From Sciringes-Heal, Ohthere Could Sail In Five Days To Haethum, Which Lies
Between The Wends Saxons And Angles.
Now, by this voyage, we are enabled to
determine, with still greater exactness, the situation of this place which
we are searching for.
In order to get to Haethum, he left Gotland on the
right[3], and soon afterwards Zeeland likewise, together with the other
islands which had been the habitation of the Angles before they went to
England, while those which belonged to Denmark were on his left for two
days. Sciringes-heal, therefore, is consequently in Sweden, at the entrance
of the Gulf of Bothnia, which runs up into the land northwards, just on
that spot where the Baltic, after having passed Zeeland, spreads into a
wide gulf, extending several hundred miles into the land. Just in this
place I find the Svia-Sciaeren, or Swedish Scares, a cluster of little
islands, surrounded by rocks. Heal, in the northern languages, signifies a
port, as in such places a ship might be kept in safety. Sciringes-heal,
therefore, was "the harbour of the Scares," and was probably at the
entrance of the gulf of Bothnia, and consequently where Stockholm now is;
and the tract of land where these Scares lay, towards the sea, was the
Scarunga of Paul Warenfried.
The port of Hasthum has occasioned much difficulty to the commentators, as
well as that of Sciringes-heal; but all have agreed that it must be
Sleswic, as this latter is called Haitha by Ethelwerd the Anglo-Saxon.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 28 of 810
Words from 7592 to 7848
of 222093
