caparrini
Abstract
The Old English travel accounts generally known as Ohthere’s Voyages represent - together with Wulfstan’s travel report - the main historical document and the earliest written geographical description of Northern Europe which has come down to us as interpolation in the late-ninth century Old English translation of Paulus Orosius’s Historiarum adversum Paganos Libri Septem. Ohthere describes three sea journeys, one from his homeland (Halgoland) northward to the White Sea, one southward to the Norwegian port called Sciringes heal, and the last from this port to the Danish trading settlement æt Hæþum. Ohthere’s description of the voyages is enriched with nautical details and with both geographical and ethnographical information on the Norwegian territory, on the peoples he meets (e.g., the Finnas and the Beormas), and on their settlements and ways of living. The accounts have been long studied from both philological and historical points of view, especially from a geographical, nautical, political, and economic angle. The aim of this paper is to investigate Ohthere’s travels from a deeper natural perspective, that is, in their description of the natural environment and of its relationship with people highlighting, on the one hand, the description of rural and agricultural landscapes, i.e., of a nature which can be seen as ‘subordinate’ to human and human activities, and, on the other, the description of wilderness and wastelands with temporary settlements, in order to ascertain whether some depictions can be considered and analyzed as long-term factors (such as, for example, the whale- and walrus-hunting) of present-day conditions and situations.
Abstract
The Old English travel accounts generally known as Ohthere’s Voyages represent - together with Wulfstan’s travel report - the main historical document and the earliest written geographical description of Northern Europe which has come down to us as interpolation in the late-ninth century Old English translation of Paulus Orosius’s Historiarum adversum Paganos Libri Septem. Ohthere describes three sea journeys, one from his homeland (Halgoland) northward to the White Sea, one southward to the Norwegian port called Sciringes heal, and the last from this port to the Danish trading settlement æt Hæþum. Ohthere’s description of the voyages is enriched with nautical details and with both geographical and ethnographical information on the Norwegian territory, on the peoples he meets (e.g., the Finnas and the Beormas), and on their settlements and ways of living. The accounts have been long studied from both philological and historical points of view, especially from a geographical, nautical, political, and economic angle. The aim of this paper is to investigate Ohthere’s travels from a deeper natural perspective, that is, in their description of the natural environment and of its relationship with people highlighting, on the one hand, the description of rural and agricultural landscapes, i.e., of a nature which can be seen as ‘subordinate’ to human and human activities, and, on the other, the description of wilderness and wastelands with temporary settlements, in order to ascertain whether some depictions can be considered and analyzed as long-term factors (such as, for example, the whale- and walrus-hunting) of present-day conditions and situations.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents VII
- Introduction 1
- Nature and Human Society in the Pre-Modern World 29
- Unnatural Humans: The Misbegotten Monsters of Beowulf 97
- Natural Environment in the Old English Orosius: Ohthere’s Travel Accounts in Norway 135
- When Is a Good Time? Health Advice and the Months of the Year 153
- Humans Serving Nature: Beekeeping and Bee Products in Piero de Crescenzi’s Ruralia commoda 169
- Medieval Epistemology and the Perception of Nature: From the Physiologus to John of Garland and the Niederrheinische Orientbericht. Bestiaries and the ‘Book of Nature’ 189
- Waste, Excess, and Profligacy as Critiques of Authority in Fourteenth-Century English Literature 217
- “A New Flood Was Released from the Heavens”: The Literary Responses to the Disaster of 1333 253
- The Environmental Causes of the Plague and their Terminology in the German Pestbücher of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries 301
- Island, Grove, Bark, and Pith: Nature Metaphors in Teresa de Cartagena 331
- Nature, Art, and Human Perception in Giulio Romano’s Room of the Giants at the Palazzo del Te, Mantua (1532–1535) 353
- Human Body, Natural Causes, and Aging of the World in Czech-Language Sources of the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period 383
- Perception of Air Quality in the Czech Lands of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 415
- Johann Arndt’s Book of Nature: Medieval Ideas During the German Reformation 435
- Imitation vs. Allegorization: Martin Opitz’s Influential Proposal Concerning Poetic Reflections on Nature 459
- François Bernier and Nature in Kashmir: Belonging in Paradise? 485
- Cosmology and Pre-Modern Anthropology 505
- Praising Perchta as the Embodiment of Nature’s Cycles: Worship and Demonization of Perchta and Holda in Medieval and Early Modern Culture 549
- List of Illustrations 581
- Biographies of the Contributors 583
- Index 589
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents VII
- Introduction 1
- Nature and Human Society in the Pre-Modern World 29
- Unnatural Humans: The Misbegotten Monsters of Beowulf 97
- Natural Environment in the Old English Orosius: Ohthere’s Travel Accounts in Norway 135
- When Is a Good Time? Health Advice and the Months of the Year 153
- Humans Serving Nature: Beekeeping and Bee Products in Piero de Crescenzi’s Ruralia commoda 169
- Medieval Epistemology and the Perception of Nature: From the Physiologus to John of Garland and the Niederrheinische Orientbericht. Bestiaries and the ‘Book of Nature’ 189
- Waste, Excess, and Profligacy as Critiques of Authority in Fourteenth-Century English Literature 217
- “A New Flood Was Released from the Heavens”: The Literary Responses to the Disaster of 1333 253
- The Environmental Causes of the Plague and their Terminology in the German Pestbücher of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries 301
- Island, Grove, Bark, and Pith: Nature Metaphors in Teresa de Cartagena 331
- Nature, Art, and Human Perception in Giulio Romano’s Room of the Giants at the Palazzo del Te, Mantua (1532–1535) 353
- Human Body, Natural Causes, and Aging of the World in Czech-Language Sources of the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period 383
- Perception of Air Quality in the Czech Lands of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 415
- Johann Arndt’s Book of Nature: Medieval Ideas During the German Reformation 435
- Imitation vs. Allegorization: Martin Opitz’s Influential Proposal Concerning Poetic Reflections on Nature 459
- François Bernier and Nature in Kashmir: Belonging in Paradise? 485
- Cosmology and Pre-Modern Anthropology 505
- Praising Perchta as the Embodiment of Nature’s Cycles: Worship and Demonization of Perchta and Holda in Medieval and Early Modern Culture 549
- List of Illustrations 581
- Biographies of the Contributors 583
- Index 589
